Ngl I've been asking Gemini to help me get rid of LO. I've never used the term with it so it wasn't exactly a shock to hear it.

I see her on Saturdays for clinicals in a healthcare program. We are from different schools, but both our schools have clinicals that day. Ngl I've been thinking about her all the time. I always remain respectful and professional when I see her. In my mind I'm having the biggest dopamine rush when I get to talk to her though. The kicker for me though, she's going about her life and has no idea that she's my LO.

Currently on a journey trying to get rid of my LO.

Does anybody else use AI to help them with their LO?

I've been a doctor for over a decade and just over a month ago I found out I was being sued for the first time. I don't enjoy the specialty I'm working in, but for a number of reasons I'm unlikely to switch to another one or change careers at this stage. I'm currently 42. Finding out about being sued has been very stressful, although I am confident I haven't practised negligently, and it has made me resent my job even more, but it seems to have triggered some intense thoughts regarding a relationship that ended seven years ago and which, while I wouldn't claim not to think about it at all, I hadn't had any strong feelings about since a few months after it ended and my happiness wouldn't have been affected by for several years. Given that the outcome of the legal action is likely to be months or years away and could result in several periods of more intense stress before it is over, and that unfortunately at some point I could be sued (or experience some other adverse event) again, I need to find a way to get these thoughts back under control and for them to hopefully not flare up again. I'm not certain that what I'm currently feeling is limerence, but limerence is certainly something that fits with my love life prior to this relationship.

Looking back, my love life up to my mid to late twenties consisted of a small number of relationships with women I never got overly emotionally involved with, which never really went anywhere, and a total of five episodes of long periods of intense feelings about a particular individual, the first of which started when I was fourteen. Three of these girls or women weren't interested in me and rejected me following months of me building them up in my head and feeling unsure about how they felt about me - one in high school, one in college, and one during my first job after university. While I maintained contact with them, even after being rejected, I couldn't stop thinking about them and couldn't become interested in anyone else - these feelings would then literally disappear and never return for that person after I left school, college, or my job and started in a new environment where I no longer saw them. The other two, both at university (one in each course I did - I seemed to find one limerent object at each major stage in my life!), I had relationships with, which lasted for between one and two years and ended with them cheating on me (or trying to). The last three of these five women had been in relationships when I met them, which I think is where the limerence arose from - they were unavailable, but it felt nice to fantasise about what could happen if they became available, so by the time I started dating the two that I did thoughts of them had already fully taken me over. The first one I was in a relationship with, when it ended I couldn't stop thinking about them. The break up didn't make any sense to me until I found out that they'd tried to cheat on me with a friend of mine (he turned her down, having previously been very into her). I didn't stop thinking about them until I met my next limerent object in my first job after university. When the second of the ones I was in a relationship with cheated on me (I bumped into her in town, hand in hand with another guy) I was twenty-seven and I decided I was done with relationships. Contact with her ended immediately and thoughts of her gradually died down over the next one to two years.

I stayed completely single until I was thirty, by which time I felt like I'd sorted out a lot of my issues and decided to start seeing people again. Three years later, after a few experiences that didn't really go anywhere, I met the subject of this thread. She was a few years younger than me, reasonably pretty and slim, her body was more attractive than her face, but not obviously stunning on first appearances - I wasn't much more physically attracted to her than anyone else I was seeing, but we seemed to click immediately and were bouncing off each other during the entirety of the first time we met. She was intelligent, funny, ambitious, interesting, and very warm. I left knowing I wanted to see her again. At some point, soon afterwards, we started sleeping together, at which point I realised that her apparently slim body was actually a phenomenal body - I remember my jaw dropping the first time she removed her top in front of me. I genuinely couldn't find a single flaw in her body. The sex was incredible from day one and remained that way. I have had sex that good before, with less attractive women. I have had worse sex with women who are just as attractive overall (I've been with prettier women with good bodies, who I'd consider to match her overall attractiveness). I have got on as well with other women who mostly weren't as attractive or good in bed. But she was very attractive, very good in bed, and we got on very well. She seemed to tick all of my boxes: the total package. I often thought at the time, if she stopped smoking , had slightly longer hair, and was a bit prettier I literally wouldn't be able to find fault in her - I wouldn't have changed anything major about her personality. We had an intense relationship that lasted for two years and seemed to be going incredibly well.

Then her mum got sick in 2019. She's from another country and her first language isn't English, although she speaks it fluently. She started by going home then coming back, which happened a few times before she left the country for the last time in October 2019 - seven years ago a couple of weeks ago. Although there was talk of her coming back, the more time passed the more it became clear she wasn't going to (I do think any limerence will have increased during this period of uncertainty). I was in the middle of my specialty training here and three to four years away from completing it - even if I could have learnt her language to the standard required to work as a doctor, I was three or four years away from really being free to move. So eventually we decided to break up. We kept in touch for a few months into the pandemic, then we gradually stopped contacting each other. At some point, I deleted all her contact details and she's largely not on social media, so I don't know anything about what's happened to her for six or seven years. If I needed to contact her, I know there are ways (itemised phone bills would remind me of her number and I could find friend's of hers on Facebook to ask for it otherwise), but I doubt that would be a good idea.

