Mutual limerence with your LO

[Sooze]

I live with my SO and have been having an affair with my LO. My LO also appears to be limerent for me ... yes, very intense and I feel totally out of my depth. I've been trying to pull away, but he hangs on and pulls me back. This loss of control is very scary. I need out ASAP. Does anyone out there share this situation? I imagine working towards NC is more challenging when your LO wants to keep things going?

[David]

yes, very hard when there is mutual limerence.

there are a number of posts on going NC and a blog article about the limerence affair back in 2017

https://limerence.net/the-limerence-affair/

[Significant other]

The resolution of a state of limerence can be in 3 different ways:

A-Consummation: Both members feel love and form a new couple.

B-NC, introspection and abandonment.

C-Search / find another substitute LO.


I would consider seriously the option A

[David]

Sooze, I see that is your first post

Can you say more about your story?

[Cookie]

Sooze,

Sorry that you are going through this intense emotional confusion. Compounded with the secrecy of an affair.

Every situation is different, and no one here or anywhere else has a definitive answer...but I can say that all of my limerent experiences have started out with the LOs pursuing me as if their lives depended on it. For a while, we coast in mutual affection (admiration/idealization). Then the script flips, I become attached, and they run for the hills. But never cut the last thread until I do.

While mutual limerence may make it seem like it's more of a "real" relationship -- perhaps even with potential for more or a future together -- I would suggest that it's really just the intersection of two equally confused/emotionally underdeveloped people.

The NC is indeed much harder, but it is the only way to restore your sanity. Then you can work on yourself and forge a path to a healthy relationship. With your SO? With your LO? With neither? That question doesn't have to be answered yet, but it can never be answered while you're within these types of relationships.

Deep breath, then I would tell your LO that you need a break. Make it sound temporary. Break the mutual addiction. See where you are in a month.

[Sooze]

Thanks Cookie, your reply is very insightful and helpful. Yes, My LO was very much the pursuer which, I believe, fed my craving for attention/validation (I had not known I had needed such validation until very recently!)
Two questions - I don't fully understand the concept of - "confused/emotionally underdeveloped people." I would like to learn about this in respect to limerence.
Also, you suggest that after a period of NC a healthy, non-limerent relationship might be possible. Is it possible to see your LO again, albeit after limerence has passed, and not be triggered? The emotional dependence I find the particularly difficult. I would be scared to re-ignite this debilitating feeling of powerlessness.

[Significant other]

Sooze wrote :
{I don't fully understand the concept of - "confused / emotionally underdeveloped people." I would like to learn about this in respect to limerence.}
Human relationships are very complex.
Many psychologists maintain that the subject / object attachment (of desire, another person, an impulse ...) is formed from birth (some authors indicate that even earlier) until adulthood, being especially important until 6 years of age.
There are several phases, (as many as theories ...).
When, due to a trauma, malfunction, lack, etc ..., the subject does not overcome any of them, he will develop in the future, fixations and regressions to said phases.This can cause different mental, emotional disorders, neurosis etc ... more or less serious and long-lasting (confused / emotionally underdeloped) ...

Through psychotherapy, an attempt is made to pass through these failed phases, converting the erroneous unconscious automatic thoughts, through the word (the patient's monologue, pushed to critical points in which he presents resistance, by the therapist), into valid conscious thoughts.

The basic primary phases are,depending of which autor:
Jacques Lacan:
Mirror state, wish graph ...
the desire of the mother (both son-mother and mother-son), the inscription of the father's name (the laws appear ... incest prohibition, fraticide / matricide prohibition, etc ...)
the metaphorization of the first in the second: the Oedipus complex.
Also psychosexual maturation phases.
Freud:
Phases:oral, sadistic-anal, phallic phase, (C Oedipus), plateau, genital.

Melanie Klein:
Good tit (with milk), bad tit .... paranoid schizoid position ,Depressive position ,Primary Oedipus Complex...
Etc....etc...
Regarding limerence, it is described as an obsessive compulsive disorder (neurosis) with connotations of addiction.
OCDs are basically problems in overcoming Oedipus complex.

[David]

Melanie Klein:
Good tit (with milk), bad tit .... paranoid schizoid position ,Depressive position ,Primary Oedipus Complex...

Im not sure if the use of tits are intentional of lost in translation, the PC term is breast - made me laugh though and great post SO. I love your insights.

[Sooze]

Thanks 'significant other' for taking the time to explain. Very poignant. Especially identifying limerence as OCD and relating to the oedipus phase. Resonates for me. Will read up.

[AMA210]

@Sooze: "Is it possible to see your LO again, albeit after limerence has passed, and not be triggered?"

This is indeed possible and I am living proof of that!

Although, this takes a considerable amount of inner work to be able to get to that point in time. It is a process of figuring out what the LO is triggering within you - abandonment, rejection, etc...many of the core wounds, and then isolating each one and looking at past experiences with FOO (family of origin), as to where that began, and then from there, working to heal them.

Most often, there are many triggers and in my experience, was constantly triggered for several years. The answers have to come from within the self and not from the external LO.

There is always free will at play also and so to decide whether to do this work or not is really up to the individual. I chose to do it because there was no other alternative, as LO had overtaken my life and I was unable to focus on anything else.

Aside from the LO, anything that triggers a reaction in us on a profound level is not about the other person, but is bringing something into our awareness, or bringing the unconscious into our consciousness.

Hope this is helpful.