Book Review: Living with Limerence

I came across Dr L’s book Living with Limerence while researching for a post on Love Addiction. Interestingly enough, I was lovestruck by its subtitles: A guide for the smitten (that’s me!) and The neuroscience of infatuation and how to manage it (that’s for me!). Reading it furthered my crush : this book is intelligent, funny and very useful.

If you know obsessive love well, if you wonder what came upon you to believe that some of your exes were so special, if your feelings and your common sense go their separate ways when you fall in love, my advice is to read this book.

If you are currently putting a loving long term relationship at risk because of a crush you cannot resist, or if you suffer from the dreaded unrequited love, then reading this book is a must. Really.

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17 October 2022 3

Facing love addiction

In a nutshell, love addiction is being dependent on a relationship, even though it has become a source of pain.

Sometimes, the pain is about your partner being physically, sexually, or emotionally abusive. Sometimes, it is about a partner who openly does not love you. It can be that your partner is in the throws of another addiction, such as alcoholism, workaholism, or sex addiction. The issue may me narcissism. Repeated betrayals. A loved one being married to someone else. Whatever.

Life in this relationship is painful, chaotic, unhealthy. On some level, you know that the relationship is not good for you. You may even be clear that it is destroying you. And yet, you find it impossible to walk away. You sometimes make attempts to do so, only to realize that ending the relationship is truly unbearable. You go back, and now on top of everything you despise yourself.

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24 September 2022 2

Book review: Us, and normal marital hatred

What caught my attention to Terrence Real’s interview in the New York Times is its title: A Couples’ Counselor Takes on “Normal Marital Hatred”.

Now, that’s an interesting expression !

After reading the interview, I decided the couples’s counselor book was definitely worth a look. So here is my book review of Us, by Terrence Real.

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5 July 2022 2

We can heal…once we are safe

the phrase no more fear on a sheet of fabric

We can find the courage and the resources to rebuild ourselves, to heal, and to thrive.

But if we are in danger today, the absolute priority is getting to safety first. And it is up to us to determine if we are in danger, and what safety means.

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16 June 2022 2