Limerence

right|240px|thumb|[[Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, by Antonio Canova, first version 1787–1793]]

Limerence is the mental state of being madly in love when reciprocation of the feeling is uncertain. This state is characterized by intrusive thoughts and idealization of the loved one (also called "crystallization"), typically with a desire for reciprocation to form a relationship. This is accompanied by feelings of ecstasy or despair, depending on whether one's feelings seem to be reciprocated or not. Research on the biology of romantic love indicates that the early stage of intense romantic love (also called passionate love) resembles addiction, but academics do not currently agree on how love addictions are defined. The concept grew out of her work in the 1960s when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love, originally published in her book Love and Limerence. According to Tennov, "to be in a state of limerence is to feel what is usually termed 'being in love. She coined the term to disambiguate the state from other less-overwhelming emotions and to avoid the implication that people who don't experience it are incapable of love. Tennov was inspired to study romantic love after encountering people in her post as a professor who experienced severe heartbreak and personal perils. love madness, intense infatuation, or lovesickness. Limerence is also sometimes compared to and contrasted with a crush, with limerence being much more intense and impacting day-to-day functioning more: "when a crush has taken over your life".

Love and Limerence has been called the seminal work on romantic love, with Tennov's survey results and the various personal accounts recounted in the book largely marking the start of data collection on the phenomenon.

Overview

Dorothy Tennov's research was intended to be a scientific attempt at understanding the nature of romantic love. She identified a suite of psychological properties associated with a state she called limerence—usually termed "being in love", but distinguishable from other types of attraction patterns that the phrase "in love" might also refer to. Other authors have considered limerence to be an emotional and motivational state for focusing attention on a preferred mating partner or an attachment process.

Joe Beam calls limerence the feeling of being "madly in love". An unfulfilled, intense longing defines the state, where the individual becomes "more or less obsessed by that person and spends much of their time fantasising about them". Hayes suggests it is "the unobtainable nature of the goal which makes the feeling so powerful", and occasional, intermittent reinforcement may be required to support the underlying feelings. Tennov calls this "crystallization", after a description by the French writer Stendhal. This "crystallized" object of passionate desire is what Tennov calls a "limerent object" (LO), "because to the degree that your reaction to a person is limerent, you respond to your construction of LO's qualities".

Limerence has psychological properties akin to the concept of passionate love,

Not everyone experiences limerence. Tennov estimated that 50% of women and 35% of men experience limerence based on answers to certain survey questions she administered. Another survey administered by neuroscientist and limerence blogger Tom Bellamy indicated that 64% had experienced it at least once, and 32% "found it so distressing that it was hard to enjoy life".

It can be difficult for people who have not experienced limerence to understand it, and it is often derided and dismissed as some pathology, or an invention of romantic fiction. According to Tennov, limerence is not a mental illness, although it can be "highly disruptive and extremely painful", called "irrational, silly, embarrassing, and abnormal" or sometimes "the greatest happiness" depending on who is asked.

Components

The original components of limerence were:

Famous examples

thumb|[[Dante and Beatrice (painting)|Dante and Beatrice, by Henry Holiday, depicts Beatrice refusing to speak to Dante, an event which according to Dante left him so overcome with sorrow that he bitterly cried himself to sleep, "like a little child [...] after it has been beaten".]]

Historical

Stendhal, whom Love and Limerence is written in memory of, and his unrequited love for a woman named Mathilde, which inspired him to write De l'Amour—the only comprehensive approach to limerence which Tennov could find at the time of her research
Dante Alighieri's unending but unrequited love for Beatrice Portinari, who was a real person, despite Dante's account being fictionalized
Lady Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron, who shared an affair that Byron dropped out of, with Lamb remaining obsessed for a time afterward
Heloise, the 17-year-old mistress of the 12th-century cleric-philosopher Peter Abelard, who was castrated by hoodlums ordered by Heloise's uncle, who mistakenly believed Abelard had abandoned her. Heloise's limerence for Abelard remained intense for many years after their marriage and subsequent separation, depicted in the Letters of Abelard and Heloise

Fictional

Severus Snape's love for Lily Evans, the mother of Harry Potter
Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, from the Twilight series
Romeo and Juliet
Mr. Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice One principle reason is to resolve ambiguities with the word "love" being used both to refer to an act (which is chosen), as well as to a state (which is endured): A person not currently experiencing limerence is called "nonlimerent", but Tennov cautions that it seemed to her that there is no "nonlimerent personality" and that potentially anyone could experience limerence. Tennov says: In one passage she clearly says that limerence is love, at least in certain cases:

