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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.