r/limerence

Hi everyone,

I’m 31, and about 10 months ago I got out of a 6-year relationship that had become pretty toxic (and I can now clearly see my own responsibility in that too). Even though I moved on from the relationship itself relatively quickly, it was still a massive life rupture: living together, plans to buy a place, an entire future built around that relationship.

Very soon after the breakup, I developed an extremely intense attachment to the first girl I met. Looking back, it almost felt irrational, like my brain was desperately trying to replace what I had lost.

The issue is that she was very emotionally avoidant / independent, so things took a long time to really develop between us. During that time, I met another girl, and with her everything felt simple, natural, stable and easy from the start.

I ended up seeing both of them in parallel for a while, naïvely thinking my feelings would eventually become clear on their own. Instead, it completely destroyed me mentally: insomnia, obsessive thoughts, constant comparisons, inability to think clearly. There’s a Rohmer quote that kept coming back to me: “He who has two women loses his soul.” Honestly, I feel like I experienced exactly that.

About two and a half months ago, I finally ended things with the first girl. Not in the best way, to be honest — I was psychologically overwhelmed. And right at that moment, she finally opened up emotionally and told me she was ready to commit more seriously. The worst part is that I can’t even really blame her for waiting so long, because I had never clearly communicated with her about what we actually were to each other.

But what she told me at that moment was exactly what I had wanted to hear for months.

Since then, I’ve stayed with the second girl. Objectively, the relationship is healthy. When I’m with her, I genuinely feel good, calm, even happy. But whenever I’m alone, my mind goes straight back to the first story. I replay everything endlessly, compare both relationships constantly, and I feel like it’s poisoning my present relationship.

So now I’m completely lost about what I’m actually feeling:

• do I genuinely regret losing the first girl?
• or am I just trapped in a mental loop fueled by emotional intensity, uncertainty, guilt, and the unfinished nature of that relationship?

Because there’s also a lot of guilt involved. I know I hurt her, and I’m not trying to paint myself as the victim here. But honestly, this whole situation has also deeply messed me up psychologically.

I’ve even started wondering whether there’s something deeper going on mentally. Sometimes it feels like I made certain decisions in a kind of emotionally manic state, and that for the last 2–3 months I’ve crashed into something closer to depression, full of regret and this constant feeling of “it’s too late now.”

I’m not looking for a Reddit diagnosis obviously. I’m mostly trying to understand whether other people have experienced this kind of fixation after an intense and unfinished relationship, even while being in a healthier and more stable one.

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read.

Recently I watched a movie called *Obsession* with Inde Navarrette in it, and ever since then I genuinely haven’t felt the same mentally.

At first I thought it was just a celebrity crush, but it became way more intense than that. My brain instantly started imagining an entire future with her: being in a relationship together, living a completely different life, becoming successful enough to eventually meet her, etc. It almost feels like my mind attached all my dreams and emotions onto this one person.

What makes it worse is that it awakened this huge feeling that I’m not where I’m supposed to be in life. I work night shifts, live the same routine over and over again, and suddenly I started feeling like I’m “meant” for something bigger. Like I’m supposed to accomplish great things, become somebody important, maybe even move to New York and completely change my life.

Since seeing her, I suddenly care so much more about my appearance too:
\- losing weight,
\- fixing my posture,
\- clearing my skin,
\- improving myself overall.

Before this, I honestly didn’t care that much. But now I constantly feel physically and socially “not enough”.
I think a huge part of it is the social gap between her and me. She’s a successful actress living a glamorous life surrounded by attractive and talented people, while I’m just a regular guy working nights and feeling stuck in a repetitive life. The gap feels so massive that whenever I think about it too much, I almost feel depressed.

