Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack

Limerence In Marriage: How To Overcome Your Spouse's Infatuation

• Jack Ito PhD, Psychologist, Author, and Relationship Coach • Season 3 • Episode 38

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On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.

On today's episode, Coach Jack teaches clients to be more secure in their interactions, leading them to much better relationships.

After listening to today's episode, you may want to:

Limerence In Marriage: How To Overcome Your Spouse's Infatuation 

(Podcast Transcript)

(0:00)

[Introduction to the podcast]

Announcer: On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.

(0:29)

Coach Jack: Is your spouse infatuated with someone other than you? How long does limerence last? Managed correctly your spouse’s limerence doesn’t need to be a barrier to building your relationship.

Limerent relationships interfere with your connection with your spouse, because the desire that should be going to you is going toward someone else.

Are there things that you can do that will get those feelings to go toward you again? Yes, there are. First, let’s take a look at what won’t work. 

(0:58)

There are some ineffective ways to end your spouse’s limerence:

It is important not to put down the person your spouse has limerence for. When we attack what people desire, they desire us less. The more you say bad things about the other person, the less desirable you will become to your spouse.

You also can’t end your spouse’s loving feelings for another by trying to rationally explain that those feelings are unrealistic. Reason has nothing to do with desire and you can’t use it to put out an emotional fire. Just as you can’t get your spouse to love you by reasoning, you can’t stop your spouse’s feelings of love for another by reasoning.

Although your spouse doesn’t have a real relationship with the other person (otherwise it would be an affair and not limerence), your spouse’s feelings are very real. Whatever a person believes or feels is real to them, even if we can see there is no rational basis for their beliefs. And, if you confront them with the facts, they use denial to prevent accepting that information.

(2:02)

Denial is a psychological way to put your fingers in your ears or to cover your eyes when someone is saying something you don’t want to believe or shows you something contrary to your beliefs. Helping someone to be motivated to change their beliefs is more effective than trying to prove that their beliefs are wrong.

Your spouse is not currently motivated to give up his or her limerence. You’ve got some work to do.

Let’s take a closer look at what limerence is before I help you to end your spouse’s limerence. 

What is limerence?

Limerence is a strong and persistent feeling of love and attraction toward someone that we are not in a relationship with. If the object of your spouse’s limerence returns those feelings, it is not limerence. 

Make sure you understand this distinction. If your spouse’s feeling for another person are returned by the other person, it is NOT limerence. You will need to deal with it as an emotional affair.

(3:02)

The old expression for limerence is to “have a crush” on someone. It can start as an occasional thought and reach the level of an obsession. An obsession is when someone thinks about something repeatedly to the point it interferes with that person’s ability to function well. With obsessions, people can’t turn their thinking off no matter how much they want to.

Whether at the obsessional level or not, limerence cannot be consciously switched off by the person experiencing it.

Common characteristics of limerence:

  • intense feelings of love and desire
  • an unrealistically positive view of another
  • an emotional escape from reality
  • not influenced by reasoning
  • not influenced by values
  • can’t be changed by evidence
  • other person is imagined to have what is needed
  • can make current relationships seem worse by comparison
  • cannot be intentionally initiated or stopped

(4:02)

Limerence can lead to affairs

Limerence may or may not lead to action by your spouse. It mostly depends on the availability of the other person. Limerence for a movie star, for example, is unlikely to lead to your spouse’s subsequent affair with that person. Limerence for a previous partner or a coworker, however, could certainly lead to an affair if your spouse’s advances are reciprocated.

The best outcome for your relationship would be for your spouse to be strongly and repeatedly rejected by the person they are attracted to. This would make the limerence short lived. Our brains are designed to shut down loving feelings when we are repeatedly rejected. This happens in many relationships.

Values and obligations will determine the amount of secrecy that your spouse will use in pursuit of another, but it will not determine whether he or she has an affair or not. Christian values, for example, do not stop people from sinning. They do, however, make us aware of our need for a savior.

(5:04)

None of us, by our own willpower, can stop sinning or earn our way into Heaven. We can, by our own willpower, turn to God and receive forgiveness. Peace of mind starts with this.

Don’t let limerence run its course

Waiting for limerence to run its course is kind of like letting a small house fire run its course. Avoid people, including professionals, who advise you to let things run their course. Are you aware of any problems, relationship or otherwise, where the best action is to let it run it’s course?

The longer you stand by with a limerent spouse, the longer your relationship will be emotionally distant and the more resentful you will become. That will do damage regardless of whether the limerence eventually ends or not. Of course arguing about it would make things worse, faster.

(5:57)

It is always better to stand by than do damage, but it is always better to help than to stand by. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all is good advice for the short term. However if you go a long time without saying anything at all, your relationship will eventually be as bad as if you weren’t nice in the first place. 

The best actions are the ones that deal with problems immediately and effectively. This not only prevents things from getting worse, it also helps to prevent the same problems from happening again in the future.

If you see a fire hazard in your house, don’t wait until there is a fire to deal with it. If you already have a fire, don’t wait till it’s a bigger fire to put it out. If you already have a big fire, don’t wait until your house burns down to call the fire department. 

Did you know limerence is like an addiction?

(6:52)

Limerence is similar to a chemical addiction. Thinking of it this way can help you have the right attitude toward your spouse. However, just as with chemical addictions, they are not things we support or let run their course. Pornography use is also like a chemical addiction, but standing by, being submissive, or patient is not a loving or effective way to help a porn addicted spouse.

So, how you can help your spouse to overcome limerence? I will give you some …

Actions you can take to end your spouse’s limerence

Your spouse’s limerence started because of what the idealized person is believed to offer. So, for example, it would be easy for an emotionally deprived person to become infatuated with someone believed to be very loving. Poets and singers of love songs have long created infatuation for many women. Adventurous women have long fascinated men bored by the routine of their lives.

