A more stable relationship is when feelings crystalize, but until then, there's limerence. Two-way limerent relationships are as unstable as a bottle of undiluted nitroglycerin. In any case, limerent relationships are quite common, and are the stuff of music, art, and poetry.
It was crazy. “I love you! I can’t live without you! I’ll kill myself if you leave!”
Next day I’d find a hickey on her neck and get messages from some dude’s wife telling me her husband was fucking my wife.
“That’s not what happened. When I said, “what happened with us” I was talking about a conversation we had at the bar! His wife is lying! She’s crazy by the way. Everyone knows she lies about everything. That physical evidence isn’t physical evidence. You’re crazy. You made all of this up in your head.”
Just get help bud. Don’t let it fester and ruin your life.
When I finally realized I couldn’t salvage my family, she ended up involuntarily committed. She pulled all of her hair out and dragged us into court lying to everyone.
Good luck. Seriously.
Edit:
Oh yeah, as far as loved until hated, I was god until I wasn’t, then everyone in town was convinced I was a violent rapist and a monster until I was god again. Man. Glad all that is over.
Yeah, it gives big "Where are the females like this?" energy, I can definitely see it being written by a lonely chauvinist dirtball. I hope not because it is cute, but the Internet is the Internet, so...
Every single long term relationship I've ever been witness to has been defined by either eventual resentment between partners, or a pervasive sense of apathy between them. The people I've seen who really "make it last" aren't affectionate towards one another after being together for decades: they're codependent. One person supports another person's narcissism and the other person facilitates their partner's alcoholism. That sort of thing.
On a more fundamental level, I'm not sure I even believe that the concept of lifelong partners or lifelong marriage is natural for human beings. Being a part of a community, sure, but being emotionally attached to the same person in the same way forever? Not really. I think it's in our nature to constantly grow, and that typically means growing apart. In fact, that might be a lot healthier for people than the alternative.
Like Abe Lincoln always said, take anything you see written online with a grain of salt and, until you see conclusive evidence otherwise, assume it’s a creative writing exercise.
I am an irascible fool. I’ve spent the majority of the last decade in various stages of depression. I’m overweight, often disheveled, long winded, and ramble about deeply irrelevant technology topics, or unsolvable and depressing political issues. I’m kind of a miser, I never think about fun, and I don’t generally like people. I’m opinionated, judgmental, and quick to speak my mind.
My wife is so beautiful that last week while walking the dogs, some guy circled the block to rev up his engine and take off in front of her while him and his passenger stared at her, engine roaring, running a stop sign in the process and coming within a foot or two of clipping another vehicle that did not have a stop sign. Yesterday, some teenager on a moped nearly fell off trying to awkwardly spin around a roundabout so he could “sneak” another glance at her. Early on in our relationship, we went to a professional networking event, and a man who was supposed to be an HR rep waited for her to go to the restroom so he could tell me how beautiful she was. Three years ago, a friend of a friend asked us for a threesome at a party, and her words to my wife were “I just want to please you and serve you.” She didn’t even look at me. (We didn’t go for it. She smokes.)
My wife is so annoying.
Last week I was trying to get dressed for work and she bum-rushed me for a hug while I was trying to button my pants. And my dumb ass got annoyed about it. She routinely tells me she thinks I’m beautiful, and very charming. She will sometimes just lean around a corner to look at me and squeal. She literally just walked into my office to rub my chest and tell me I’m a babe (like 30 seconds ago). She tells me at least once a week that she gets butterflies around me. She’s giddy and giggly to see me. She’ll text me to tell me she misses me when I’m out of the house for more than 30 minutes. She writes me love letters. (I write her love letters too, I’m not that awful.) She takes pictures of me all the time. There’s a whole album of photos of me that I sometimes just catch her looking at. If I send her a voice memo, she saves it so she can listen to my voice later.
My wife is the best.
Some people just love their partners in expressive and visceral ways, even if their partners are just Monument, a weird and flawed human. But I do my best, and I won’t ever quit.
I don’t get it either. We met in a group chat in 2016, and that lady was like “I choose him, that man that’s like 10 years older than me and a total weirdo and is probably going through some sort of mental health crisis.” She then flirted with me (while I tried to avoid her, because I fucking knew this would happen!) until I relented and sent her pictures of my butt, and then she sold her house and moved across the country to bother me forever. (Some details omitted.)
The real story is… actually that, just less dramatized. We met via a chatroom attached to a subreddit, some folks in that chat formed their own group and we both joined it. Rather - it was formed around her. She was in the process of ending her marriage. We all gave her advice and care, while also being perverts and weirdos that flirted with one another. Several months after her divorce was final, I noticed she started talking to me a lot more, and was sending me DM’s instead of the main chat. Heck, she once asked me if she was attractive, and I remember telling her that any man would think she was - not wanting to tell her she was achingly beautiful. A member of the group had begun to overstep and get creepy. He actually chased off someone pretty cool because he was sort of obsessed with her. I didn’t want to be ‘that guy’ but I also had my own thing going. I was dating a woman in a poly situation, and she was married (all on the level, all parties fully informed and consenting). I enjoyed dating around and generally being a deviant. I had previously had long distance relationships, and I knew they were horrible and hard and awful.
One day, after weeks of flirting back and forth, my wife asked what I was up to, and I told her I had just gotten done taking butt photos for a woman that I used to take butt photos for. (A nonsexual thing, she just liked my butt.) And my wife said I should send her some next time. So I did, and she reciprocated, and I sent more photos, and she sent more photos, and then we had phone calls, then video chats, the thing that made me fall in love with her happened*, and then we had an in-person visit, followed by several more during the most happy and heartbreaking year of my life while I found a better paying job to get a bigger apartment before she moved to live with me. It took a while. We moved in together on our first anniversary.
*She recorded a video of herself singing me happy birthday. It’s probably the most backed up file I own.
My partner and I are like this. We've been together for 14 years and are legit best friends.
I have a feeling too many people paired off right away and decided their first serious relationship was the one, and never actually found an equal. Maybe they married more out of fear of being alone rather than actual desire, or they just can't tell the difference between sexual novelty and love.
Even a lot of my married friends start identifying more with boomer humor than romance after 2 or 3 years. Way too many communication issue, or ideas of traditional roles or how things 'should be' leading to resentment or exasperation.
Court long and marry late. And don't hide your real self when dating.
And here I am, divorced and never marrying again, lucky to be dating the same girl for eight years. And then there's that one day every few years where she runs out of her meds and begins believing I'm plotting against her when I ask how her mom is doing that I think, "I'm super glad I didn't get married again so I can just walk away if this shit lasts more than a few days."
That's love. Staying with someone, not because you're married and a divorce is a huge legal hassle, but because they haven't freaked all the way the fuck out yet.
PS, make friends with your pharmacist, fellow BPSOs. Make sure they keep those mood stabilizers and antipsychotic in stock.
It could happen if you meet the right person and want to share your life with them. Took us close to 8 years of dating before we got married.
Super small wedding, total of 7 people invited. I kept waiting for the "other shoe to drop" with her, but it never did, and then I realized she's the real deal, and I could commit with her without some dark side of her personality showing up or her getting run off to the hills with my issues.
Anyhow, maybe it doesn't work for you, and it sounds like maybe not with your current GF with the mental health issues.
Wishing you guys all the best regardless, just wanted to let you know I was pretty much in the same camp until a couple years ago after my previous marriage ended almost 15 years ago.
