Limerence: When Infatuation Feels Like Love — and Why It’s So Hard to Let Go

You may have seen the word limerence everywhere lately — especially across TikTok and relationship psychology spaces. Many people describe it as being “obsessed” with someone, constantly thinking about them, and feeling like you need their attention to feel okay.

But limerence is deeper than a crush.
And it is definitely not the same as healthy love.

The term limerence was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s. She described it as:

An intense and involuntary emotional state where a person feels overwhelming longing, fantasises about another person, and depends heavily on whether that person returns their affection.

In simple terms:

Limerence = emotional addiction.

And for many people, it has far more in common with trauma bonding than romantic love.

What Limerence Feels Like

Limerence often begins quickly — sometimes instantly.

It feels like:

• A rush of excitement

• Intense attraction

• Obsessive thinking

• Daydreaming about a future together

• Constantly checking for signs they feel the same way

And the intensity becomes even stronger if the person is unavailable, inconsistent, or hard to read.

Because the thrill is not just about love —
it’s about uncertainty.

5 Common Causes of Limerence

1. Childhood Emotional Neglect

If you grew up in a home where emotional needs were ignored or minimized, you may have learned to:

• Chase attention

• Earn love

• Prove your worth

Limerence can feel strangely familiar — the “chasing” feels like home.

Fantasising about the other person often becomes a way to fill emotional emptiness or escape feelings of unworthiness.

2. Insecure Attachment

Without reliable emotional connection in childhood, we may develop:

• Anxious attachment → “I need them to choose me.”

• Avoidant attachment → “I want connection, but I feel safer from a distance.”

• Disorganised attachment → Wanting both closeness and distance intensely.

Limerence allows us to feel love without having to actually be vulnerable.

It’s the fantasy of intimacy — without the risk of real emotional exposure.

3. Childhood Trauma

When caregivers were frightening, unpredictable, or abusive, love becomes associated with:

• longing

• anxiety

• craving

• emotional highs and lows

Limerence recreates that same emotional rollercoaster.
It can also act as a dissociative coping mechanism — an escape into fantasy when real life feels overwhelming or painful.

4. OCD / Intrusive Thinking Patterns

Limerence often involves:

• obsessive thoughts

• repetitive checking

• mental replaying

• compulsive attempts to feel “certainty”

For some people, limerence is actually a form of OCD behaviour, where the obsession is the person.

5. Borderline Personality Dynamics (BPD Patterns)

With BPD, there is often:

• an intense fear of abandonment

• difficulty regulating emotions

• idealising → then devaluing others

Limerence can amplify this cycle:

“I want them — I need them — but I’m terrified they will leave.”

The fantasy becomes safer than real connection.

Common Signs of Limerence

You may be experiencing limerence if:

• Your attraction feels overwhelming and fast

• You think about them constantly

• You fantasize more than you interact

• You ignore red flags

• You put them on a pedestal

• Your self-worth depends on how they respond

• You barely know them, but feel deeply attached

• The relationship exists more in your mind than reality

Limerence feels euphoric at first — but painful and consuming over time.

So How Do We Break Free?

1. Recognise When It’s Happening

Naming it reduces its power.
Awareness interrupts the fantasy loop.

2. Heal the Original Wound

This usually involves trauma therapy, attachment work, inner child work, EMDR, or somatic processing.

The goal is not to erase your past —
but to teach the nervous system that safety and connection can exist without intensity or chasing.

3. Challenge the Fantasy

Ask yourself:

• Do I know this person deeply — or am I in love with a story I’ve built?

• Is this relationship real, or imagined?

Truth brings grounding.

4. Regulate Your Emotions

Because limerence thrives in emotional dysregulation, small daily regulation practices matter:

• Rest

• Hydration

• Eating regularly

• Time in nature

• Breathwork

• Co-regulation with safe people

Your nervous system cannot heal if it is starving, overwhelmed, or exhausted.

5. Practice Slow, Safe Relationships

Healthy love is steady.
It is not extreme, dramatic, or all-consuming.

At first, this may feel “boring” —
because your nervous system is adjusting to safety.

Stay with it.

Your capacity for calm, secure love grows with time.

If You’re Realising You’re in Limerence

Please hear this:

You are not foolish.
You are not dramatic.
You are not “too much.”

Your nervous system learned to attach in the only way it knew how.

And now — you are learning a new way.

This is healing in real time.

You deserve a love that feels safe, mutual, steady, and real.
Not a love that you have to chase.