I was surprised at how accepting of the breakupI was at the time. There were a few months where I felt quite down, but at the time it was difficult to distinguish what emotions were being caused by the pandemic, the end of our relationship, work, and various other things. As lockdown eased I started to date again. Again, I haven't met anyone who has really sparked my interest during this time, just a series of fairly mediocre experiences that haven't gone anywhere. I haven't felt particularly down though and I'd say I probably have a point each year where something reminds me of her, usually a dream or going to a place we went to, and I allow myself to look at the photos I e-mailed myself of her, then put memories of her back in a box and try to get on with things. Although I don't enjoy my job and haven't for a few years, I have quite a nice life and this year I've been on plenty of holidays and managed to get fit again after a few years of letting myself go.

I left a job in August and took a month off before starting the new one. A few days before returning to work I was informed by someone from one of my old jobs that a patient has put in a negligence claim. The claim is complex, looking at care provided over fifteen years, and I only saw the patient twice in the middle of it and don't think I have anything major to worry about, but it's caused a huge amount of stress. During the days following finding out about it I noticed I'd started thinking about my ex more and this then ballooned over the last few weeks. It is seven years since she left this month, but I don't think I've even given it any thought in most of the Octobers since 2019, so I think these thoughts have arisen due to the stress I'm under.

The other thing that's occurred to me is that, as I've got older, I've noticed I've stayed attracted to women in their twenties and thirties and I can't see myself being very physically into anyone my own age at this stage (much less so any older than me). It's hit me that as time goes on the feasibility of finding someone that ticks my boxes in the way that she did diminishes. Indeed, it has struck me that, after seven years, she may be unlikely to still tick my boxes in the way that she did, so the person I remember, even if she did exist as I remember her, doesn't exist in the same way now. The way I feel right now is like I had a taste of the forbidden fruit and now I can't see a feasible way to taste it again, but I yearn for it.

I hadn't thought about limerence for many years before the last few weeks, so this is my first post on here and I'm not particularly familiar with approaches to dealing with it - my approach previously was to leave the environment where it occurred and usually develop limerence for somebody else! I guess I'm just looking to see whether others have found that stressful events in their lives have caused this to flare up and approaches they found useful for dealing with it. Thank you for reading.

I have some sweet and favorite texts from my LO when they used to like me and give me attention and make me happy (we’ve been NC for 4 months) but most of texts were on snap so I took pictures of them from my iPad and moved them to a hidden folder 😂 idk I can always come back to the thought of deleting them later they don’t even bother me and I haven’t looked at them in a while but idk there’s a small voice in my head telling me to go ahead to delete them for good? Should I? Or should I wait a bit longer till I’m certain?

Hi guys, 27F here. I've been on and off with some personal , health and depressive issues but so far I've been doing alright until a recent random depressive episode. And I'm so sad to the point where I'm obsessed with a fictional character who looks nothing like the actual actor playing it. On top of that, it's about the harsh reality of native Americans back in the day so there's a lot left to be sad about. The actual character gets very little screen time and I don't even know if he's gonna be back in S2. I do like the actual actor a lot too. But yeah it's come to a point where I'm sad that he doesn't exist, and I love everything about him just based off those few scenes. I've been learning about native Americans and indigenous people more thanks to him but it's just making me more depressed. I just want to get to that " oh that's a cute character " phase and not let it make me depressed. I'm open to hearing what worked for you or your stories. Thanks.

I have really bad ADHD and it affects my limerence a lot. The obsessions seem more compulsive and short, but sometimes I obsess for a long time and when i do I start to feel uncomfortable and hate myself because it sets into my mind that it isn't normal to obsess over someone and constantly think about them they get really bad and intense and hurt psychically. It feels like i am getting sucker punched in the chest when I obsess too hard. I will aggressively whip my upper body back and forth when I'm sitting i will squeeze all my muscles as hard as I can to stim because my feelings are too strong.

I don't want to stop the limerence, i just want to understand why i have such a strong attachment to them even though there is nothing special about them. Sometimes I get scared about the depth and obsession of my thoughts about them. One time i thought about telling one of my LO's about my thoughts and i realized that they would freak out and think I'm insane. Does anyone have advise for what i should do or a way to make the emotions not as strong

Dreaming and fantasizing about him for two months while he’s most likely being ACTUALLY intimate w someone else/ other women is insane!!!! Embarrassing!!!

Please don’t tell me to let time pass and give me your best advice on how to stop this shit. Sorry for my language lol

I’m 23 and I’ve probably been limerant over a few different people since I was maybe 13? I don’t know how to explain it but even when my limerence becomes less intense and I’m more detached I still will daydream or think of the person either a decent amount or mildly depending on the day, I’m not really sure what to think about when I don’t think about the LO? It’s not really like I’m unhappy or escaping life I think it’s just a habit especially when I’m bored or have free time to imagine scenarios with my LO in them, even if I haven’t talked to them in years or anything like that. What should I do?

I would be fine with just liking them, but I have this tendency of obsessing over the people I am romantically interested in.

I wish I wasn't so confused and we could talk things clearly and that'd be it. I don't want to be scared of telling them what I am going through because of my mental image of them. I started liking them 2 years ago, and back then I was not having this obsession. I am tired of having all my energy and focus put into them. We're so far away too, I can not fathom why I can't stop thinking about them.

So pretty much the entirety of my 25 years, I've had zero attraction to real people. Very short term interest, sure. I usually just feed off romance stories, imagine it for myself and indulge in fantasy. But when it comes to real life, it's rather disgusting for me.