Deep down I know the fantasy is unrealistic, but emotionally my brain keeps holding onto it anyway. What’s also weird is that almost no women around me attract me anymore. I’ve tried meeting new people and even dating apps, but nobody gives me the same emotional feeling.
Sometimes I don’t even know if I’m obsessed with *her* specifically, or if she just represents the life I wish I had and the person I wish I could become.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?

i just woke up and saw my LO (my best friend) had texted me a bunch of extremely sweet videos of himself when i was asleep and of course my first thought was "omg how thoughtful he must want to be with me because no man is that sweet to just their friend"

then immediately he texted me that he's in a good mood because the girl he likes wanted to call him after work and they had a good call. then i was like "oh yeah he actually doesnt want to date me, like he has said. and i just dopamine spiked and crashed and was delulu even tho i know it's just the limerence."

nothin like riding the limerent roller coaster first thing in the morning 🙄

My LO and I are both in LTRs and got to know each other well after volunteering together for years. She’s reached out to check on me and provided practical help and that changed my life when I was depressed. Everyone around her loves her because of how capable and supportive she is. How can I possibly manage this?

So a few weeks ago, I (30F) posted here that I will see my LO (31F), someone I dated but didnt want to commit to, in an event the day after.

I wasn’t able to update but I’m ready to talk about it.

He was there and he had cut his hair shorter making him a whole lot hotter than I last saw him.

He is still very tall and towering and bulky. And I just feel the pain of not being chosen everytime I look at him.

Our common friend dragged me to his booth and made me say hi but it was awkward. And I found myself looking at him and then looking away. Sometimes our eyes would linger at each other, but how do I know that that’s what’s in his POV? To me it felt like yearning, to him, it might have just been, “why is she staring at me”?

I’m very aware that this is limerence. I’m very aware that this is hopeless. I knew I would break contact if I saw him. And I did. I did fucking break contact.

And while he replied politely at first, in the end, I was left on read.

Why does my brain still want him? Why can’t I let this idea of him go? I’ve been out on dates but I can’t feel anything for any other men. And sometimes I’d go extreme flirting just to feel something, but LO is still the one I want.

This mental illness is a curse. 😫

3am dream writing. About someone who never fully stayed but never fully left either.

I had a dream last night that you were all over me. You were grabbing me by my hips and pulling me close and you said

“so when are you going to be my girlfriend”

I tried to pull away out of shock and you wouldn’t let me. I tried to fight it but every time I tried to create distance you pulled me closer and you wouldn’t let me go.

You called me and said you were picking me up.

“Be ready at 11…. and don’t take forever! I want to spend the day with you”

I got ready and you were outside. My chores pretty much done, all but one shirt left to fold and put away. I looked at the last shirt in my hand, then looked back at you waiting outside from my window, then back at the shirt again.
I hesitated for a split second.
“fuck it”
I tossed the shirt behind me and walked out of my door without looking back.

I got in the car, put my seatbelt on and looked at you, trying to figure out what you were up to.

“So what’s this about?”

You shrugged casually, one hand on the steering wheel as if someone asked you if you knew what you were going to have for dinner in a week from now.

“Idunno. Saw this flea market and thought we’d check it out”

Leaving no room for objections, not realizing your desire was leaking out more than you wanted it to, you said it like it was spontaneous, careless even, but I could already tell you’d been thinking about it for longer than you wanted me to know.

I smiled, amused,
“Hm. Okay”
I said, taking in the information but still studying you.

We were walking around a flea market hand in hand. Usually loving you felt like standing outside in the cold while trying to peek through somebody’s window. But for the first time it felt like just me and you in our own bubble, as the rest of the world was existing around us instead of between us. I looked at you and said,

“so now that we’re dating.. can I call you dill? 😃”

You stopped in your tracks, dropped your head back and went

“aghhhhhhh. I hate that nickname”

Then you looked at me and smiled despite yourself and said,

“…You know what fine 😂”

I remember giggling like a school girl that just got her way, laughing so hard I nearly walked into another booth. Suddenly, I never felt unsure about myself with you. I realized in that moment that every girl I ever compared myself to in the past disappeared into irrelevance because for once I wasn’t competing for your attention. I was undeniably being chosen in real time.

We stopped at a booth where a man was selling my little ponies. There was a limited edition G3 series fluttershy behind the counter. You saw my eyes lock onto it immediately but just as quickly looked away.

