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The intensity that you are describing sounds like limerance.

People confuse Limerance with infatuation or early stages of love, and it’s something much darker than that. There is a fair amount of bad and good info out there.

Liberace is more of an addiction that is caused by getting addicted to dopamine/endorphins/adrenaline that flood your brain due to risky behaviors.

Gambling addiction is a good example of this. Them rough the highs of wining and the uncertainty a cycle develops in which people become addicted to the adrenaline.

Now, I can’t say that is what happened to your husband, but I did experience this and it made me highly unpredictable, and caused me to have intrusive thoughts for a long time. I eventually was treated like an OCD patient.

And despite the good qualities you may be able to see in this woman it doesn’t make her a good person or mean she isn’t soul-less. So it doesn’t mean he didn’t affair down. Men (and women) tend to value loyalty and when faced with an actual relationship with the person knows the other one is unstable or unloyal based on how it all started. Plus she had no issue participating in ruining the lives of two spouses and their children.

The reason I suspect Limerence is because of the immediate intensity. They may have past shared experiences but 25 years later they were strangers again. That’s a lot of life lived and changes that may not have been for the better.

For me, I knew the person very distantly for a few years and when I was mentally in a bad place, I sought mental escapism by inventing these narratives in my head that were not rational, logical or even true. We were texting all day long every single day and saying Inlove you after a month or so. That didn’t feel like it was true but the narratives made it feel like maybe it was possible. Like it never felt real somehow it’s hard to explain. It’s like I knew we were both lying but I needed it to be true.

Limerwnce is common in people who are having some sort of existential crisis, and they are seeking extreme validation. If you look up the Wikipedia page on it I think it explains it well. Dr. Frank Pittman wrote articles on romantic infidelity that to me describes limerqnce as well.

The truth of the matter is that it doesn’t mean you need to excuse the behavior or be weary of his stability. I believe that when the effects of limerance wear off (either by winning the true affection of the other person, or by going through the withdrawal from the flooding endorphins it’s almost like you have woken up from a bad dream.

Like any addiction it still starts with willful decisions and a complete lack of respect for your spouse, and really yourself for that matter. But once it takes hold nothing is logical or rational and it does take a concerted effort to recover. If I had won the true affection and my so, and he had left his wife, then likely the doses of reality would have caused the flood c to stop and withdrawal to happen and then reality take hold. Instead he was caught, and the withdrawal was forced that way and I had a hard time understanding the depths in which I had found myself.

Explaining all this does not excuse it, and I have done a lot of work on myself not to be susceptible to such things in the future. Your instincts are right not to just go back to trusting him. If you are interested in reconciliation, there need to be a lot of therapy to reach the deep levels of self awareness that I think one needs in order tone some of those repairs, and there needs to be a deeper relationship built with his integrity and values.

I am sure this has done a number on you, and you need to consider the best way to position yourself in providing your own safety and security. I would propose in addition to his therapy, that arrangements are made for your financial security to be in place. Money in an account built up, certain things put in your name, etc.

Although he never calls it limerence. That is exactly how he describes it. He has referred often to it as ‘a fantasty’. Which I actually
find quite annoying as a fantasy is a positive thing. You say that even in the midst of it you knew it wasn’t true. I think he absolutely felt it was true. I’m concerned that he isn’t quite out of the madness. I think he would still struggle with me saying something negative about her. He did tell me once that we were very similar which was probably the only moment I have shown my anger. I almost wish he had gone and attempted a relationship with her and realised that actually it wasn’t real.

Yes he has done a number on me and yes my head is scrambled. I also think that after the aha realisation he probably isn’t willing to do the deeper work on himself. And as we all know, you can’t force that.

Thank you for your answer. It is deeply appreciated. I have never felt so close to bonkers. Yes I need to focus on my long term security.

Yes, definitely focus on your long term security.

The knowing it wasn’t true wasn’t completely conscious at the time- it was more of a nagging intuition sort of thing. It took a while to see what had happened. Sometimes it’s hard to admit to yourself that you ruined your life over nothing and it does make you want to hold it up as something that just was even if it didn’t make sense.

I hope that makes sense.

My question for the WS's out there is how did you feel when you came home after you physically were unfaithful for the first time? I asked my wife this question and she said she felt like she had killed someone, a very dark heavy feeling. I asked her why she continued to go back to him and she really had no answers. I feel like she woke up in a bad dream and realized it wasn't a dream at all. Just never understood that terrible moment of regret not stopping her in her tracks right there. It went on for 15 years!