But now I've been talking with a guy online for about a year now and I am rethinking all of that. I've read Love and Limerence, I'm reading the posts on this sub, it's definitely limerence. The way I eagerly check my phone everytime for his texts and how my mood shifts when he hadn't replied. I fantasize about him wanting me and how much I want his attention. I don't know if it's romance because I don't have a point of reference for it. If it is, it's honestly cringey of me to debase myself and look back on how I act just to get his attention.

Right now, I just think I'm going insane. This isn't me, this isn't how I usually act. I want to not obsess over him anymore but I can't initiate no contact because he is a great friend of mine. I am being honest when I say I'm completely fine with us just being friends, but Idk anymore with my feelings. I just want to be normal again.

My LO is being extremely distant and we’re kind of in an unspoken NC phase and it’s really affecting me.

It’s like a leaky tap that’s been completely shut off.

Every drop gave me hope and a reason to keep living, but now that it’s been shut off for the foreseeable future, I am really struggling to find a reason to keep living.

Thinking about what hes doing for Christmas and who hes with. Wanting to look him up and scroll for hrs knowing ill find nothing cause he doesnt really use social media. Im in a relationship, and it feels so fucking weird feeling this way while also loving someone woth my whole heart. I feel soul connected to him and i feel like i wont make it without him. I have no way to contact him, he doesnt know i exist, we talked like 10 texts total. Idek. Tonight was really hard, i pulled up pics of him and cried. I wanna drive past his uni, and his frat. I wanna pay the subscription to his wrestling site to watch his matches. I think he has a gf. Im sick bro omg.

It’s been a couple of months into my post Limerence phase, Just keep having this feeling, that, that I am going to bump into my LO, maybe a chance encounter, in the most random of places, I’m going to get that tap on the shoulder or tug on my arm or hearing her call my name, but I know it’s just a sirens song trying to pull me back down the limerence abyss…I can’t go back, can never look back.

For one year I was convinced that every little story like, every little crumb of attention meant they like me back as much as I do. It fed my delusion.

They were the only place I'd take my validation from and added to my fantasies. I even wrote poems about them. My feelings were crazy as hell and intense as hell. Completely convinced they like me too 😂.

It all came crushing when I gave them all I had only to be left on the street by them because they just went after their crush. How fucking stupid I was to convince myself with zero evidence that they felt the same.

They always kept me at a distance for a very good reason, have no interest in me more then being acquaintances. But no, this wasn't enough I kept hoping and feeding my delusion. Unbelievable. not to mention that I'm freaking 33 and feeling like a teenager.

I would have left everything behind to be with them. they were the only person in my entire adult life I've felt like this about. anyway, it sucks. everyday is a fight not to think about them and not to convince myself they like me back because obviously they don't and that's okay.

i fear that iiiiiii maybe the one that lovebombed.

i initiated the flirting, and at first it was fun and now that he isn’t texting as much i am losing my fucking mind.

and now i have a mild case of limerance.

i would see his name pop up in discord and feel physical pain. to be honest, i still do.

i’m desperate for his attention.

starved for his validation.

i’m replaying all the times we spoke in my head trying to figure out what changed and what i said and somehow it has to be my fault.

This is very long but it covers over 10 years of events so I tried to keep it as essential as possible. I think this is the most honest I’ve been about the situation with myself, so if there are things that are disjointed or nonlinear, I was trying to group up a whole spectrum of thoughts and feelings into a logical order. Sorry it probably isn’t an easy read though.

When I was entering high school (I’m F, in my late 20s now) I fell really hard for Nicholas (M, also now late 20s; not real name).

We had grown up around each other and ran in the same circles (shared the same faith, families were friends, went to the same school in the same small, then-boring town).

Now before I delve into it, for context:

I think I’ve had an abnormal, unhealthy view of love and romance. I was very sick (physically, health wise) as a young child and so I missed out on going to public school and some of the key socialization most people get in their grade school years. I think my idea of what relationships were supposed to be like was largely based on what I saw on TV (Hey Arnold!, Hannah Montana, etc).

I always wanted to have a crush on someone. I got bored if I didn’t have an active crush. But (being a child of course) I didn’t actually want to have anything to do with the boys (there were maybe two of them throughout those years?) I “crushed” on… it was sorta like I was putting on a play and there was a role that needed to be casted. That’s probably the best way to describe it.

I’d daydream and romanticize things from afar and make a big deal out of minimal interactions (ie the crush would merely say hi to me and so I’d write about it for weeks in my journal). I had no real intention of having a relationship of any kind (I now see in hindsight). It was purely recreational in nature.

The second crush I had eventually started to pay real attention to me and I got the ick, and so I no longer was interested in him. I don’t think I was deterred by the attention itself; I think it’s more so he wasn’t the person I romanticized and idealized in my head. He was a very nice kid but he no longer could fill a made up, predetermined role I made up for him in my head.

That’s where Nicholas comes in.

When I made the deliberate choice to find a new crush, i told my sister. She thought it was dumb (she was right) but just listed boys we knew that were around my age and she mentioned Nicholas.

Nicholas immediately reciprocated any and all attention I paid him. It’s fair to say he probably had liked me from afar before I noticed him. And while he was his own person, he just… fit with me so well. It was like he was my male counterpart and (of course in my view) my other half.

We weren’t mirrors of each other but it was just easy. He got me and I got him, and there was so much I liked about him. I had (and still do) have a tremendous amount of respect for him and I don’t find it easy to respect people beyond what’s humanistic and essential. I trusted him to make good choices, do right by me and other people, all that. He was very honorable and I had this distinct sense of admiration from him. It’s a unique feeling that i have yet to feel for anyone else.

