Letting Go
I identify with Kate Winslet's character in the movie The Holiday so much more than I care to admit. Her monologue that runs over the opening credits sums it up pretty well. ; Only I've been mired in this nonsense for far more than 3 years. For a long time, I thought this was a character flaw in me, a sign of something deep-seated and pathetic. But recently, a good friend sent me this article which explains what allows a fixation to endure for so long. "You know, limerence can be unending," Tennov says. "I've interviewed subjects who've nursed a fixation on their limerence objects—LOs—for decades." What's the trick? "Their feelings were unrequited," she reports. "Their LOs gave them mixed signals, like ignoring them for months and then calling. Hope, confusion, and uncertainty kept it going. The phenomenon is defined, in part, by feeling a loss of control. The limerent person can't stop thinking about the LO: What did he mean ...