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the concept of limerance

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conlang returns:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence

This is a word that my ex partner used to justify her stalking behavior of a cashier in the lead-up to our separation.  There's... a little bit, but only a little, that sounds kind of like what she was talking about but the different definitions listed have such discord with each other, it hardly seems that the term communicates anything in particular at all.  Overall, what she was describing was a situation where she needed professional help.  In my last messages to her, I encouraged her, not very kindly, to get some.  I had tried to bring it up more gently before but fumbled it.  She just went on a rant about being "crazy" despite knowing that I had been seeing a therapist of my own for most of the time we had been together.  I didn't realize she thought so little of such things.  There's a lot I didn't realize about her, despite being together three years. 

Three years is a lot of water under the bridge for me, even now, when I'm 33.  I expect little from my as yet ongoing relationships and don't plan to start any new ones.  I'm just not equipped to handle the situations that arise. 

I was trying to stop this from turning into a maudlin ramble but I'm very sleepy right now yet struggle to fall unconscious. 

renaeden:
Isn't limerence like having a gigantic crush on someone?  I've had a crush on a guy once but I never stalked him. Just as well I kept it to myself because later on I had to work closely with him. By then I was over my crush and I just liked and respected him. Funny thing - he kept calling me by his girlfriend's name.

conlang, was this her behaviour while you were still together? Probably a good reason to break up.

conlang returns:

--- Quote from: renaeden on October 13, 2023, 04:00:54 AM ---Isn't limerence like having a gigantic crush on someone?  I've had a crush on a guy once but I never stalked him. Just as well I kept it to myself because later on I had to work closely with him. By then I was over my crush and I just liked and respected him. Funny thing - he kept calling me by his girlfriend's name.

conlang, was this her behaviour while you were still together? Probably a good reason to break up.

--- End quote ---

We were still together.  But it wasn't a concern like cheating if that's what you're thinking.  I'm polyamorous.  I would have been absolutely stoked if she had been carrying on a consensual relationship with someone who loved her as much as I did.  The cashier was not interested.  And furthermore was *at work* and didn't have the option to up and leave whenever a difficult or creepy and frightening customer was on the floor.  Or to tell someone off who was acting insane and ridiculous.  I can't really get into all the details right now but one of the things she did after *the husband of cashier called* and angrily told her to leave his wife alone she wasn't interested, was to come *back* into this woman's workplace and complain that she had been treated unfairly.  But even then I was still telling myself there was a chance I could explain to her that she needed to lay off and stop going.  Well she didn't talk to me about it again for months, we talked about other stuff, apart from a week where I refused to speak to her at all which ended when I found myself crying in my car on my lunch break.  So I was working up the courage to start another conversation about her troubling behavior and WHY people found it so upsetting when she told me she'd been going to the store again.  Probably never stopped.  Although I didn't ask.  The last thing I said to her was that I was explicitly dumping her for being a stalker. 

The whole thing continues to haunt me.  I'm second guessing myself, the things I said, the things I didn't say.  I knew I had BPD so I didn't want to "split" on a person and relationship that could still be redeemed.  While it was going on, I tried to be supportive without being dishonest.  Tried to suggest less extreme ways of going about the things she planned to do.  Like instead of writing a letter to a complete stranger maybe just a brief note.  1-3 sentences instead of five paragraphs.  And after delivering a letter, maybe don't keep haunting the store every day while "waiting for a reply."  In fact definitely spend at least a week away from the store (why did she even need to go there more than once a week?  It was a tech store, where tf is she getting the money to be a regular there?).  But especially after receiving no reply, don't go down to the store and fucking confront her about it.  If someone was doing that at my workplace I'd be like, "this fool is going to put a knife in me if I remain anywhere they have access to."  But she had two idiot friends with half a brain cell between them (my ex, presumably, supplied the other half) who thought her behavior was "romantic."  I thought I was going crazy.  But nobody I talked to about it was impressed by her behavior.  In fact every development of the story that I reported to my friend and current roommate was met with only one word: "Terrifying.  Terrifying." 

But I've spent long enough venting about this.  I've stayed up way too late into the morning again.  Stressed out about bills and it doesn't help some of my roommates get a bit noisy at odd hours of the day. 

renaeden:
Well yeah, I thought it was about cheating. Whoops.

You gave her good advice, it was her choice not to listen to it. The way she's going, she could get into trouble with the law. Prison time even. Maybe, maybe not. Being the person she's stalking would be terrifying. That's the right word for it and I don't even know all the details.

You were right about ending it.

conlang returns:
Thank you for the validation.  It helps when I'm spinning my wheels like this. 

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