Limerence: Signs of Relationship Addiction in Teens and How to Cope
Imagine your teen constantly checking their phone, analyzing every message, and only ever talking or daydreaming about their latest infatuation. Initially, these actions might seem like a normal crush, but what if they’re a sign of something else: relationship addiction or limerence?
Limerence can leave your teen stuck on a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows, feeling intensely dependent on the perceived reciprocation of a crush. This fixation often comes from attachment trauma and can significantly impact mental health and relationships.
Understanding limerence and how to support your teen are key steps to breaking free from relationship addiction in teens. While professional support is recommended for relationship addiction and attachment trauma, this page can also help by exploring:
- What limerence is
- The causes of relationship addiction
- The impact of limerence on mental health
- The signs of limerence
- Mental health treatment for obsessive relationships
- Coping strategies for teens with limerence
- How parents can help their teens
- Finding professional support for limerence
What Is Limerence?
Limerence was first described by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s in her book “Love and Limerence.”1
Based on her extensive research, Tennov noted that love could be experienced in different ways. In fact, sometimes, it was described as a feeling of such intensity that it could become detrimental. She, therefore, coined the term “limerence” to describe this potent feeling, stating that “when limerence is in full force, it eclipses other relationships.”1
Limerence can feel addictive, as the person with it can experience intrusive or obsessive thoughts about someone else. In other words, daydreams, emotional highs and lows, and hypervigilance to another person’s actions can overwhelm life. For this reason, you may sometimes come across limerence being described as a “relationship addiction.”
But how does the experience of limerence differ from “puppy love” or simply having an intense crush? We examine these differences in more detail in the following section.
Obsessive Crush Behavior in Adolescents
In romantic relationships, healthy love involves mutual respect, trust, and independence. Both partners feel valued and fulfilled in the relationship.
However, the teenage years are when many people often encounter romantic relationships or feelings for the first time, often leading to experiencing intense “crushes” that come with newfound love. However, there are some fundamental differences between a crush and limerence.
Whereas crushes tend to come and go, limerence has a much more insidious nature. To begin with, thoughts and feelings revolve around one specific person: the limerent object (LO).
Further, passionate, intense feelings about the LO are involuntary, pervasive, and accompanied by intrusive thoughts. These thoughts often manifest as persistent daydreams that someone cannot turn off or distract themselves from, no matter how hard they try.
Although these feelings can feel ecstatic at first, especially if the romance is reciprocated, the obsessive nature can take over someone’s life. When everything you think and feel is tied up to one other person, it becomes difficult to motivate yourself or concentrate on anything else. Therefore, the infatuation becomes all-consuming and unhealthy.2
Plus, while crushes tend to naturally fade, limerence typically follows a specific set of stages. There are different ways to frame these stages, but one of the most popular ways of conceptualizing them includes the following.
Stages of Limerence:6
- Pre-limerence: The desire for a romantic connection or interest
- Pre-reciprocity: The stage in which someone develops a strong desire or infatuation for the LO
- Reciprocity: When an LO either reciprocates or rejects the person’s interest. If rejection occurs, this is when limerence ends
- Gradual dissolution: Limerence either fades or ceases to exist. This can be difficult if the person is in a relationship with the LO
- Post-limerence: The person either continues in a healthy relationship with their partner (former LO) or the relationship ends. If the relationship ends, it’s not uncommon to circle back to Stage 1
So, what makes some people develop limerence? The following section considers the possible causes of limerence.
What Causes Limerence?
Limerence can be experienced by anyone, from any background, given the right circumstances, but some people may be more susceptible to it. Some of the factors that affect this predisposition may include:3
- Insecure attachment
- Brain chemistry
- Social media use
We take a look at each of these possible causes in more detail below.
Insecure Attachment and Limerent Behavior
Attachment theory explains how, if you grew up in a nurturing, loving home where needs were met consistently by a primary caregiver, you would likely develop a secure attachment style.
However, if your needs weren’t consistently met, you may instead form an insecure attachment style.4 One of the insecure styles is called anxious attachment, which can have traits similar to those of limerence. For example, anxious attachments can result in someone feeling preoccupied with their partner, becoming emotionally dependent upon them, basing their self-esteem on their approval, and fearing rejection or abandonment. This fear could lead to obsessions, people pleasing, and “clingy” behaviors in attempts to meet their needs and reduce the risk of threats.5
These beliefs, fears, and behaviors may increase the likelihood of a person experiencing limerence.6 This is an example of attachment trauma leading to limerence.
Brain Chemistry
The abundance of certain neurotransmitters – the chemicals in the brain that act like messengers for the body – can also affect your potential susceptibility to limerence. For instance, if you have lower levels of “happy hormones”, such as serotonin or dopamine, then attention or affection from the LO could cause a surge in these chemicals.7 This acts like positive reinforcement, giving you a dopamine rush associated with a particular person, driving you to seek out more interactions for further boosts in positive feelings. Even daydreaming about this person could create this “high.”
Be Consistently Emotionally Present
Let your teen see that you are ready to talk with them, whenever they need to. For instance, they may not want to discuss much over dinner, but you may find they open up over an occasional late-night snack when it’s just the two of you. Alternatively, if you’re often busy working, let them know how they can reach you if they need anything, for example, by text or voice message. This way, you are opening the door for them to be in touch if something does come up.
