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Feelings for multiple people at the same time

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selkie354
Posts: 155
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:17 pm
Canada

Feelings for multiple people at the same time

Post by selkie354 »

Do you feel you are capable of this?

I have come to realize that I often can have strong feelings for multiple people at the same time. Looking into the origins of this episode, I suspected it might be due to some conflicts in my marriage. I tried hard to engage in discussion with my husband, it seems to have worked, we cleared some ice, we both now feel more affectionate, more loving towards each other. I still feel strong love and sexual attraction to my husband. Our sex life isn't perfect, but it is also not bad, and at times things are very good. (Things were very bad during episode #2 but we have worked on that and those issues have been resolved). Currently our relationship is feeling the strongest it has been in the last little while.

but...

I think my feelings for my LO are growing as well. I am more in control of the limerence and the mood swings with my new found awareness. But unfortunately my stint at NC only served to show me that LO was affected by it, and on some level that he cares for me as well, currently he is upset with me out of the blue (I suspect it is a delayed reaction to my confusing behavior with the unexplained NC). I feel I am starting to care more about LO on a deeper level, I worry about him (he is struggling now) and not just about what he thinks of me (which was all I could think of at the beginning).

I am conflicted b/c I was thinking my limerence must have been some major relationship problem, but now it is dawning on me that there may be no such problem. I of course have plenty of personal problems :)) , its probably one of those. But the thinking my relationship is terrible, that is why I am looking at someone else line of thought just doesn't seem to apply. I truly feel that I have strong feelings and care about both of these men. I don't want to hurt either of them, and of course this is impossible: I doubt they want to form a throuple, I have to pick one and that means hurting the other one. Of course picking LO would hurt my husband more than vice versa. The obvious is to work on husband and that will mean hurting LO. My heart aches that I have to do this.

To complicate it further, before LO I had a good friend, I would not say I was limerent for him, but possibly him for me. There were feelings, stronger on his end, but still there on mine, ultimately I chose my husband over him. I felt for him but my husband was a better partner. He has moved on with someone else. I let him go. There is a hole. I think I may have used LO to fill it...

I have read a lot of things about limerence, that it is a singular focus on just one person. That just doesn't seem to apply for me. Wondering if anyone else can relate?
mamasita
Posts: 1109
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2017 10:27 pm
Gender:
United States of America

Re: Feelings for multiple people at the same time

Post by mamasita »

I can absolutely relate. I could have typed most of what you said, although I first thought this has NOTHING to do w DH, only to cycle around, it has EVERYTHING to do with DH! And now I've settled back into it has nothing to do w DH. :D

Since limerence is all encompassing, it's only normal that your primary relationship is affected. Sometimes you may justify limerent behavior or fantasizing when you are lonely or DH disappoints, other times it feels like guilt would push me to try harder, fix your marriage! I do think that narc behavior is in the background of many of our interactions with ourselves, LO, and of course within our primary relationship too. NOT saying we are all narcissists but we were very often 1)raised by one 2)empathetic/in love with one or 3) we are one. Or some combination of the 3. Your spouse is a part of that dance.

I also was told by LO that he "used to" have a "huge" crush on me back in the day, and now I'm the one who is obsessed all these years later. :-\

I love my DH, he has always been there, he cares for me deeply and our many years of marriage have been mostly strong. I respect him more than I've ever respected any man in my life. And yet, I am multi-faceted and complex. I am a pro at compartmentalizing, likely due to my often toxic and traumatic upbringing which included incest and religious abuse. The ability to switch on and off and love more than one man always put me on a guilt trip that is hard to shake. I had to forgive myself. I'm not BAD because I am switching from loving wife to horny jezebel :)) easily. I just had to decide what I want and go in that direction. I want my life with my DH. LO giving me mixed messages kept me hooked and made me crazy, made me question my worth etc. but that was all the more reason I had to step away (NC or LC)and get control of the situation the best way I could. I was weak and it was painful. I miss the friendship LO and I used to have, before I opened this pandora's box.
I had to accept that things crossed the line AND I became limerent, which as you know is debilitating. There will be no closure, only pain for awhile. As months pass, you start to feel proud of yourself with each passing day that you were true to what you really want. You feel better about yourself for being the same person on the outside as you are on the inside. The goal is to integrate ALL you, the good, bad, and ugly with acceptance and love from yourself.
selkie354
Posts: 155
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:17 pm
Canada