“How much for the fluttershy?” You asked.

“Two hundred”

The man replied without hesitation in his voice, his eyebrows raised like he expected you to laugh and walk away.

“Just leave it alone” I said quickly. “Maybe next time.”

“Shut up”

You urgently mumbled under your breath, already pulling out your wallet as if if I were to say one more word the world would end.

“One fifty”

“Hey, are you insane?”

I said to you, now pulling on your arm to leave the booth.

“It’s fine, let’s just go… there’s a guy selling squishmallows down the hall-“

“Bro come on.” You interrupted,
“It’s her birthday weekend”

“One seventy five. Take it or leave it”

As if I was no longer standing next to you, I watched you count the bills in your hand. 20’s, a 10 and a 5. Then you turned around holding out a box to me,

“here.”

“Dill, no”

I said softly, still holding it against my chest,

“I can’t accept this. This was way too much money”

“there’s a corn on the cob place over here I wanna go check it out”

You said, already walking as if you didn’t hear me at all. And somehow that made it worse, or better, I don’t know,

I remember feeling the opposite of desperate in that dream. I never felt like I had to beg, I was just existing as I was and you loved me there.

I remember later that day, you drove me back home, my fluttershy resting gently in my lap. Beams of sunlight pouring from the windshield, warming the plastic while I traced my fingers along the edges.

Something looked different now.
Were the rays of sunlight playing tricks on my eyes?
No, was I imagining things?
Surely, my fluttershy couldn’t be morphing right before me. She was brighter somehow.

Then it hit me all at once. Fluttershy wasn’t changing, I was.

Love had reached inside of her packaging and rearranged her.

We pulled up to my house, the car coming to a complete stop. The calm silence of our seatbelts unbuckling and birds humming in the trees contrasted with the loud highway and distant music from just minutes ago.

We saw balloons coming from the backyard. They were just barely taller than the fence, enough to make out shapes of people laughing and eating behind them.

“Oh shit. Yeah, I forgot my family was having this Barbeque thing today”

The silence started to shift, not badly, just uncertain. I looked over at you.

“…Would you want to come back for a hot dog?”

Suddenly I was watching you in the corner of my own backyard like you always belonged there. You were hugging and kissing my mother and laughing and bantering with my dad and brothers. My sister, usually an introvert, was talking to you about video games as if she’d known you forever, and you looked proud. Not embarrassed, not hesitant, proud to be there with me. But most importantly proud of yourself.

The dream blurred and later flashed to us laying down and looking in the mirror together.
You were playing with my hair and asked quietly
“Is this all yours?”
and to my own surprise I said yes.

“I’m proud of you”

then you kissed my forehead.

That dream was some kind of cruel joke.

Or maybe it was necessary.

I woke up gasping for air, tears already running down my face before I was even fully conscious. Slowly, reality started to settle into place around me.

A text from mom reminding me to pick up Lilo from the groomer.

A text from my best friend asking what I was doing later.

A text from Ulta that my package was en route.

I almost forgot. I have a text from you today too. Something about a ride later. A silly meme. A gym selfie. Something small enough to keep me close, never enough to hold onto.

I opened up Instagram absentmindedly, still weary from my dream.

And there you were. A picture of you and your ex on Mount Rushmore, both of you giving a thumbs up to the camera. That’s when reality fully settled back into my body. I stared at the picture almost too long before taking a deep sigh and letting out an exhausted laugh.

Then I looked in the mirror across the room. I looked tired, destroyed honestly, yet beautiful, the kind of beauty that only comes from finally accepting something your heart has been fighting for too long.

Because when I woke up I realized something else too.
I’m not crazy, I was in a situation where I never felt chosen, never felt safe, never felt special.

And eventually, that kind of starvation will make anyone lose themselves.

