Limerence or When You Can’t Stop Thinking About Them

You know that feeling when someone takes over your mind?

When every spare moment fills with thoughts of them.

When you replay conversations on loop, search for hidden meanings in a text, check your phone, check again.

When a single message can make your heart race or send it plummeting into your stomach.

We tell ourselves this is love. That intensity equals depth. That obsession is proof of something real.

But what if it's not love at all?

What if it's something that feels like love, but actually keeps you trapped in a cycle of anxiety and longing, a pattern that has more to do with your past than your present?

The Pull That Feels Like Magic

Psychologist Dorothy Tennov gave a name to this experience in the 1970s: limerence.

It's that dizzying, all-consuming infatuation that blurs the line between passion and panic. When you're in it, your nervous system is on high alert, flooded with dopamine, adrenaline, and cortisol. You feel alive, electric, hooked.

And beneath the surface, your body is quietly scanning for threat and reward, desperately trying to predict whether you're safe or about to lose everything.

This isn't just emotional.
It's deeply biological.

Your brain's reward circuitry, the same region that lights up with addictive pleasure, fires intensely. Each smile, each text, each ambiguous moment becomes a potential “win." Meanwhile, the rational part of your brain goes quiet. You literally can't think clearly.

You're not imagining it. You're feeling it in your body.

The racing thoughts. The shallow breath. The surge when they text. The crash when they don't. The way your stomach drops when you see them with someone else.

It's not weakness. It's your attachment system on overdrive, operating from an ancient template that equates uncertainty with urgency.

If you want to understand why your body reacts so strongly to uncertainty, this article explains how the nervous system stays on high alert.

Pause for a moment.
As you read this, notice what happens in your body.
A quickening? A heaviness?

Sometimes simply recognising that response is the first step toward healing.

Why It Feels So Intense (and Why That's the Problem)

Limerence thrives on uncertainty.

When love feels unpredictable, warm one day, distant the next, your brain starts chasing the next "hit" of connection. Each flicker of attention feels euphoric. Each withdrawal feels catastrophic.

This cycle mirrors intermittent reinforcement, the same psychological loop that fuels gambling and keeps people glued to social media. Partial, unpredictable rewards are far more addictive than consistent ones.

And the cruel trick? The less available the person is, the more your body leans forward—desperate to close the gap and earn their warmth again.

What you're really chasing isn't them.
You're chasing regulation, that brief, precious moment when you feel whole, wanted, and safe.

But this intensity isn't sustainable. Research suggests limerent states typically last between 18 months and three years before they either soften into genuine love or collapse under their own weight.

What's Really Happening Beneath the Surface

Limerence often begins where old attachment wounds were left unhealed.

Maybe love once meant tiptoeing around a parent's moods, learning to read microexpressions to stay safe.

Maybe affection was unpredictable, lavish one moment, withdrawn the next, and you learned to mistake anxiety for excitement, chaos for passion.

Maybe you grew up feeling invisible, and any attention now feels like sunlight after years of shadow.

Maybe deep down, love has always been tangled with fear, longing, and the quiet belief that you have to perform to be worthy of staying.

So when someone in adulthood recreates that familiar uncertainty, it feels like home, painful, but known. Your nervous system recognises the pattern and says, Ah yes. This is love.

The child part of you whispers: This time will be different. This time, I'll be enough.

But it's not your adult self who's obsessed.

It's the younger self, still trying to earn what was never meant to be earned, still believing love must be chased rather than trusted.

If this pattern feels familiar, this piece explores how early attachment experiences shape adult longing and anxiety in relationships.

If your early attachments were inconsistent, you may have developed an anxious attachment style, constantly scanning for signs of disconnection. Your nervous system learned that proximity is always uncertain, that you had to fight for attention, and you internalized the belief that your needs were too much.

If you lean more avoidant, you might be drawn to unavailable partners because longing from afar feels safer than genuine intimacy. Deep connection actually feels more threatening than yearning from a distance.

Either way, the nervous system confuses familiarity with safety.

Love or Limerence? Learning to Tell the Difference

It can help to name the difference clearly.

Limerence feels like:

Obsessive thoughts that hijack your focus. Fantasizing about who they could be rather than who they are. Emotional rollercoasters of euphoria and despair. Idealizing them and rationalizing red flags. Confusing anxiety for passion. Losing your sense of self. Acting from fear—trying not to be rejected. Intrusive thoughts that disrupt daily life.

Love feels like:

Grounded connection that feels steady even in disagreement. Emotional stability. Mutual care and reciprocity. Seeing each other clearly, flaws and all. Staying yourself while being close. Trust and safety even in absence. Intimacy that deepens through consistent showing up. Curiosity that flows both ways.

Here's the truth: limerence feeds on distance and fantasy. Love grows through safety and presence.

Limerence asks, "Will they choose me?"
Love asks, "Do we choose each other?"

Longing can feel intimate, even without real closeness.

The Fantasy We Build (and Why It's So Hard to Let Go)

When you're caught in limerence, you're not loving the person who's actually there.

You're loving the version your nervous system wishes could finally heal the ache, fill the void, prove you were worth staying for all along.

You might overlook inconsistency or emotional unavailability because the fantasy feels too precious to lose.

You're not addicted to them.
You're addicted to hope.

In therapy, I often ask:

“What do you know from their consistent actions and what are you imagining?", “If a friend told you this story, what would you notice?"

“How does your body feel when you're with them versus waiting for them?"

That last question often reveals everything. Limerence feels better in anticipation than in reality. The fantasy of them is more compelling than their actual presence.

These reflections can be unsettling at first. But they're the beginning of coming home to yourself.

When Limerence Appears Inside a Committed Relationship

Sometimes limerence surfaces even when you love your partner.