Re: Feelings for multiple people at the same time

Post by selkie354 »

Mamasita,

Thanks so much for writing. So good to feel I am not alone in this. I too can relate a lot to your cycle about feelings, of course the limerence hurts our primary relationships and pushes SOs away, only natural they may start behaving in undesirable ways as a result.

I think this LO may possibly have the most real feelings for me of any of my past ones. All have had elements of reciprocation. Of course really hard to say from the middle of it. I can only imagine if you get that actual confession of a "huge" crush in the past. That would do me in.

And yes narcisissm plays a role in my life A) raised by one and C) have a lot of tendencies. Coming to terms with A) still a struggle, working on C) I can definitely see plenty of crappy behavior in my past - trying to work on it moving forward. Emotional regulation is hard...
mamasita
Posts: 1109
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2017 10:27 pm
Gender:
United States of America

Re: Feelings for multiple people at the same time

Post by mamasita »

Emotional regulation IS hard. And I was never taught how to regulate my feelings other than the message I got from my father...which was basically stop having them (feelings). That was and is impossible.

The worst part about LO saying he used to have a huge crush on me back in the day was the "USED TO" part. He was turning me down/rejecting me so the USED TO was the part that I cried over and had to accept. Such was the way our communications went after I disclosed to him. 1 part flattery, 3 parts rejection.
Spadge100
Posts: 291
Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2020 10:02 pm
Gender:
Great Britain

Re: Feelings for multiple people at the same time

Post by Spadge100 »

I think it’s absolutely possible but ultimately detrimental in the long run. Us humans can only compartmentalise for so long.

I am now six months into NC and finally my head is clearer. I don’t think about LO as much (still something pops in everyday) but I now just accept it was something that happened.

I believed my feelings for SO had changed during the limerence but now realise that was just the limerence talking!! I look at SO now as the completely innocent party in all this and love and respect her for her forgiveness. Yes we need to work on the intimacy side a bit but it’s good we are talking about it.

So in my case I think it was very hard to have feelings for more than one at a time without affecting my main priority, my wife.

Now I’m thinking a lot clearer I finally have some peace to focus on the now.
AMA210
Posts: 2385
Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2016 2:17 pm
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Re: Feelings for multiple people at the same time

Post by AMA210 »

At some point, I would like to post 3 months NC. Always resets at 2 months. Hoping for a good possibility on that. Six months would definitely be trickier. I can only see this happening if one of us moved to a different county altogether. 😀
Never give up! Keep moving forward, no matter what.
selkie354
Posts: 155
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:17 pm
Canada

Re: Feelings for multiple people at the same time

Post by selkie354 »

mamasita - that is brutal, just reminding you that you had a chance at one point. Kind of a crappy thing to say to someone really. LOs seem to be insensitive dipshits. But I do think your perspective in the last paragraph of your last post sounds very healthy. Good that you managed to go through everything and end up there. Not an easy journey I imagine. For a lot of us I think there is a lot of pain and guilt that we need to let go of.

Spadge- For sure the secondary "relationship" affects the primary. I won't argue that at all. Its just that I find I am able to separately sustain them, I can love both, whereas some people tend to need to actively diminish their love for the primary to make sense of feelings for the secondary. I did this a bit more in my second episode. In a way it is helpful to know that I can still love my SO while I have these feelings for LO. Not that the situation is great. If it was a bit more socially acceptable I'm pretty sure I could be polyamorous. I imagine its no fun explaining that to family and coworkers :))

AMA - I believe in you, stay strong!
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