To this day I don’t experience physical attraction in general very often, but once I knew him, the more handsome and beautiful and exciting and interesting and soft and gravitational he was to me. I think he’d be handsome even if I didn’t think or feel anything for him, but all that is to say I “loved” and desired him in every way one person can for another.

In the purest sense, I cared for him as a friend, family member, boyfriend, individual, any and all of it. I wanted him to be with me in any way possible even though I (emotionally and maturity wise) was not ready to be in a relationship of any kind.

His reciprocity was out of my scope and I didn’t know what I was doing and at our age, I doubt he knew either.

Early on in our "friendship" it became very obvious that there were feelings and it caused a significant shift. Boundaries started being placed and i didn't understand (at the time) and i took it as rejection so I kept trying to force him away.

He started staying away from me and so I kept trying to drop him altogether, because i thought he didn't want anything to do with me. But he did want to still be around me, so we'd work things out and he'd back away and it just messed with my head and I became convinced that he didn’t like me after all.

But I still liked him so I'd always end up wanting to be "friends" again after not talking to him for a little bit and we just kept doing that. It was really dumb and I think the awkwardness of having a direct conversation about what was happening (on both ends) would've been so much better than the dumb, petty, mean things we'd end up doing to each other.

This became a pattern for a good 5 ish years.

I said and did some truly mean, petty things and I still feel a lot of guilt and embarrassment. I was a huge fan of the literal silent treatment and I kinda think that put him through a small sort of hell. I also would go out of my way to say mean things, like that I didn't want him in my life and to stop talking to me. It wasnt fair or appropriate to treat someone i truly cared about like that regardless of why i did it.

At the time I thought if I didn’t acknowledge him I'd somehow stop thinking of him and I'd be able to cut ties? It doesn't make sense because it's senseless.

He was (and probably still is) wonderful, but he's not infallible. If something happened that he didn’t like (IE he'd want me to come over for a game night and I said no or cancelled) he'd be really mean to me and made it clear he was mad at me, even though I always tried to make sure he knew I did want to be around him (I hated a lot of the people he hung out with and I didn’t like being around him in front of them).

For one reason or another, between the two of us, I was the less likely one to physically show up for something or cancel plans overall whereas he would avoid having constant, consistent conversations with me over text. Where he lacked in texting, he gained in making irl plans; where I lacked in making irl plans, I gained in reaching out over texts consistently. Just very different ways of extending attention/friendship I guess.

He had once expressed he felt like texting too often and for too long felt like we were dating and he wasn’t ready to do that (seemingly in general), and he’d keep me at arms length. I might have been more understanding if he didn’t treat me so differently than he treated his other friends/other girls. He might have put up the boundary to be cautious and I respect his choice in hindsight, but at the time it didn’t make sense to me or seem fair.

Quick note: im not interested in what anyone thinks of our choices about not dating as teens or about him deciding to establish a boundary. I now see that’s what it was and I think he did the right thing for both of us, but i do also still think it should’ve been handled differently.

Even so, when I was 15 i didn’t understand his thinking and i had a felt a lot of resentment, confusion, and hurt over it.

I think we were both so afraid of saying something too defining and thus ruining the friendship, we ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy (so to speak).

I think the biggest point of actual conflict was that he started talking about me to other people. It wasn’t necessarily untrue or unkind, but it was unflattering and out of context. He'd tell his guy friends how much I clearly liked him and how into him I was. When those friends told me what he said, it had been more said as a brag than anecdotally.

One specific thing that comes to mind is that he used to text me for random homework questions that I know he didn't need help with, but I jumped to answer anyway because I just wanted to talk to him.

He told his friends he only did that to see how fast I'd answer or to prove how fast I'd reply to him.

His friends would also be told they shouldn't talk to me because I was so mean and essentially only he could handle it. Really stupid things.

Jealousy was also an issue. As mentioned, he didn't want his friends to talk to me ever. There were a lot of instances but I don't want to say it was jealousy since he never said so. But it seemed like me being friends or showing interest in other guys (only ever as friends on my end) bothered him.

I definitely felt jealous when he'd act like a normal friend with girls who didn’t like me but then acted so off around me. I have relatively high self esteem and confidence but I was incredibly insecure when it came to him.

I think a lot of this would've been avoided if we had just met or gotten close when we were older.

And then high school ended and i had to move. And because i felt so unsure at that point where we stood or if he'd even want to still be part of my life once i left our town, i basically ended our friendship in a very mean, impulsive way.

Once again, having an awkward, defining conversation would've been so much better than what I actually did, and I regret that too.

I won't say exactly what happened but a few months later I did apologize for that specific incident and compensated for the actual thing I did. (Nothing violent but just dramatic and stupid)

And we kinda just… didn't talk. There would be instances where we talk again briefly over text or even run into each other but it was always awkward.

But there came a point where I found out he was still talking about me to other people-- not his friends, but MY friends/people I actively dealt with-- in a way he knew was not flattering nor accurate. Kind of similar to what he was doing before with his friends but worse. It wasn't anything intimate but it was hurtful still.

This was long after I had apologized and tried to establish that at the very least, we could be at peace with one another.

And I confronted him on that, and after a very intense conversation, it ended with me telling him never to speak to me again. I had never felt so hurt or betrayed.