Lost1313

I have wondered this exact same thing. My wife said that the first time she kissed him, she felt terrible after. It was several weeks before them having sex for the first time.

Why wasn't that feeling enough to prevent her from seeing him again? Or to tell me? Telling me would likely have stopped it dead in its tracks. But she "thought she could handle interacting with him without getting closer".

Then she said she felt even worse after the first time having sex, and still it was not enough to stop her or even slow the affair down. They had sex hundreds of times more in the months following. She says she tried to stop several times, but still went back for more, even while feeling like a terrible person.

She even got pregnant and had an abortion, which was devastating for her, and still went back for more.

I just don't understand.

They say its like a drug. Well it must be really powerful to offset all of those dark feelings, and push her to continue going back.

I think there is a compartmentialization thing going on that allowed her to separate the two things.

My therapists thinks it might be different for a wayward man vs wayward woman, but my experience is the compartmentalization is very real. I carried on a LTA and was able to completely avoid thinking about one world when I was in the other. This is a frequent point of discussion with my wife as that concept is hard to comprehend when you are not wired that way. I was wired that way from a traumatic upbringing and it becomes like driving a car (ie you do it without thinking about it). I could come home from being with the AP and never think about what I was doing. I could be with the AP and never think about the damage my choices would cause.

To the earlier question that hikingout answered excellently - adding a bit from a wayward husband. Through doing the work on myself I have realized how little the AP had to do with my infidelity. Could have likely been interchangeable with just about anyone. I realize that may sound off and I definitely did not realize it in the moment, but my choices were a reflection of my brokenness and not anything in the marriage or the AP. I have been listening to lots of Kathy Nickerson and her views on this resonate with both my wife and me. I think limerance is real, but once you snap out of it you realize how meaningless the relationship with the AP really was. As hikingout out wrote, that can be a hard realization as you have to come to grips that the damage you have done was for something that meant so little.

Just my perspective and others may differ.

I posted my story in my first post in the reconciliation thread. My WW had an on and off A with the same AP that was confessed in 2021, followed by an 18 month period of NC and IC/MC in which I think we both believed reconciliation was happening. Problem was, the AP and his family lived down the street and our children remained in the same schools and sports leagues, making it impossible for our lives to not continue to cross paths. Moving or making radical life changes to avoid this was simply not possible. Eventually, they reconnected and the A resumed, and intensified. DDay 2 was in March of this year, a year after AP and family moved out of state. We took steps this time to ensure NC forever, including the OBS and our kids. And as much as I swore I'd never leave and played the pick me game the first time around, this second time ultimatums were made. Maybe like the 180 thing I've seen here. This time, IC and MC have been bought into more by each of us, and trauma from the first DDay has actually been addressed in healthy and more honest ways. This aftermath has been much harder than the first, obviously, but I believe my wife when she expresses her desire to overcome this forever, and she has never blamed me or not taken responsibility for every single aspect of what happened.

My question is for any WS who may have done something similar. Did anyone experience a long period of ending an A, but relapse, then reconcile again? Do you think that first reconciliation period was ever real? It is mind-boggling to think about how she could take that same risk, with the same person, a second time, after the fallout from the first DDay was so traumatic. I have never experienced the limerence she was in, or been pursued by someone else the way she was, though. She is working hard in IC to identify how she became susceptible to it, especially after a lifetime of never going down the road of infidelity, or even struggling with attention from other men. I know some BS posters will take a pretty hard line on her, and be critical of my belief in true reconciliation, but I'm posting here, to hear from WSs who can help me understand.

I do not meet your criteria of relapsing. And unfortunately unless someone surprises me I can’t think of anyone who is actively posting who does.

However-

I do think I understand it and I do think if the ap was in proximity to us in the same way I could see this as a possible thing that may have happened.

I talk about about limerance here because I experienced it, and I believe affairs sometimes end up in addiction. Not addicted to the person, it’s an addiction to adrenaline, endorphins, other brain chemicals.

Let’s say I had gotten addicted to gambling- how would that happen? It wouldn’t have when I start placing bets, it would happen by taking risks (adrenaline) and probably having some sort of significant win (flooding my brain with dopamine/endorphins.