<blockquote>In fully developed limerence, you feel additionally what is, in other contexts as well, called love—an extreme degree of feeling that you want LO to be safe, cared for, happy, and all those other positive and noble feelings [...]. That's probably why limerence is called love in all languages. [...] Surely limerence is love at its highest and most glorious peak.</blockquote>

However, Tennov switches in tone and continues on with a fairly negative story of the pain felt by a woman reminiscing over the time she wasted pining for a man she now feels nothing towards, something which occupied her in a time when her father was still alive and her children "were adorable babies who needed their mother's attention." Tennov says this is why we distinguish limerence (this "love") from other loves.

Romantic love

thumb|[[Tristan and Isolde (Egusquiza)|Tristan and Isolde (Death), by Rogelio de Egusquiza. In this myth, the two drink a love potion by mistake, when Iseult is due to be married to Tristan's uncle, a king. In one version of the story, Tristan dies of a broken heart after a signal sent by Iseult is miscommunicated to him as a rejection. In another version, Tristan is mortally wounded but Iseult cannot save him and gives up her spirit. The story is said to be the quintissential courtly romance.]]

Dorothy Tennov sometimes considers limerence to be synonymous with "romantic love", Some examples of romantic love stories in this vein are Layla and Majnun, Tristan and Iseult, Dante and Beatrice (from La Vita Nuova), Romeo and Juliet and The Sorrows of Young Werther.

The literary genre dates back to troubadour poetry from the Middle Ages (or earlier), also known as "courtly love". Tennov credits Andreas Capellanus as describing limerence "very accurately" in The Art of Courtly Love, a book of statutes for the "proper" conduct of lovers. The work includes rules such as "A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thoughts of his beloved." and "The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized." The work is believed to have helped spread romantic love culture throughout Europe. Romantic love in this sense is sometimes held to be socially constructed (often by critics), but Tennov argues that limerence has a biological basis.

Tennov sometimes considers limerence synonymous with "falling in love",

"Romantic love" originally referenced this courtly idea, but then came to have other connotations. In modern scientific literature, "romantic love" is instead often used as a synonym for "passionate love", a more general concept, also often associated with limerence. In her era, Tennov called the scientific literature "confused and contradictory". John Alan Lee has also complained about this reduction to a monolithic typology, or "one true love". Helen Fisher commented that she preferred the term "romantic love" for its meaning in society.

Passionate and companionate love

Limerence is often associated with "passionate love", with Elaine Hatfield considering them synonymous, and commenting in 2016 that they're "much the same".

<blockquote>A state of intense longing for union with an other. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy. Unrequited love (separation) with emptiness; with anxiety, or despair. A state of profound physiological arousal.</blockquote>

Passionate love is linked to passion, as in intense emotion: for example, joy and fulfillment, but also anguish and agony. According to Hatfield, passion is a "hodgepodge of conflicting emotions", and the original meaning "was agony—as in Christ's passion." Tennov's study, however, focused on the aspects of love which cause distress, and on individuals over relationships. Another problem she encountered in her research was that informants would use terms like "passionate love", "romantic love" and "being in love" to refer to mental states other than what she refers to as limerence. Informants would use the word "obsession", yet not report the intrusive thoughts necessary to limerence, only that "thoughts of the person are frequent and pleasurable".

Passionate love is commonly measured with the Passionate Love Scale (PLS), originally designed to measure the same state denoted by limerence. Later research found the PLS has overly broad questions, and it actually has two general components (called factors): an obsession factor and a non-obsession factor. Limerence is comparable to passionate love with obsession: In Love and Limerence, Tennov considers "infatuation" to be pejorative, for example, being used to label teenage fantasizing about a celebrity which is actually limerence.

In the triangular theory of love, by Robert Sternberg, "infatuation" refers to romantic passion without intimacy (or closeness) and without commitment, which he has stated is essentially the same as limerence.