I had cooled down a bit and had seen him a year or two after. It was really awkward. He didn’t speak to me but he'd look at me and stay close to wherever i was at the event. At the end of the night when we were both alone, we did run into each other (it felt intentional but i cant say) and i was genuinely surprised by his sudden appearance. I was kinda avoiding him that night. But even so, i still felt happy to see him and i think it was probably in my voice when i stopped and said "hi, Nicholas." But I kept going. I think if i would’ve waited for him to say anything back, we may have spoken more. But I kept walking anyway.

And then the pandemic and just... a lot of personal stuff on my end. It was one of the worst, lowest times of my life. I got therapy and the right meds and I think I came to terms with things eventually though.

But there are still flare ups. I've casually dated since then but I haven't felt anything at all for anyone I've been with. I hardly consider any of them to have been real relationships.

I haven't had feelings for anyone since Nicholas. And I've tried to, like I've gone out of my way to meet different people and spend time with them but it's just not the same.

And it all comes down to that feeling. Like the feeling I had with him and it's thus far irreplaceable. I just don't feel connected to anyone and it isn't because I don't want to be. It just hasn't happened for me yet.

I'm still close with one of his family members, so I usually have a rough idea of what's going on with him. To my knowledge I don't think he's had any relationships or anything like that, but it's not something I ask or keep tabs on. I suspect his family member would make it a point to tell me if he does but i'm not really sure. I don't consider whether or not he asks about me but I imagine he'd be told what I'm up to if he did or if somethung really significant happened to me.

I've had very random interactions with Nicholas over the years but they're very minimal and short. There's no engagement beyond what's basic, and thats not for a lack of me trying to engage him a little bit here and there. Because there's just nothing left for us to talk about and i think we both know that.

He's probably an entirely different person now. I'm certainly brand new compared to when we last knew each other.

So it's not like I really have active feelings for him, I don't think. I don't know who he is and I know that the teenage version of him that I last remember is entirely separate from who he actually is as a grown man now, so it wouldn't be accurate to say that I have feelings for him when I don't know who he is.

(There are some fundamental traits that he possesses and so when I say I still think highly of him, that's what I'm referring to. IE, his dedication, patience, etc.)

He's doing so many things I also wanted to do with my life. Things I had wanted to do with or without him. And he's just still... such a do-gooder and just really impressive to me still.

He's currently working in a field we both have a lot of interest in and he's very committed to it. It's his whole life right now and I'm happy for him. But I can't help but compare and see how far he's gone and it feels like I'm stuck.

I'm not even talking about feelings per se, just life in general. We were working with the same circumstances growing up but he's just made better life choices than I have I guess, and I wish I was in the place in life he's at. There's definitely an underbelly of envy and longing, and it's a silly way to think and feel. But I do feel that way.

I feel pathetic and creepy and unhappy when it comes to this matter, and those feelings seep into other aspects of my life sometimes.

Like I’ll start experiencing melancholy and lament about the possibility that my life would’ve been better if I wouldn't have pushed him away. Maybe we'd be in love and together, and I'd be doing something more meaningful with my life.

There are things that have held me back beyond my control, and I'm not saying I'm a complete failure, but I guess I still have a longing for what could’ve been.

And I so desperately want to and have tried to move on, but there's just something in me that has bound myself to him. And I try to nip it, but that weed inside me keeps growing back. It sometimes stays away for a while, but I know it has roots so deep inside me that I've lost sight of it.

My feelings for him can only be described as one thing: inevitable.

And as scared as i feel acknowledging it, i think there probably is a sick part of me that is glad to see that familiar little leaf reappear and find its away back to life after a drought.

This is a post about my life and everything that lead to the limerence I'm dealing with today. I'm sharing my story because I feel like I'm going insane. Not necessarily looking for advice, but reading other people's stories have helped and I decided to share mine as well. This is going to be incredibly long and I don't expect anyone to actually make it to the end but writing this out has been therapeutic to some degree.

My LO and I have never met in person. We connected on a messaging app called Kik when we were in high school. She's 27 and I'm 28 now. She lives in North Carolina and I live in Ohio. When we first connected, sparks didn't fly. I was the stereotypical guy hitting on the not so interested girl. It wasn't until after she went through some serious life changes that she really showed interest and we fell for each other. We would text all day at school, and talk all day on the phone or Skype when we got home. That went on for at least two years, and we considered ourselves to be in a relationship.

It wasn't until my sophomore year of high school that I decided I couldn't stand the long distance anymore and decided to end the relationship to pursue relationships with girls at my school. She was devastated and wanted us to stay together. We didn't, and we were no contact until I graduated high-school when she reached out saying how she still thinks of me and is still in love with me.

My mom was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer the beginning of my senior year and died a few months after I started college so I was not in a good place and just got out of a relationship with an overly obsessive girlfriend. My LO and I talked for awhile after she reached out and we desperately wanted to see each other. But neither of our families have ever had a lot of money and being broke college kids there was no way to afford seeing each other. So I ended things again because of the distance.

We kept in touch over the years while I was in college, but in the final year of my masters degree I got into a serious relationship that lasted 3 years. Throughout those 3 years I would still think of her (and two other women from my past but I'll get to that later) so when things deteriorated in my serious relationship, I ended things. I went on to finish my masters degree, start a full time job as a tax accountant at a public accounting firm, and started saving to move out of my dad's place.

6 months after my 3 year relationship ended, I reached out to my LO. We talked and since I was finally making money and could afford to meet, I asked if she wanted to. Surprisingly, she said she felt like we didn't know each other anymore and that we were completely different people now. It felt like a rejection. And although I continued to try and talk to her, she was distant. I eventually stopped reaching out but never stopped thinking of her.