This all started some time ago. I went through an intense period of limerence, but I never actually did anything to that person that would indicate so. Before it turned into limerence, i asked this person if they wanted to hang out over the weekend. After rejection, i did not ask again, and that was that. During this time, I caught on that they were probably limerent for me. It was a period of confusion for me and isolation. It started getting very weird, and listing out all the events makes it ververy clear. About 3 or 4 months ago i stopped being limerent and have been in a much better headspace. However, I fear that actually this person is very creepy. I wont get into details, but I dont know how to deal with this. Stalker vibes. I am very professional at work (even when I was limerent, which probably added to the confusion, "am i sending mixed signals?" "Am I offending them for being so cookie cutter?"). Something was said recently that indicates they told a coworker there was something going on between us. That is not true, and it's becoming a little sad of a situation. I am still very professional and would never reveal my inner discomfort about the situation. Something just feels off.

I'm honestly a bit concerned. Any advice?

Is this limerence ? I’m expecting to get torn apart here so knock yourselves out !

I’ve been with my partner for a little over 15 years and married for 10. We have a couple of small people and life is hectic as expected. The marriage is not what I would say easy and we’ve managed both some exceptionally amazing and exceptionally low times. However, over the course of time we’ve drifted apart and things aren’t looking great. We’re not great communicators and both have our issues but as I’ve gotten older there are some behavioural differences that are becoming an issue which I am working on though my wife chooses to ignore her part in the process. It’s more nuanced than that but that’s going through therapy at the moment.

Anyhow, I have a friendly relationship with a coworker who is a divorced mum of two. We’ve worked together for about 3 years and in late 2024 went on an overnight business trip and enjoyed each others company with a lot of flirting and innuendo. This behaviour somewhat continued on through 2025 when I asked her out for a friendly lunch which has now turned into regular catchups, the odd night out with other people which has inevitably ended up in us being together alone at the end of the night. Meanwhile my marriage has descended into a best mates scenario with us sleeping in the same room and that’s about it.

Long and short of it. My work colleague and I have become close and there are definitely apparent moments of closeness and what feels like potential intimacy via body language which contradicts her verbal language. Confusing ? Yes. She makes me feel like I can create a life for myself outside of my marriage and this makes me want to make a life with her. I feel so silly for thinking this way but can’t park the emotions. It seems to feel like limerence but it could also be me in the midst of an emotional affair with no outcome.

A newbie here. This sub has been so helpful while navigating my limerence so thank you all so much.

My story is that my LO is married (but always shit talking about his wife) and was having an affair with one of his colleagues. He’s actually had continuous stream of lovers throughout their entire relationship.

He approached me saying he was in the process of getting divorced and that female colleague he was very close was just a friend.

I recently went through a painful separation and was very vulnerable, so of course I stupidly fell for him and we had pretty amazing connection and chemistry for a while, or so I thought. When I realized that he was not leaving his wife nor the colleague was just a friend, I decided to end things with him. I learned he pursued me while he was in a pause with this ‘friend’ and once they got back together he went cold and indifferent but he still bread crumbed me with occasional flirting and care. It was so toxic.

During all this I was so obsessed and the highs and lows were just crazy and that is how I learned about limerence. It made perfect sense why it was so hard. I also realized that he has all the traces of a sociopath(dark empath) and that scared me.

Anyways, I went no contact and the urge to confront him is driving me crazy. I wrote a long text message to express my anger but should I send it to him for a closure? I know the answer is no but I need some assurance. Please help..

It goes something like this:

I can’t believe I let someone like you take advantage of me. You are nothing but a pathological liar and adulterer, morally bankrupt horrible human being with no integrity. You knew I was in the most vulnerable state of my life and still made advance at me for your own gratification. You kept playing with me, leading me on while you were rekindling your relationship with your affair partner and securing your comfortable life with your wife, using my genuine affection and care to boost your ego and gain validation.

I am so mad at myself to have let this happen I don’t even care how you would take this. I am walking away from it all so don’t ever contact me again.

Totally stupid and immature I know. Please tell me this is a bad idea. Silence is golden right?

I think I’ve finally realized I’m not even grieving romance at this point. I’m grieving emotional familiarity, routine, comfort and the way someone who once felt emotionally safe suddenly started treating me like I barely exist.