Independent emotion systems

Helen Fisher's popular theory of independent emotion systems posits that there are three primary systems involved with human reproduction, mating and parenting: lust (the sex drive, or sexual desire), attraction (passionate love, infatuation or limerence) and attachment (companionate love). These three systems regularly work in concert together but serve different purposes and can also work independently. According to Fisher, lust, attraction and attachment can occur in any order. Independent emotions theory has been critiqued as being oversimplified, but the general idea of separate systems remains useful. Fisher's theory is that a person can feel deep attachment for a long-term spouse, while they're in limerence with somebody else, while they can be sexually attracted to still yet other people. Joe Beam comments that if somebody in a committed relationship ends up in limerence like this, it will pull them out of their relationship. Tennov encountered this occasionally in her own research, finding cases of otherwise heterosexual women experiencing limerence for an older woman (compared to "hero worship"), but dismissed it as being outside her theory. Lisa Diamond argues this is possible (even in contradiction to sexual orientation) because the brain systems evolved by repurposing the systems for mother-infant bonding (a process called exaptation). According to this theory, it would not have been adaptive for a parent to only be able to bond with an opposite sex child, so the systems must have evolved independent of sexual orientation. An attachment figure is a "secure base" for safety while exploring the environment, the child seeks proximity with the attachment figure when threatened, and suffers distress when separated.

A 1990 study found considerable overlap of distributions between all three attachment styles and limerence (reported at similar frequencies), but the 15% of participants with an anxious attachment style scored about 10–20% higher on obsessive preoccupation and emotional dependence, and avoidants idealized more. Along with scoring highly on limerence, the anxious group also scored highly on the agape love attitude, for selfless, all-giving love. Limerence is considered similar or related to the love style mania (or manic love), named after the Ancient Greek theia mania (the madness from the gods). Lee developed his mania concept from sources similar to Tennov, like Andreas Capellanus and courtly love. When asked to recall their childhood, a typical manic lover recalls it as unhappy, and they're usually lonely, dissatisfied adults. They're anxious to fall in love, but they're unsure of which physical type they prefer. According to Lee, "Mania can become almost an addiction nearly impossible for the addict to end on his own initiative." Mania is often the first love style of a young person, but others may not experience it until middle age—for example, after a marriage has lost interest.

Lee describes the manic lover as jealous,

Among the other love styles, mania can be closely compared to eros (erotic love, or love of beauty). Both are often considered "romantic love", both involve "falling in love", and taken together they correspond to the way the Passionate Love Scale is defined. Unlike a manic lover, however, the erotic lover is aware of a physical type they consider ideal. As such, eros begins with a powerful initial attraction, referred to by Stendhal as "a sudden sensation of recognition and hope". The eros love style is not "blind", then. According to Lee, only manic lovers typically "crystallize" (as Stendhal described it) and ignore shortcomings and flaws in their beloved. The erotic lover also recalls their childhood as happy, and eros has been associated with secure attachment, while mania has been associated with attachment anxiety and neuroticism. A third style, manic eros, is a mixture "moving either toward a more stable eros or toward full-blown mania". Some are erotic lovers under a temporary strain (moving toward mania), while others are manic lovers with a self-confident and helping partner (moving toward eros).

According to Lee, the love style ludus (noncommittal love as a game, avoidance and juggling multiple partners, e.g. Don Juan) and mania possess a "fatal attraction" for one another. It's surprisingly common, but not a good match for happy, mutual love. According to Tennov, Don Juan was probably nonlimerent, "more interested in exploiting the feeling in others for his own sexual gratification", although nonlimerence doesn't necessitate this.

Love addiction

"Love addiction" is a heterogeneous construct under discussion as a potential mental disorder, but does not yet exist in any psychiatric nosology (e.g. not in the DSM). Academics do not currently agree on when love is an addiction or when it needs to be treated. In a narrow view, love could be considered addiction only when it involves abnormal processes carrying negative consequences; alternatively, a broader view is that all love might be addiction, or simply an appetite, similar to how humans are dependent on food. Authors such as Helen Fisher have also included those "who have been rejected or broken up with" as love addicts. Sharon Brehm has wondered what limerence would feel like "if there were a cultural tradition encouraging us to work with it rather than be assailed by it".

Erotomania

Limerence is different from erotomania, a delusional disorder where the sufferer falsely believes their love is secretly reciprocated when it isn't, and invents ways to interpret outright rejections as unserious. A person in limerence by comparison might "grasp for hope" and misinterpret signals, or imagine reciprocation in a fantasy, but they will understand a rejection. Helen Fisher and colleagues have stated that erotomania may be a type of schizophrenia, and may not involve the same brain reward system activity as romantic love.