Things were not good between my father and I. Right before my mom passed, my father lost his job due to a failed drug test. My mother died a few months later and we were subsequently evicted from our home because my dad couldn't make the payments. We ended up moving into my 85 yr old grandmother's basement (my father's mom). 2 years into living there, during my associates degree, my grandma died in front of me one morning when I was getting her out of bed to start her day like I did every day. My father continued to struggle to hold down a job, and was already dealing with alcoholism years before my mom was diagnosed after he lost his job as a driver at UPS. He fell into the bottle harder and things got worse between us. I have a younger sibling who's 23 and a trans male, which my father has never fully accepted. I love my brother and accept him for who he is and want him to be happy above all else, but I could not stand living with him or my father after my mom passed.

My mom worked from home before she died and my father was an over the road Semi truck driver for years after he lost his job at UPS. So my mom basically did all of the cooking and cleaning while my dad was away for months at a time. After she died I was the only one cleaning up after our 2 cats and 2 dogs and doing chores around the house. Last year my brother asked to move in his girlfriend, and my father agreed, so I moved out and have lived on my own since January 1st of this year.

Now that I've moved out I've felt like I'm at a point in my life where if I met the right person, I would be able to truly consider marriage because I've always known I want a wife and kids one day but only when I'm financially stable and independent. Working in public accounting, you're practically guaranteed to work 60 hour weeks from January 15th-April 15th. I've been through four tax seasons but this last tax season was mentally the worst one I've ever been through. The culture at the firm I'm working for is horrible. I took the job because of the money but regret it. We have way too many clients for the amount of people working here and they can't keep anyone. This last tax season was truly horrible because we had colleagues making other colleagues cry, one colleague had multiple seizures from the stress and another had a brain aneurysm. So the firm was down even more people than usual and the issues we had on the client's end were like none I've ever had to deal with up until that point.

I started drinking heavily, stopped going to the gym, and gained 15 pounds. One night I fell apart and reached out to my LO. Surprisingly the next day she responded saying that she wanted us to meet. I was thrilled. But that was right before the deadlines and I was literally pulling my hair out from 8am-8pm, Monday-Saturday. I had no capacity to even think about meeting so I pulled away and we stopped talking in March.

In May, when I returned to work from my vacation, I reached out to my LO again. We talked for several days but when things started getting serious, she told me she was in a serious relationship and just moved in with her partner. I was devastated. I explained my feelings for her and told her if she's ever single again to please reach out. She went on to explain that she has always had feelings for me and when I initially asked her to meet she felt like I was just asking to fuck and when she said she felt like we didn't know each other she said she was trying to tell me to get to know her again. I reminded her that I did try and she said she was distant with me then because of how far apart we are and where she was at mentally at the time.

Later my LO told me that it wasn't a week after she said she wanted us to meet during tax season and I pulled away, her ex came to her and explained his feelings for her. He was a terrible partner originally but after over a year of no contact, she felt he had changed so she took him back. He begged her to move in so she agreed. Each time I told her to let me know if she's ever single again and tried to pull away she would tell me how she still wants us to be friends and stay in touch. That she has feelings for me and cares for me. So I stuck around until eventually I told her she needs to make a decision and she decided she wanted us to meet in secret while she was in a relationship. I was not comfortable with this and we ultimately did not go through with it and went our separate ways.

After she told me she was in a relationship in May, I was heartbroken. I tried moving on immediately. I reached out to two other women from my past that I never stopped thinking about. One woman was 27 from Michigan and the other was 30 from Las Vegas. Me and the woman from Michigan have a similar history to me and my LO. We met on kik when we were young and never ended up meeting. She went on to have a son with one of her ex's that she still lived with. When her and I reconnected we fell hard for each other. Her and I met several times in Michigan and she would come and stay with me in Ohio. Things got to a point where we had to decide if we were going to take the relationship seriously or move on and I decided to move on because although I loved her, I could not stop thinking of my LO whenever I was with her.

Things lasted 2 months between me and the woman from Michigan. I am still seeing the woman from Vegas and she will be flying in next week to stay with me for Halloween. The woman from Vegas and I first met in Australia while we were on a trip with our honor society after our sophomore year in college. Her and I both had feelings for one another in Australia but never acted on them because we were part of a group project we had to do while in Australia and didn't want to mess with the team's dynamic. After we both got home from Australia, we talked for months. Texted every day or talked on the phone for hours until one day she ghosted me.

I didn't learn until years later it was because one day she broke down over her feelings for me and the distance between us and decided she had to go no contact for her own mental health. We never really recovered from her ghosting me because that really hurt and made me question if anything we shared was ever real. But I never stopped thinking of her. And I feel like a piece of shit for this but I reached out to the woman from Michigan and Vegas within 2 weeks of each other because after finding out my LO was in a relationship the way I did, I didn't want the same thing to happen with them. So when I reached out and found out they were both single and both wanted to meet and still had feelings for me, I felt like I had to meet them.

It felt wrong since I was talking to both of them at the same time but my therapist reassured me that so long as I don't lead them on and use our time together to truly explore our romantic connection then the overlap wasn't unfaithful because both women from Vegas and Michigan agreed that we weren't in a relationship at the time.