So what happens is to get high again the risks have to keep escalating. And when losses occur then you hit very low lows that make the next win create higher and higher levels of this happy chemicals in the brain. Pretty soon, nothing exists but the highest highs and the lowest lows. In the process, you are risking more and more, far past what you can afford. And regardless of your power being shit off and foreclosures on the house you gain this tunnel vision.

The same sort of response happens in the affair. This is explained pretty well if you look at Wikipedia’s write up on limerance, or most of DR. Frank Pittmans’s work on Romantic infidelity. There are articles on the web by him that describes the madness.

Often when an addiction occurs, it can happen because of boredom, which many ws find chaos to be something they are more comfortable with give their background and home life in development years. It can also often happen in an existential crisis. I was 41 at the time, close to empty nest, and found myself depressed with no feeling of purpose. Research I have done (and it has been extensive) is that women between 39-44 are the fastest growing segment for people who have affairs.

Anyway, for me, the start of the affair was a cognizant decision, so my explanation of what is happening is not an attempt to minimize. It’s an attempt to educate.

So affairs are very unstable, and they are fueled by these escapist narratives. That instability produce a lot of lows because there is often a lot of push/pull in an affair…we should stop… not sure if we can keep doing this…etc. then also when we take any moment to reflect and feelings of deep shame and guilt tend to add to the underlying dark feelings that likely led to the affair. Then there is some sort of romantic gesture and you feel high, your brain floods and you get better and better at ignoring all the damage.

For me there were lots of feelings of numbness by the end because I had been pushing so may feelings away.

NC actually will put you into not just a psychological withdraw, but a physical one because you are no longer producing happy chemicals in a moral way. The addiction has physically altered you.

And as with any addiction, you will start lying to yourself. And I had the advantage of being very removed from the AP and learned to understand that my brain was lying to me, as an addict’s brain will.

It took a while to see I had just assigned a role to the AP, and the driving factor of continuing the affair really was chasing the highs moreso than who I was having the affair with. There was a brainwashing that I had done to myself that had to be worked through. There is an article in the healing library about the brainwashing, or at least there used to be.

There is no way for me to know this is what happened to your wife but in think it’s often seen in relapses and also in people who become obsessive bunny boiler types.

I am a highly functioning, intelligent woman. I have accomplished many things in life. But during that time there was no logic, only an empty pit of a hole that I could not fill. Recovery included a long journey back to discovering who I am, who I wanted to be, and following a path towards self actualization. That hole I had been trying to fill was inside of me- I had to learn to love myself so I could achieve that ability to live and receive love with others. The many aspects of my disfunction- I can trace them, tell you where the origins of them were formed, how my behavior has been modified, and the root of everything was becoming mindful over my thoughts and how the mind lies to you.

I can seethe deep damage this has caused you. And I hope you know that despite all that I have written you owe her nothing. You owe it to yourself to protect yourself and to keep working on you. When I look back at some of my past relationships before marriage the more I see this dynamic has always been there. I just happened to lick up in who I married because it is the only truly stable relationship that I have had (at least for the first 20 years prior to the affair). Now that I have done a lot of healing and understand what happened to me psychologically, we have rebuilt our marriage I don’t believe I will ever be susceptible to anything like this again, I know too much now and I really out my mental health first in a lot of decisions I make, big or small. I am not saying that tomato myself on the back, I am telling you this because the work is hard, it requires long term dedication, and if you don’t see evidence of that, she isn’t digging enough.

I hope this helps. Sorry I am not an exact match to the situation but I think I can relate to it.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:36 PM, Tuesday, December 16th]

Thank you, hikingout

The addiction piece is something my WW has described. That it was like a "separate" part of her life that she did not understand the pull of, but could not shake it. While she admits that aspects of her A were "fun" and that yes, she did enjoy it, she was also disgusted by it. But that it became too easy of an escape from day to day life. What's wild is that we had a very loving, involved marriage in which she remained fully engaged. As a wife, as a mother, through dating me, being intimate and loving, and being successful in her career. But similar to a porn addiction in men, it became a numbing habit she fell into. Even admitting that the daily texting was more a draw than the actual physical encounters, which were always rushed, brief, and sometimes awkward. They never went places together, "dated", or even engaged in love talk. They physical aspect for her was unsatisfying (although the thrill of being illicit and secretive was), but the texting was one of the main draws. She still holds to the answer that she never had an orgasm (and I think I believe this b/c she has been honest about physical things that she could have kept secret forever) Does that make sense?