<blockquote>For what ultimate cause might the state of limerence be a proximate cause? In other words, why were people who became limerent successful, maybe more successful than others, in passing their genes on to succeeding generations[.] Did limerence evolve to cement a relationship long enough to get the offspring up and running? [...] The most consistent result of limerence is mating, not merely sexual interaction but also commitment, the establishment of a shared domicile in the form of a cozy nest built for the enjoyment of ecstasy, for reproduction, and for the rearing of children.</blockquote>

According to the evolutionary theory by the anthropologist Helen Fisher, limerence is the activation of a motivation system for choosing and focusing energy on a potential mating partner. This brain system evolved for mammalian mate choice, also called "courtship attraction". In this phenomenon, a preferred mating partner is chosen based on a display of physical traits (such as a peacock's tail feathers) or other behaviors. Fisher also includes the attraction to personality traits and other characteristics in her mate choice theory for humans. Who a person falls in love with then is determined by their "love map", a largely unconscious list of traits they desire in an ideal partner. Love maps begin forming during childhood based on experiences with parents and friends, among other associations, but also change over time. In most species, courtship attraction is brief, but intense romantic love can last much longer in humans. The handicap principle in evolutionary theory is based on a contention between honest and fake signaling. When real emotions evolve, a niche is created for sham emotions (e.g. fake facial expressions) which are less risky to express. One explanation for why honest signals can evolve without becoming worthless (because of competing fakers) is that the honest signal can evolve if it's too expensive to fake. One example in nature is the peacock's tail, an example of conspicuous consumption, a cumbersome display which consumes nutrients. Only a healthy peacock can afford it, so in that case it may have evolved because it was a handicap, and used by females of the species as an indicator of health. Limerence can be seen as a handicap signal meant to prove one's true commitment to their limerent object. Limerence might have evolved to leave the person experiencing it so insanely besotted that they would not leave for another mate, even a more valuable one. Limerents and nonlimerents tend not to always get along, nor have compatible relationship interests. Limerence would also be affected by culture, according to Tennov. A culture which idealizes limerence might cause the nonlimerent LO to be more tolerant (or even imitate it), whereas a culture which is hostile to limerence might cause it to be denied, hidden or suppressed.

Characteristics

Addiction

thumb|Key connections in the [[mesocorticolimbic pathway.]]

Limerence has been called an addiction. The early stage of romantic love is being compared to a behavioral addiction (i.e. addiction to a non-substance) but the "substance" involved is the loved person. A team led by Helen Fisher used fMRI to find that people who had "just fallen madly in love" showed activation in an area of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA) while looking at a photograph of their beloved. Dopamine signaling in the VTA is the origin of a phenomenon called incentive salience, also called "wanting" (in quotes). This is the property by which cues in the environment stand out to a person and become attention-grabbing and attractive, like a "motivational magnet" which pulls a person towards a particular reward. Fisher's team proposes that romantic love is a "positive addiction" (i.e. not harmful) when requited and a "negative addiction" when unrequited or inappropriate.

Lovesickness

thumb|[[The Love Potion, by Evelyn De Morgan. According to Tennov, "the love potion’s ingredients remain secret. Limerence is unaffected by the intensity of our desire to call it into or out of existence at our wills.", but she asks "Is the love potion a hormone?"]]

Usually limerence is unrequited, and a horrible experience for the limerent person, even debilitating for some. Helen Fisher's fMRI scans of rejected lovers showed activation in brain areas associated with physical pain, craving and assessing one's gains and losses. The physiological effects of limerence include trembling, pallor, flushing, weakness, sweating, butterflies in the stomach and a pounding heart. When Tennov asked her informants where the sensation of limerence was felt, "they pointed unerringly to the midpoint in their chest. So consistently did this occur that it would seem to be another indication that the state described is indeed limerence".

In a 1987 survey by Shere Hite in which many participants described relationships which were clearly limerent, 69% of married women and 48% of single women "neither liked, nor trusted, being in love", and their responses indicated being in love was mostly distressing. 17% "could no longer take love seriously". Tennov describes being under the spell herself: "Before it happened, I couldn't have imagined it[.] Now, I wouldn't want to have it happen again." Some people even described to her incidents of self-harm, but Tennov maintains that such tragedies involve limerence "augmented and distorted" by other factors.