This was a coworker I got extremely comfortable with over time. We talked daily, shared personal stuff, travelled together, with groups, had inside jokes, routines, emotional openness etc. Nothing physical or explicitly romantic ever happened, but emotionally the connection became very significant to me whether I realized it fully at the time or not.

Then she entered/re-entered a relationship and instead of directly communicating any discomfort or boundaries, the dynamic completely changed through silence and avoidance. What messed me up psychologically is that she remained completely normal, warm and cheerful with literally everyone else around me while becoming selectively avoidant with me specifically.

And because this is all happening at work, I can’t even fully detach. Every day my nervous system gets retriggered by hearing her voice, watching her joke with others, seeing her comfortably interact with people she once complained about to me, like it’s so ironic i can’t..
and feeling like I’ve been socially erased from her world while sitting right there.

I kept questioning myself for months wondering if I had unknowingly crossed some horrible line because the avoidance felt so extreme compared to anything I actually did. I genuinely never intended to interfere with her relationship or make things uncomfortable. If anything, I naturally distance myself when female friends enter relationships because I don’t want to create weird dynamics between people.

Eventually I sent one final calm message just expressing that the avoidance and silence genuinely affected me and that I wished things had been communicated more directly instead of left unspoken.

The message is still sitting on delivered/unread days later, which honestly just reinforced everything I was already feeling.

What’s hard now is that my grief has slowly started turning into anger and resentment. Not because she owes me romance or emotional access,

but because I genuinely cannot understand treating someone you once cared about with this level of indifference instead of basic communication.

And the worst part is I feel crazy for being this affected because technically “nothing” even happened between us.

But my nervous system clearly experienced:
connection - withdrawal - loss.
And I think that’s what I’m actually grieving.

At this point I’m even contemplating changing jobs because trying to emotionally detach while being exposed to the person daily feels exhausting and honestly unsustainable for me mentally.

Is there a short story or novel that comes to mind when you think of good depictions of limerance? Give me your recs!

My LO is a coworker (just like the film) & even looks like the main woman in the film Nikki.

The film is very much a ‘be careful what you wish for’ cautionary tale, but it helped me in many ways.

The reason why my LO and I didn't ever get into a relationship was partly his mixed signals and my inability to be straightforward and confess. We had a friends but not really relationship, we never did anything physical or get close to it, but there was some form of emotional intimacy. I think we were both very avoidant people, so the closest confession that we got from each of us was saying something like "I like when you wear this" and the other person wearing that for a long while afterwards.

I found out he was seeing other girls and distanced myself because I just didn't want to get involved in that. For a year this worked and I was able to distract myself with working on other things.

But 2 years later and he is coming back to my mind even stronger, and it is with the same affection that I had when I first met him.

I feel like every time I distract myself, I feel like I'm running away from facing my feelings for him.

living with limerence/love addiction + hypersexuality is some of the most stressful shit ever. and it's incredibly difficult to fight because it's not like substance abuse; i cant just take away the dopamine my brain makes. im on zoloft but i feel like it's not helping enough.

every time i meet someone new, the first thing i consider is how attractive they are. and when i become fixated, i literally cannot focus on anything else. i have lost entire days of productivity at work to these thoughts. i'm plagued by the slim possibility of someone sweeping me off my feet in the new city i'll be working in soon. i can't focus like this. so i'm trying to find workarounds.

i have a fake barbed wire bracelet that is still a little pokey, so i'm going to try to wear that and tug on it to ground myself if those thoughts come up. Also trying to induce some sort of weird object impermanence where i conceptualize everyone outside of my vicinity as faceless cubes. Can't daydream or fantasize if they're inanimate. and it's like that world is on pause when i leave it. it seems to help so far. It's all about grounding myself in reality. i also want to meditate more but i dont like doing it in my house right now :/

