It was so powerful that you gave up your marriage for it… Your dream is now a nightmare. You gave up everything you needed to give up to acquire this one rare jewel and now the jewel has moved beyond your grasp. You feel out of control. Lost. Miserable.
It's like the kiss of death. It's when your spouse comes to you and says: "I love you, but I'm not in love with you." Is it time to panic when you hear that? Actually it may be.
There is a word for the feeling of being "madly in love", and we'll use that word because it's easier than saying feeling madly in love with somebody else.
There is a difference between that feeling of love and being "madly in love."
What is going on in the head/heart of someone [...]
What happens when an affair ends abruptly?
You are not quite sure how you got yourself into the affair, and even less sure about how to end an affair. You love your paramour but hate the sneaking and cheating. So constantly, you vacillate between ending the affair and giving yourself totally to it.
Though limerence by its very nature is relatively short-lived (typically lasting somewhere between 3 months and 36 months) it is a very real and intense emotion/feeling. When a person decides to leave a limerent relationship, or if they are the one abandoned by the other, the emotions don't immediately disappear.
Most people have never even heard of the word “limerence.” But if someone has heard of it, they probably ignored it because it didn't seem to make any sense. Limerence is a feeling of being madly in love with someone. It is a euphoric sensation that has no comparison.
You suspected it long before you knew it for sure. Your spouse changed but you couldn’t quite explain the changes in a way that seemed to make sense to anyone else. You thought that you were imagining things, being insecure in thinking your spouse had someone else.