There's debate among academics over when love can be considered addiction, and whether addiction is really a "true" mental illness. The lovers described by Tennov bear a particular resemblance to addicts, but limerence was not intended to denote an abnormal state.

The symptoms of lovesickness still bear resemblance to entries in the DSM, which now includes some addictions, and there are other entries which also resemble core symptoms of falling in love: preoccupation, episodes of melancholy, rapture and instability of mood.

It has been argued that falling in love is involuntary, but whether one's subsequent behavior could be considered autonomous may depend on whether addictive love is viewed as a normal or abnormal state.

<blockquote>At first sight, it seems extraordinary that evolutionary forces might conspire to shape something that looks like a mental illness to ensure reproductive success. Yet, there are many reasons why love should have evolved to share with madness several features—the most notable of which is the loss of reason. Like the ancient humoral model of love sickness, evolutionary principles seem to have necessitated a blurring of the distinction between normal and abnormal states. Evolution expects us to love madly, lest we fail to love at all.</blockquote>

According to Tennov, "Love has been called a madness and an affliction at least since the time of the ancient Greeks and probably earlier than that." Historically, lovesickness has been attributed to arrows shot by Eros, a sickness entering through the eyes (like evil eye), excess of black bile, spells, potions and other magic. The first known treatise on the subject is Remedia Amoris, by the poet Ovid. People have tried to treat lovesickness with a variety of natural products, charms and rituals. One study found that on average people in love spent 65% of their waking hours thinking of their beloved. Arthur Aron says "It is obsessive-compulsive when you're feeling it. It's the center of your life." Fantasies can nevertheless be wildly unrealistic: one person recalled an elaborate rescue, in which he saves an LO's 5-year-old cousin from motorcycles, only to be killed by a snake in the lap of his LO as she tells him "I love you". This fantasizing along with the replaying of actual memories forms a bridge between ordinary life and the eventual hoped-for moment: consummation. Tennov says that limerent fantasy is "inescapable", something that just "happens" as opposed to something one "does".

Ellen Berscheid & Elaine Hatfield (cited by Tennov) state on the importance of fantasy:<blockquote>When the lover closes his eyes and daydreams, he can summon up a flawless partner—a partner who instantaneously satisfies all his unspoken, conflicting, and fleeting desires. In fantasy he may receive unlimited reward or he may anticipate that he would receive unlimited reward were he ever to actually meet his ideal. Compared to our grandiose fantasies, the level of reward we receive in our real interactions is severely circumscribed. As a consequence, sometimes the most extreme passion is aroused by partners who exist only in imagination or partners who are barely known.</blockquote>One theory of obsessive thinking draws a parallel with drug addiction: the early stage of romantic love is compared to addiction, and drug addicts also exhibit obsessive thoughts about drug use. In the late 1990s, it was also speculated that falling in love lowered serotonin levels in the brain, believed to cause intrusive thoughts. This was based on a comparison to obsessive–compulsive disorder, but the experiments were ambiguous. One of Tennov's informants says:

<blockquote>Yes I knew he gambled, I knew he sometimes drank too much, and I knew he didn't read a book from one year to the next. I knew and I didn't know. [...] I dwelt on his wavy hair, the way he looked at me, the thought of his driving to work in the morning, his charm (that I believed must surely affect everyone he met), the flowers he sent, [...]. Okay! I know it's crazy, that my list of 'positives' sounds silly, but those are the things I think of, remember, and, yes, want back again!</blockquote>

This kind of "misperception" or "love is blind" cognitive bias which modern research considers to be a form of positive illusions. Past authors have sometimes depicted idealization as a malady, but significant scientific evidence has shown that positive illusions actually contribute to relationship satisfaction, long-term well-being and decreased risk for relationship discontinuation. Tennov argues against the term "idealization", because she says it implies that the image seen by the person experiencing romantic passion "is molded to fit a preformed, externally derived, or emotionally needed conception".

