I’m a lifelong limerent, current LO going on 4 years, found this sub 2.5 years ago and it woke me up and has always been my main source of support. I’ve had a dramatic turn of events with my LO that I’m still struggling to deal with. My limerence was practically dormant, I’d accepted that I couldn’t have contact with him on social media without starting to fantasize, so I planned to go NC on New Year’s Day just to give the final blow to the limerence and take back the power he’s always had over me. We rarely see each other in real life, so the limerence is really just fueled by contact over social media. Now, overnight, he has become a driving force in my life for positive change. Out of the blue, he sent me a job opening at his company, encouraged me to apply, is working behind the scenes to try and push the application through, and yesterday we had an hour and a half long phone call where he gave me career advice, and explored various career opportunities where he has professional contacts and implied that he was willing to engage with them on my behalf. This phone call was the longest conversation I’ve ever had with him.

Back story. I’m living abroad, working as an English teacher for 11 years, married to a local and raising my kids. I basically gave up career opportunities when I moved here, and I’m almost 50, but I still have hopes of finding a job that could get me back on track. I have ADHD, which has made it almost impossible to rise up out of the everyday childcare tasks and search online for jobs. There’s also a slight language barrier that puts me at a disadvantage for local jobs. So when I met LO 4 years ago I had a huge gaping hole that he filled. He is well traveled, works for international corporation, speaks English fluently, more open minded than the traditional men here (he also has an ex wife, two kids and a long term partner). He offered career help way back then, but I blew it one night by drinking a liter of beer, hitting on him in his car while trying to sober up, drunken embrace in the parking lot, he leaned in to kiss me, but at that point I’d never cheated on my husband and I couldn’t go through with it. I contacted him the day after and he rejected me, unfollowed me on all social media platforms and that was that. I was destroyed, and that’s when the limerence began.

Over the next 4 years, he slowly crept back to me on social media, while always being polite but distant in public. This avoidant behavior created intermittent reinforcement that kept me hooked. One day my husband read something that I’d written about that night and basically ended our marriage – no talking about it, no counseling, no reconciling, just done. We’d had problems for years so I don’t want to continue the marriage either. But we’re stuck in the same house until I can get a full time job. So, my limerence for my LO destroyed my marriage, and now he’s offering me the help I need to get out. And I am so desperate that I really have no choice. Can you see how easy it is to over dramatize this and think that my LO is some puppet master that is controlling my destiny? And that I will never be able to untangle myself from him?

But it’s exactly this thinking that I’m trying to overcome. I want to see this new development with him as a fresh start of a new professional relationship. Our connection may be based on the past, that drunken night, but it doesn’t have to be defined by it. While I’m working on my resume and researching jobs, he occupies a completely different part of my brain – the creative, collaborative part, not the fantasy part. But I have to be disciplined, because the sexual fantasies are banging on the door, demanding to be let in. I have to find a way to compartmentalize this person into two boxes, personal and professional.

TDLR, please give support regarding separating professional networking relationship and long term limerent/sexual feelings.