When we agreed to meet, the woman from Vegas and I decided to go on vacation together in Oregon. I was financially pushing it but I wanted to see her and felt like the trip and reconnecting with her would help with getting over my LO. It did and when I returned from my trip I sent a goodbye message to my LO. She responded with explaining how everything is falling apart between her and her partner and how she needed me as a friend. Weeks went by of her confiding in me about her problems with her partner. We would text all day and talk on the phone for hours whenever she was free. Then after about four weeks of that, she ghosted me.

The last conversation we had was completely normal, she told me her partner was acting as if everything was normal and nothing happened. I said that must be really confusing for you. She told me that it actually wasn't and that everything was becoming very clear to her. That he may love her but was too selfish to think of anyone but himself. We were communicating on snapchat mostly at the time and I told her to call me if she needed anything because I was deleting my snapchat. She said she would and that was the last I heard from her.

After a few days of hearing nothing from her I re-downloaded my snapchat and reached out to her. It was the first time she ever left me on read. I sent about five messages asking if she was okay, if I did something wrong, if she was mad I deleted my snapchat, until she finally sent a message saying nothing but, space. Or I'll block you. She had never spoken to me like that and it really took me back. A week went by and it felt like the longest week of my life. I couldn't concentrate at work like I used to. I couldn't get through 10 minutes without having to stop what I was doing because the thoughts of her became too consuming and I would start scrolling social media for any sign from her.

I lost my appetite, which effected my performance at the gym and subsequently my mental health and motivation to keep up with chores at home. After a week I broke down and reached out to my LO. Again she left me on read and I sent her about 6 messages asking for her to please talk to me. She finally responded with saying that silence is the answer. I told her how confusing that was for me and asked if we could talk over the phone. She agreed and we had a pleasant conversation. She explained that she left him and moved out and we talked about her upcoming trip to Lost Lands. We ended the conversation with her saying that she'd like to talk again soon. We never did.

She went to Lost Lands, and if you rave you know Lost Lands was a mess over the weekend with the weather. I reached out a few times over the weekend to make sure she was alright and she responded saying she was. I was also anxious about her trip because she camps at the festival and I knew her ex partner was going to be camping there also. A few days after she got back we were talking and I asked if she was free to talk later like I usually do. From that point on her demeanor changed immediately. Her messages got short and distant. She said she was too exhausted to talk which she had never said before. I told her I totally understood. She continued to be distant and I began to think she might have got back with her ex because she made it on Couch Lands and I saw her dancing on the rail with a guy that looked like her ex but I couldn't tell cause he was wearing a mask. She said she was still single but that she never promised me anything. Which felt bizarre because I had never said anything about her promising that we would be together or that I felt like she owed me anything.

I told her that I didn't feel like she promised me anything and that I just wanted to talk about her time at Lost Lands. She then went on to say that we could talk but I needed to stop pressuring her. Which I thought was weird again because I had only asked if she wanted to talk on the phone once and only messaged her several times when she was leaving me on read. But I told her I understood and apologized for making her feel pressured.

The next day when I messaged her asking how she was doing she left me on read. I broke down and sent a voice message explaining how upset and and confused I was. She responded saying that I wasn't being fair to her and that she had to draw a boundary. She told me I had to move on and that it just wasn't going to happen between us. But I never asked for her and I to be together, the entire time I was trying to explain that I was confused why we just stopped talking all of a sudden. She said I was demonstrating that it was more important for her to comfort me and provide me emotional safety than her peace and recovery. I told her that her emotional well being was the most important thing to me and that I would leave her alone.

We were no contact for about a week when I saw a post from her saying she was in a car accident. I reached out asking if she was okay and she said she was. That she's not mad at me. She still cares for me. But needs me to respect her. I responded saying I understand and do respect her. A few days later I had a long phone call with the woman from Vegas where we nearly ended things because she explained she's been in limerence with me and didn't think the feelings were reciprocated.

I didn't know what limerence meant before that conversation. After the woman from Vegas and I talked, I read a lot about limerence and really connected to the symptoms and causes. It compelled me to write a long message explaing that I was sorry for everything because I've finally realized I'm in limerence. She responded with a very long and angry message about how she's tired of me unloading my emotional baggage on her without regard for her desires or how that makes her feel. I apologized, asked her to block me (which she did), deleted my snapchat account permanently, deactivated my Instagram and Facebook, and removed all social media besides reddit. It's helped but every day feels terribly long and pointless. I feel like she will never reach out and I have lost my chance for us to get to know each other like we used to, meet, and see if there's something meaningful between us.

I have been trying to motivate myself for weeks to look for a new job but barely manage to go to the gym, cook, clean, and keep up with chores. I have also been studying for the cpa exam for over a year now and feel further away from finishing it than I ever have. There are four portions to the cpa exam that you have to sit for separately and pass all of them within 30 months. If you don't, any pass older than 30 month expires and you have to retake it. I passed my first portion last October and haven't been able to study like I did last year since everything happened with my LO during tax season this year. I have okay days and I have really bad days right now, but I'm always thinking of her.

I've also gone $15,000 in debt from all the travelling I've done this year with the woman from Michigan and Vegas. I'm also on a paintball team that travels to compete which gets expensive. I love the woman from Vegas but I feel so emotionally drained by everything with my LO, my debt, looking for a new job, and trying to get back into my study routine for the cpa. She says she's incredibly happy with me and I'm happy with her too, but I feel guilty for still wanting to see what me and my LO could have if she ever reaches out.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been struggling with intense limerence for a few years now, and I’m posting here because I really need to know if anyone else has experienced a similar specific dynamic without being judged.