<blockquote>I decided to make a list in block letters of everything about Elsie that I found unpleasant or annoying. It was a very long list. On the other side of the paper, I listed her good points. It was a short list. But it didn't help at all. The good points seemed so much more important, and the bad things, well, in Elsie they weren't so bad, or they were things I felt I could help her with.</blockquote>

Readiness

Some people have a heightened susceptibility to limerence, a state Tennov calls "readiness", "longing for limerence" or being "in love with love". This can occur due to biological factors (like adolescence), but also psychological factors (like loneliness or discontent). Sometimes readiness can be so intense that a person falls in love with somebody with only minimal appeal. These clinical theorists have been interpreted as dealing with the same ("hot, passionate") aspects of love as Tennov, although they were writing before her. arguing that if people have many unmet social needs and are unaware, then a sign somebody is interested in them may become magnified into something quite unrealistic.

Uncertainty and hope

According to Dorothy Tennov, as an elaboration on a theory by Stendhal, "uncertainty" is a key element to limerence:

<blockquote>The recognition that some uncertainty must exist has been commented on and complained about by virtually everyone who has undertaken a serious study of the phenomenon of romantic love. Psychologists Ellen Berscheid and Elaine Walster discussed this common observation made, they note, by Socrates, Ovid, the Kama Sutra, and "Dear Abby," that the presentation of a hard-to-get as opposed to an immediately yielding exterior is a help in eliciting passion.</blockquote>

Rather than being an emotion itself, romantic love is a motivational state which elicits different emotions depending on the situation: In the reward theory of attraction, an LO is seen as a reinforcer because of the potential for a rewarding experience in their presence.

According to Tennov's theory, two elements are required for limerence to develop and intensify: hope and uncertainty. There must be at least some hope that an LO will reciprocate, but uncertainty over their true feelings is required for the preoccupation and mood changes to intensify. In some cases, uncertain reciprocation can produce mood swings which are so abrupt as to cause emotional volatility, even in generally stable people. One of Tennov's informants recalls: "When I felt [Barry] loved me, I was intensely in love and deliriously happy; when he seemed rejecting, I was still intensely in love, only miserable beyond words."

Limerence normally subsides when either:

all hope of reciprocation is ended;
the limerent person enters a relationship with the LO and receives adequate reciprocation;
limerence is "transferred" to a different LO.

In even some further cases ("and this is the madness of it", Tennov says), the lovesickness and intrusive thoughts can still remain, even after all hope is exhausted and the sufferer wants to be rid of the state.

thumb|"Both gamblers and limerents find reason to hope in wild dreams."

The uncertainty of limerence has been interpreted as intermittent reinforcement by Robert Sternberg, keeping the brain "hooked" in. This relies on a mechanic of dopamine, which does not encode reward per se, but rather encodes a "reward prediction error" signal: whether a given reward is better than, equal to, or worse than expected. A slot machine involves a comparable situation, where the rewards are designed to be always unpredictable so the gambler cannot understand the pattern. Unable to habituate to the experience, for some people the exhilarating high from the unexpected wins leads to gambling addiction and compulsions. If the machine paid out on a regular interval (so that the rewards were expected), it would not be as exciting. This "intensification through adversity" was crucial to the mutual limerence of Romeo and Juliet, hence this is often called "the Romeo and Juliet effect". Helen Fisher called it "frustration attraction", and believed that separation evokes panic and stress, which activates the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. It's ironic, she says, because this can also produce dopamine, so "as the adored one slips away, the very chemicals that contribute to feelings of romance grow even more potent". According to Tennov, "It is limerence, not love, that increases when lovers are able to meet only infrequently or when there is anger between them."

Ecstatic union

thumb|"I felt as though the clouds were not on the horizon but under my feet. How sweet it was."

Although limerence is usually unrequited, it can lead to a relationship in some cases. "Reciprocation leads to euphoria, followed by a union that might be stable or unstable, and that might or might not endure." 95% of her survey group called love "a beautiful experience".

A 2025 study of the largest cross-cultural survey of currently in-love people (who were also in relationships) categorized 29.42% of their sample as "intense" romantic lovers, and 28.57% of those fell in love before their relationship. (That is, only 8.4% of the study were both intensely in love and also fell in love before their relationship. The majority of intense lovers fell in love after their relationship started, with one month after being the average.)

Normally then, limerence diminishes inside a relationship, with reciprocity. Research also suggests that oxytocin activity might inhibit the more excessive effects of addiction, with oxytocin from the attachment system being more active in reciprocated, well-functioning relationships compared to unrequited situations. According to Tennov, reciprocation must be "sustained and believable", else limerence can continue inside a relationship if the partner (LO) behaves in a nonlimerent way. One man interviewed by Tennov described being caught in one-sided limerence with his wife "in constant fear of divorce" for 25 years (until she died); later, however, he found a different partner whom he did not have this reaction to. The philosopher Bertrand Russell is quoted by Tennov in her discussion of uncertainty,

According to Tennov, ideally limerence will be replaced by another type of love. The more stable type of love which is usually the characteristic of long-term relationships is commonly called companionate love, storge or attachment.]]

