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I apologize for not taking my comments above one step further. I totally agree with Chaos and with other responders.

Whether one can control one's feelings or not, one definitely can choose how to resolve the feelings. Limerence does not excuse or justify betrayal.

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I don't see limerence as pathological. It's normal for some people. It may seem pathological for BSes because a lot of infidelity seems to come from it. IMO, the pathology isn't the limerence. Rather, it's the inability or unwillingness to control one's response to limerence.

Both W2b and I were unattached when we got together. She has always been pretty shy, and she wasn't the best looking girl I knew. I fell for her before we had exchanged much more than our names, majors, and reasons for taking the course we were in. If I hadn't fallen for her - if she hadn't become my limerent object - I don't see how we would have gotten together.

Limerence has one thing in common with infidelity - if you haven't experienced it, you probably can't understand it without a goodly amount of empathy. Watch The Blue Angel and imagine you are the professorunable to extricate yourself from his relationship with Dietrich.

I used to lose a little respect for people who 'fell in love' until it happened to me. I didn't see The Blue Angel until I was in my 30s, but I feared I was like the the professor. Limerence is very powerful.

I hated the limerent experience, too, until it worked for us. The obsession and the fantasies were so foreign to me, but they were impossible to stop. But as we got to know each other over after-class coffee, we found we liked and loved each other. My limerence got us started. W2b's insistence on being real with each other allowed us to find the positive bonds that could sustain a marriage. The day it became clear where we were headed was a joyful one for both of us. (I rue the fact that I don't remember the date that happened or the date I fell for her.)

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I've read a number of statements on SI that 'it was a limerent affair,' as if that makes the A less dangerous. In fact, a limerent A is more dangerous to an M, IMO, because limerence is so hard to defeat.

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I can get infatuation. I personally experienced this first time I saw my wife. Met her in passing at a coffee-shop, had a five-word small-talk chat and was instantly intrigued by her. It made me frequent that shop for lunch over the next weeks until I saw her again and asked her out. But frankly – in it’s base-terms that’s a comparable reaction to when I might frequent a certain part of a river because I think there is a big brown trout there.

Have you mentioned this to your wife?

Don't get me wrong - sometimes a bike ride is my top priority. Luckily my W understands.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 9:59 PM, Friday, October 17th]

Hiking --

Limerance is more like a destructive chase of winning validation, and feeling you are nothing if you can’t get it. It has little to do with the other person, there is no authenticity or vulnerability. It’s nothing like healthy love.

My wife really did learn the same lesson -- and it speaks volumes of her childhood. A bit of a travesty when someone grows up in a house without feeling safe or dealing with alcoholic parents. My sister-in-law was pregnant and out of high school at age 16, just to escape that same family home.

My wife was certain it was love during the A, she only saw it for what it was years later, after she decided to tell me about what had happened.

A destructive chase for validation, that solidly hits the proverbial nail on the head.

My childhood had some horrifying similarities, I really think that's how my wife and I found each other to start with.

However we eventually find it, healthy love is pretty cool.