So I (33F), am in intense limerance with my LO. It's been nearly 2 years and limerance was almost instant. I'm happily married to my wife and the limerance with my LO (47M) started after the wedding. I met him in a semi professional capacity (he's a politician) and over the last 2 years we have become good friends. The limerance has worn off every now and then but always comes back. Its causing issues in my marriage. My wife has pointed out I talk about him all the time and knows I am obsessed with him. Very recently myself and my LO have been going on beach walks at night. This has been very upsetting for my wife. I want it to stop. It has to stop. It's going to ruin my marriage and I just want to be in a happy marriage and have a normal friendship with LO. Is that possible? Please help! In utter turmoil and a constant state of anxiety! I don't know what to do and looking for advice. I don't think going NC could work, as it's such a small town and we're very involved in each other's life's.

For those whose LO is your coworker, do you ever find yourself unable to unplug from work because that's all you can think about?

My LO is kind of a workaholic and work is how we bond. I really enjoy my work but I would like to not think about it when I am not working.

However, limerence has other plans for me. If I stop thinking about work, I will have to stop thinking about LO and that's like, really hard.

Tomorrow is my birthday and the only thing I can think about is whether my LO will reach out to congratulate me. Not my family, not my SO. Just them. And I’m almost certain they won’t, or that they’ve forgotten.

I’m so ashamed! I know how it sounds. But that’s where I am right now and I needed to say it out loud somewhere safe.🤯😳😭

Long story short, there was this boy I was crazy about in high school. I was crazy for this person I hardly knew. I didn’t really know the person he was, just what I wanted him to be. So for the three years (2010-2012, he was a grade below me) that we were in high school together I was crazy about him. We both played trumpet so were involved in a lot of extracurricular things at school because of it, so I was around him a lot. He dated other girls, he friend zoned me, but I was crazy for him the whole time. This caused anxiety and stress that I couldn’t eat at times because I felt so sick to my stomach I couldn’t eat. I left for college, and tried to contact him one time when I would be home for the weekend and he ignored my many calls. After that I stopped trying. We messaged one time on Facebook in like 2013, saw him at Costco in 2023 (we didn’t talk or even make eye contact but we both clearly saw each other), but have basically had nothing to do with him since I graduated high school in 2012. I hadn’t thought of him for a long time or just here and there, but this last year I find myself thinking of him more frequently and I can’t stop thinking of him. I would snoop on social media here and there to find anything of him and did find a profile of someone he married, and they got divorced shortly after. So being a stalker I guess you could say. I find myself crying sometimes when I am thinking of him because I just miss him and want him. I’ve been married 10 years now and have 4 kids, so I can’t understand why lately he’s been in my head so much. I don’t know if it’s as simple or that, or if it’s connected to the information I haven’t shared of when I had a seizure on his shoulder in band one time, because I had a brain tumor. So is this a connection to my traumatic brain injury and things coming back (like say another tumor) or am I just missing a stranger from my past?

I know, I know. 3 months of no contact in person. It was suposed to be no contact at all, but LO herself made some brief contact in march and april. I know I shouldn't, but I had to wish happy birthday. I don't care about birthdays, LO said she doesn't either. But I had to.

It is probably the last excuse I'll ever have to message her, so I'm also facing this as some closure to all this madness. Ready to let it go.

I (22M) am baffled even now.

How many years has it since I didn't seriously consider "quitting the game" (you know what I mean), because my coping mechanisms are faltering in face of the current situation?

I'm just mad now; mad that this Thing is making me seriously consider ending my run early, just so I don't have to struggle with it anymore.

I don't even care about LO (the person) at this point. Day after day, I think of them less and less... but LO (the limerent fantasy)? Oh, it's awful!

Quit trying to feed me images of her being all compassionate towards my struggle and taking me in with an "I'm sorry" and a warm hug, brain! That woman would never do that! It's just not who she is!

Quit wearing her face and using her voice, you monster! Face me like who you are, all my traumas included!

But don't make me think I need to give up on life. Don't give me the easy way out and make it look appealing!

I'm far too young, and I just want my life back. LO is LO and we know it, so let me be me, too!

I'm gonna dig myself out of this pit, so let me go!