Tennov estimates based on her questionnaire and interviews that limerence most frequently lasts between 18 months and 3 years, with an average of 2 years, but may be as short as mere days or as long as a lifetime. One woman wrote to Tennov about her mother's limerence which lasted 65 years.

Tennov's estimate of 18 months to 3 years is sometimes used as the normal duration of romantic love. Langeslag works with Helen Fisher's model (lust, attraction and attachment, i.e. independent emotion systems), but uses the terms infatuation (i.e. passionate love) and attachment (i.e. companionate love). Negative reappraisal decreases feelings of infatuation and attachment, but decreases mood in the short term. Langeslag has recommended distraction as an antidote to the short-term decrease in mood.

Preliminary results from a 2024 study of online limerence communities conducted by Langeslag found that negative reappraisal decreased limerence for the study participants. A therapist named Brandy Wyant has also had her limerent clients list reasons their LO is not perfect, or reasons they and their LO are not compatible.

The neuroscientist Tom Bellamy is recommending what he calls the "daymare" strategy: if a person in limerence finds themselves lost in a romantic daydream, they should "spoil the rewards" by changing the end of the story into a nightmare. Ruining reward-seeking habits like this is recommended as a kind of "deprogramming" to "accelerate the overwriting of memories linking LO to reward".

However, if limerence is being sustained by a fantasy (making the reward more potent), then getting to know the person for real can also be the fastest way to get over them.

Controversy

In 2008, Albert Wakin, a professor who knew Tennov at the University of Bridgeport but did not assist in her research, and Duyen Vo, a graduate student, suggested that limerence is similar to obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and substance use disorder (SUD). They presented work to an American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences conference, but suggested that much more research is needed before it could be proposed to the APA that limerence be included in the DSM. They began conducting an unpublished study and reported to USA Today that about 25% or 30% of their participants had experienced a limerent relationship as they defined it. Wakin has stated that his concept involves people in relationships, where a person is obsessed with their partner to the detriment of the relationship, even to the point of a breakup.

The concepts of limerence, romantic love, passionate love (and so on) have been compared to OCD since 1998, according to a theory invented by other authors. Neuroscientist blogger Tom Bellamy has argued that limerence is distinct from OCD on the basis of psychological and neurobiological differences. OCD is characterized by compulsions to perform rituals that ease some type of fear, whereas limerence initially starts with a period of joy and only reaches a stage of anxiety when a pair bond cannot be formed.

Helen Fisher has commented on Wakin & Vo in 2008, stating that limerence is romantic love and that "They are associating the negative aspects of it with the term, and that can be a disorder." but brain scans have been described by Fisher's team since as far back as 2002. In Fisher et al.'s original brain scan experiments, all participants spent more than 85% of their waking hours thinking about their loved one. According to Tennov's theory, the intensity of limerence diminishes with reciprocity, and it's prolonged inside a relationship when the LO behaves in a nonlimerent way. Other mainstream authors have stated that obsession inside a relationship when it's a problem could be related to self-esteem and an insecure attachment style.

In the 1999 preface to her revised edition of Love and Limerence, Dorothy Tennov describes limerence as an aspect of basic human nature and remarks that "Reaction to limerence theory depends partly on acquaintance with the evidence for it and partly on personal experience. People who have not experienced limerence are baffled by descriptions of it and are often resistant to the evidence that it exists. To such outside observers, limerence seems pathological." that it's too often interpreted as "mental illness", and that even those who experienced limerence of a distressing variety were "fully functioning, rational, emotionally stable, normal, nonneurotic, nonpathological members of society", "characterized as responsible and quite sane". Tragedies such as violence, she says, involve limerence when it's "augmented and distorted" by other conditions.

In a 2005 Q&A, Tennov was asked if limerence could ever lead to a situation like the movie Fatal Attraction (which has been called "obsessive love"), but Tennov replied that the movie seemed to depict a caricature. Limerence and stalking are separate phenomena with different causes.