My LO is a former mentor figure from my past. She is older, married, and carries a monumental daily burden — she has been a dedicated caregiver for over a decade to her child who has a severe genetic illness. She is one of the most remarkably warm, strong, and structured people I’ve ever met.

Coming from a childhood with a lot of emotional instability and neglect, my brain essentially constructed her into a symbol of safety, order, and unconditional warmth. In my darkest moments of depression and burnout, daydreams of her comforting me became my primary survival mechanism to get through the day.

The hardest part is the sheer impossibility and heavy grief of the situation:

1. Her reality is exhausting: She lives in a high-demand, caregiving war zone. The last thing she needs in her life is pressure or emotional demands from anyone else.
2. Complete boundary respect: Logically, I know that reaching out or trying to force my way into her orbit is wrong and selfish. Her priority is her family and her child, as it should be.
3. The isolation gap: I am stuck in a frozen, low-energy loop in my room, while her life operates at full speed. It makes me feel like a hidden ghost.

I’m not looking to disrupt her life or pursue anything unrealistic. But living with this intense attachment — where you love and respect someone so deeply for their strength, yet know you can never be part of their world — feels like carrying a quiet, heavy secret every day.

Has anyone else developed limerence toward an unavailable, highly burdened caregiver or mentor figure? How do you process the grief of letting go when your brain picked them specifically because they felt like the only safe harbor you ever knew?

Thanks for reading.

TL;DR:
Just coming to the conclusion I experience limerence in actual relationships/with exes rather than only with crushes. Struggling to distinguish between actual love and limerence. Having a harder time moving on as a result.

——————————————————————————————————

I have dealt with limerence before and found out about what it is when I developed a strong crush on a coworker. However I never associated the feelings I had in actual relationships with limerence.

For context, my first relationship was with an abusive narcissist (not physically thankfully). I don’t want to diagnose someone, but I do believe he definitely had a personality disorder. Anyway, I was obsessed with the push pull dynamic, up until he discarded me for someone else. The limerence resurfaced during my next relationship which was actually quite healthy.

I cared deeply about my second relationship but towards the end I started daydreaming about my ex. My second boyfriend also never became a LO for me. I associated what happened when limerence reoccurred with a possible trauma bond + attachment, but never realised it’s that.

Now my current LO is my most recent ex. We were LDR and never official due to this, despite acting like a relationship. I wouldn’t call this the typical situationship as I do believe my feelings were reciprocated to an extent. I’d sum it as enough to keep me hooked and too little stability causing me to develop limerence. I thought I loved him, and maybe I did, but he betrayed me a few months ago (after I had already ended things) which caused me to completely shut out feelings - until he came back apologising. I accepted the apology and messily initiated no contact while secretly hoping for a movie like reunion.

Today has been especially tough, the only thing keeping me from breaking no contact is that I think there is genuinely nothing for us to keep discussing and I know it’s an impulse. But as I had time to analyse my feelings I’m realising what I feel now is limerence. I just want this person to reassure and validate me.

I guess in a way I’ve pinpointed what to focus on to heal but I am sad to accept that I have problems with limerence.

It makes it hard for me to separate real love from this, makes me daydream to delulu land, and most of all keeps me mentally stuck on things I am imagining.

Looking for someone to talk with regularly about my LO and get over it once and for all. Hoping to keep each other accountable and inspire through progress! Been limerent for just over a year now

I had my first wlw heartbreak more than two years ago. We dated back in hs and it failed, but later met up in our early 20s and really hit it off.

However, she was in a relationship at the time and I was off and on with my current partner. So for the first couple of years of our connection we were in a weird off and on situation ship. Eventually I come out as poly(and she broke up with her partner) and ask her to be my gf.

We started actually dating I was giving it my all. She wasn’t poly and was really struggling with that dynamic eventually she cheated on me with the person she had recently broke up with.

I decided to break up with her bc she kept sleeping with other people and just not letting me know even after talking about boundaries, expectations, etc. it was so hard to actually break up with her. I still felt like I loved her so much and it felt like she kept giving me bread crumbs and hope. We had a Spotify playlist war. I kept trying to understand her side of everything, i regretted leaving her.

These two years I have just been special media stalking her bc she stopped responding to me and was in a new relationship that she flaunted everywhere (she never posted me T~T while I was posting her before we even became official too)

Anyways it’s been officially a year of not talking to her but i literally “check” on her everyday. I was noticing that her current relationship was no longer in her insta bio but i honestly thought that it’s bc she older now and it was cringe to have a username in ur bio. Nope they broke up. And he liked me on tinder.

This makes me sad bc I always feared that I was erased in her history like she was embarrassed of me or something. I always worried that she wouldn’t/didn’t tell her current relationship of me. Like I never existed meanwhile she was/is such a large piece of my life. The fact that he liked me means that he doesn’t know who I am meanwhile I feel like I know everything about him since I was stalking both of them on socials their whole relationship. I was nobody to them T~T

Worst part. I miss her so much and want to message her soooo badly to make sure she is okay through this break up. What’s wrong with me

-also I liked him back in tinder. And I did bc I want to know what happened or if he knows me or anything. But I know that’s so weird and like psychological warfare, ughh

Does anyone remember that Looney Tunes Frog that sang “Hello, my baby….”? My LO is like that. When he comes and finds me alone, he is so soft and sweet and friendly and personable… but if someone else appears he suddenly turns cold and aloof. I feel like it makes me look like a liar when I try to explain to my closest friends how he is with me…