(7:51)

Ending your spouse’s infatuation needs to start by your being able to offer satisfaction in regard to the need that triggered your spouse’s limerence. Your spouse did not have such an infatuation with someone else at the beginning of your relationship. That is because you were perceived as having what your spouse needed. That helped him or her to fall in love with you.

Many people do a good job of offering love, romance, and adventure before they are married, but then stop providing it after marriage. Some people provide it until kids are born or a new job is started. Then their spouses become love, adventure, or attention starved. It is important to specifically focus on actions that promote emotional and physical intimacy in marriage.

Emotional hunger is a reality like physical hunger. Providing good emotional nourishment is as essential for spouses as it is for parents.

It is not enough to be a good provider or homemaker. You must also be providing for your spouse’s emotional needs. In addition, you need to continue to be an attractive and desirable partner not only for your spouse, but for other people, too. If the only one who could find you desirable is your spouse, then you are not going to be able to keep your spouse attracted to you.

(9:10)

Attraction goes far beyond appearance, though that is an important component for both men and women. Being attractive usually means being more like you used to be when your spouse was first happily in love with you. Were you more social? Adventurous? Available? Independent? Active? You may note that the person your spouse is infatuated with has many of the characteristics that your spouse used to see in you.

Besides being a desirable person, you also need to be validating. You need to make your spouse feel good about his or her ideas and feelings. Criticism, avoidance, and neglect are the enemies of emotional connection. They all signal to our spouses that that they are not good enough and are unimportant.

(9:58)

It is also necessary to be secure. Insecure spouses are a lot of work. If you are insecure, your spouse will start wishing he or she had a more secure spouse. Those wishes start the fires of limerence burning. For sure there are few, if any, women who are infatuated with men they perceive to be insecure. 

Many men and women have been able to become more secure simply by following my book, Overcome Neediness and Get the Love You Want. I suggest it as a starting point if you have such issues.

As long as you still have contact with your spouse, it is not too late to build your relationship.

Even if your contact with your spouse is minimal, there are still things you can do to get your spouse’s desire to shift away from someone else and toward you. 

Laying the groundwork for ending your spouse’s limerence 

There are three things you need to have in place before the final step of boundaries which will help to switch on your spouse’s love for you. Without these three groundwork principles in place, your boundaries will only switch on anger or indifference.

(11:07)K

Groundwork Step One: Stop your insecure behavior

Especially, make sure that you are not behaving in a jealous way. When we behave in a jealous way, it makes us less desirable and actually pushes our spouse toward the person we are jealous of. I have an article on overcoming jealousy on my website, which may be an easy place for you to start if you have difficulty with jealousy.

Groundwork Step Two: Talk in a way that makes your spouse enjoy talking to you

You can start to help your spouse to enjoy talking with you more, even if your relationship is not close. Talking in a validating way, opens the door to a better relationship. I have some free downloads on my website to help you get started with that if you don’t know how.

(11:54)

Groundwork Step Three: Become more desirable

Another thing you can do is to work on becoming more desirable. It won’t immediately stop your spouse from desiring the other person more, but it will set the stage for having boundaries that your spouse actually cares about.

Ending limerence, like ending an affair, porn addiction, or other addiction involves being desirable and then putting your spouse in danger of losing you if the addiction continues. It is this forced choice which prevents your spouse from having his or her cake and eating it, too. It is the potential loss of a great partner which switches on feelings of love. I have helped thousands of people to restore their spouse’s love and commitment with this combination.

I will tell you more about the boundary in a minute, but remember you don’t start with boundaries with limerence as you would for an affair. 

So, where should you start?

Always start in your spouse’s comfort zone

(12:56)

Trying to get your spouse to do things he or she does not want to do will only get you rejection, just as it would with anybody else. The more you do that, the more you will feel like giving up. Instead, you need to start where your spouse is comfortable interacting and help your relationship to progress from there.

For example, you don’t initiate sex with a spouse who doesn’t find you sexually desirable. And you don’t initiate dates for a spouse who doesn’t want to go out on dates. You don’t even have small talk with a spouse who doesn’t enjoy that. If all your spouse will do with you right now is talk business, then you can consistently make that a good experience so that you can go on to the next step of small talk. 

People who have trouble getting to second base probably tried skipping first base.

All relationships build through an increasing level of interaction which the other person enjoys. If it’s not enjoyable or you move too fast, then relationship development stops.

(13:58)

Boundaries are the last step in the progression

Because your spouse is not having an affair, do not try to put in any boundaries before building your relationship. At some point in your relationship building, you will hit a level that you can’t move past. If you are stuck at some low level, such as just having small talk, it is not the time for using boundaries. 

Getting stuck at low levels is due to moving too fast or not using skills that help your spouse to enjoy interacting with you. Or, you may still have some needy behaviors that are making you more work than fun.

When your relationship is much improved and you are feeling like your relationship is getting close to being really good again, but you just can’t make more progress, that is the time for using good boundaries. They will help you to get all the way.

If you were to use boundaries before your relationship became more enjoyable, your boundaries would cause more conflict, distance, and worse feelings–the opposite of what you are going for in ending limerence. 

(15:02)

As a relationship coach, I am constantly helping people with the skills to go from one relationship step to the next and then to the next. Start at your spouse’s comfort zone and then work your way up. If you don’t know how to get started, get stuck, or need help getting to the next step, I would be happy to work with you one on one to get your spouse’s love aimed back toward you.

(15:28)

 [Podcast wrap-up]

Announcer: Thank you for listening to Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack. Visit coachjackito.com to learn more skills for reconnecting with your spouse and restoring your marriage.