You meet someone new, and suddenly that dormant spark of intensity reignites. You're not unhappy, exactly. But someone appears and suddenly that part of you, the part that craves novelty, intensity, being seen with fresh eyes, lights up like a firework.

This doesn't always mean you want to leave. It doesn't necessarily mean your relationship is broken.

Often it means something in your current bond needs attention: a part of you that longs to be seen, touched, or surprised again. Maybe the relationship has settled into routine and you're mistaking comfort for complacency. Maybe you've stopped showing up as your full self.

Or perhaps this outside attraction is a deflection, a way to avoid difficult conversations, unmet needs, or growing pains in your primary relationship.

Limerence can be a signal, not a sentence. A wake-up call rather than a verdict.

If you can turn toward the longing rather than the fantasy, it can become a doorway to deeper honesty and renewal.

Ask yourself:

What does this attraction represent that I'm not getting (or asking for)?

What part of me comes alive with this person that has gone dormant?

Am I running toward something, or away from something?

Sometimes these questions lead you back, not to the other person, but to your own neglected self. Sometimes affairs of the heart (emotional or physical) are less about the other person and more about reclaiming parts of yourself you've abandoned in the name of partnership.

The Neurobiology of Getting Unstuck

Understanding what's happening in your brain can help you compassionately work with these patterns rather than against them.

When you're in limerence, your brain shows similar activation patterns to obsessive-compulsive disorder. The intrusive thoughts aren't a character flaw, they're a feature of a hijacked nervous system.

Your amygdala (fear centre) is overactive, constantly scanning for threat: “Did I say the wrong thing? Why haven't they texted back?"

Your prefrontal cortex (rational brain) is suppressed, which is why logic doesn't help. People saying “just get over it" or “they're not good for you" feels true intellectually but useless emotionally.

Meanwhile, dopamine surges with each uncertain outcome keep you hooked. Your brain has learned: unpredictable reward = keep trying.

Recovery requires working with your nervous system, not just your thoughts.

Somatic practices, feeling your feet on the ground, noticing your breath, moving your body, help bring you back into the present moment rather than the fantasy.

Co-regulation, spending time with safe, steady people who don't trigger your attachment system, teaches your nervous system what secure connection actually feels like.

Gradual boundary work, reducing contact in manageable steps rather than going cold turkey, can help your system adjust without feeling like you're in withdrawal.

How Healing Actually Begins

Healing limerence isn't about shaming yourself for feeling too much. It's about understanding what your nervous system is trying to protect and finding healthier ways to meet those needs.

When we work through this in therapy, we start by naming the pattern and bringing curiosity instead of blame.

We explore what safety feels like in your body and what threat feels like. Often, people discover that safety has become associated with boredom or emptiness, while threat feels like aliveness. Calmness once felt like emptiness, while chaos felt like being alive.

We practice staying with the ache rather than reaching for distraction. Learning that longing, disappointment, and uncertainty won't destroy you. That you can feel intensely without acting impulsively.

We also examine the stories you've internalised about love:

"I have to be chosen to be worthy."

"If they leave, I'll fall apart."

"This intensity means it's real."

"Love shouldn't be this easy, if it is, it's not passionate enough."

"I'm too much, so I need to make myself smaller."

And then we gently ask: What if none of that has to be true anymore?

What if worthiness isn't contingent on someone else's feelings?

What if steadiness isn't the same as boring?

What if you could feel deeply and remain grounded?

The Slow Return to Yourself

Recovery from limerence isn't linear. It moves in waves: clarity, grief, resistance, release, and sometimes regression.

There's the moment of recognition: “Oh. This isn't love. This is a pattern."

Then comes mourning, not just of the person, but of the fantasy, the childhood hope, the version of yourself who believed in fairytale endings. This grief is real and deserves space.

You might feel resistance: “But what if I'm wrong? What if this is different?" Your nervous system will fight to maintain the familiar pattern because uncertainty feels safer than change.

And finally, slowly, comes rebuilding.

You begin to feel your own aliveness again, not dependent on their attention.

You rediscover that safety can feel warm, not dull. That steady doesn't mean settling.

You realise you don't need to chase what is already yours.

This is how limerence softens, not by cutting off your capacity to love, but by letting love find steadier ground. By choosing people who meet you where you are rather than making you perform for proximity.

You're Not Broken

If this sounds like you, please know this:

You're not obsessive, needy, or weak. You're a nervous system trying to make sense of longing in the only way it learned how. You're responding to old blueprints, not current reality.

It's crucial to distinguish between internal struggle and harmful action. If your feelings have led you to repeatedly contact someone who's asked for space, monitor their movements, or violate their boundaries, that's crossed into stalking behaviour, regardless of your internal experience. My blog on recognising and responding to stalking can help you understand why this matters and how to stop.

Real love doesn't demand that you abandon yourself.

It doesn't thrive on anxiety or distance.

It doesn't require you to decode mixed signals or earn basic respect.

It lives in steadiness, curiosity, and choice—in relationships where both people actively participate rather than one person chasing while the other withdraws.

You deserve relationships where you can breathe. Where you don't have to monitor your every word. Where the quiet feels safe, not empty. Where presence is more compelling than fantasy.

You were never meant to earn love through anxiety.
You were meant to rest in it.

That's the work we do together—transforming the ache of obsession into a steady, embodied kind of love.

For others, and for yourself.

Next Steps

If this resonates, I offer a free 15-minute consultation to explore whether working together might help. This initial conversation is a space to share what you're experiencing, ask questions about the therapeutic process, and see if we're a good fit.

You can book directly through my website or send me a message.

Healing is possible. You don't have to stay stuck in this pattern. There's a version of love waiting for you that feels like coming home rather than constantly reaching.

📧 Email: kat@safespacecounsellingservices.com.au
📞 Phone: 0452 285 526