Social Media Use
Modern technology can allow you to potentially see a person’s pictures, history, and what they get up to on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, it can make it easier to feel connected to someone you don’t necessarily know that well, enhancing the feelings and sense of intimacy that can develop.3
How Limerence Affects Teen Mental Health
Although limerence may bring certain positive feelings similar to love in the early stages of the cycle, there are also considerable downsides.
As we’ve clarified in previous sections, limerence isn’t just a regular teenage crush – it’s a burning intensity that is uncontrollable. If the person your teen has limerence for doesn’t reciprocate their feelings, this can lead to anxiety and depression, potentially causing issues like hopelessness, sleep loss, and appetite problems. The obsessional nature of their thoughts and feelings can also get in the way of school, hobbies, and other important relationships, such as friends and family.
Further, limerence is associated with low self-worth and self-esteem. So, if an LO doesn’t reciprocate feelings, someone might see this as confirmation of their beliefs about not being worthy of love and affection.
As is clear, while a crush is normal, limerence can be damaging to a teen’s mental health. In the following section, you’ll discover what red flags to look for in your teen if you suspect they are limerent.
Signs of Limerence in Teenagers
Limerence may cause a variety of symptoms, including:6,8,9
- A teen’s mood depending on their interactions with the LO. For example:
- Euphoria and reassurance after a positive experience
- Needing to interact with their LO to feel calmer
- Feeling irritable, depressed, or hopeless when not around the LO
- Fearing rejection
- Constantly ruminating over interactions with the LO
- Obsessively reading messages from the LO
- Fantasizing about what may happen or has previously happened with the LO
- Intrusive thoughts about the LO
- Everything reminding them of the LO
- Putting their LO on a pedestal, for instance, saying they are perfect
- Desiring to be close to their LO
- Anxiety
If some of these signs seem familiar, know that there is hope: professional support, such as therapy, can make a real difference to how your teen feels.
Therapy for Relationship Addiction
Limerence is not currently defined as a mental health condition, which is why there is no “gold standard” official treatment for it. However, there are a variety of therapeutic approaches that could support your teen.
The following treatments may be useful in helping your teen recover from limerence:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): A therapist can help your teen recognize what keeps them in a state of limerence and develop strategies to challenge unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, allowing them to heal. A particular type of CBT called “exposure response prevention” (ERP) could be particularly effective for treating the obsessional nature of limereance.3,10
- Attachment-based therapy (ABT): As limerence can stem from insecure attachments, ABT can be effective for building secure attachments, improving communication, and enhancing self-worth.
- DBT for compulsive relationship thoughts: Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) allows teens to manage intense emotions more effectively. This can be helpful in limerence, as emotions are often dependent upon another person. DBT can teach a teen how to cope with limerent feelings, such as anxiety and distress, and improve their interpersonal skills.
- Residential programs for teen relationship addiction: An inpatient treatment option may be considered if your teen is experiencing very intense distress. For example, if they’re self-harming, engaging in risky behaviors, or feeling extremely depressed. If this is the case, round-the-clock care, support, and supervision can facilitate their recovery.
Teen Coping Strategies for Relationship Anxiety
When you are deep in the throes of limerence, it may feel as though your thoughts and feelings are controlling you. It doesn’t have to be like this. You can take back control by developing coping strategies to help you manage the thoughts and feelings you are experiencing. If you’re not sure where to start, you may find the suggestions below useful.
Practice Mindfulness
Overcoming limerence often starts with increasing your self-awareness. This is where mindfulness can help. Mindfulness is the process of being fully aware in the moment: of what’s happening, how you’re feeling, and what you are thinking. Try to notice these things when you are with the person you like, and when you are away from them. You can write about it in a journal so that you can see if there are patterns in how you feel, what you think, and how you act over time. Being self-aware in this way can help you better understand how to make changes for the better.
Learn About Healthy Boundaries
Boundaries are important in relationships of any type. Learning about them and putting them into place can help you break free of limerence in the long run. Investigate what healthy boundaries look like, explore what boundaries are important to you personally, and use those to guide your actions.
Prioritize Your Self-Care
If you tend to always prioritize one significant other in your life over yourself, it’s essential to remember that you are important, too. You deserve to prioritize your self-care: do things that make you happy, that help you grow as a person, and spend time with other people you enjoy being with. You are worth it. If you plan to spend time with people you care about, try not to include your LO. It’s also important not to spend the time with these people talking about your LO.
Break the Cycle of Idealizing
Limerence is characterized by uncertainty about whether someone else reciprocates intense romantic feelings. This uncertainty is fueled by obsessions and seeing the other person as “ideal” or “perfect.” You can practice breaking patterns of idealizing by trying to actively notice the other person’s flaws. For instance, you could make a note of these in your phone as a reminder for whenever you start to slip into daydreams. No one else has to see this list; it’s only for you to refer to as a reminder that nobody is perfect.
Seek Support
Sometimes, limerence and the negative emotions it can create can feel overwhelming. It’s also linked to low self-esteem and self-worth, which can dip further when there’s a perceived rejection from the LO. Know that you don’t have to tackle this alone – it’s a strength to know when to look for help. You can look to friends and family for support during this time, as well as find a professional to help you through it.
How Parents Can Help Their Teen Overcome Limerence
If you are unsure how to help your teen through this challenging time, know that you are not alone. Many parents feel this struggle. Therefore, the following are some suggestions that you may find useful:
- Recognize the signs: Know the signs of limerence to look for in teens so that you can help them appropriately.
- Openly communicate: Create a safe space for your teen to talk to you about their thoughts and feelings without judgment. Let them know that you take their feelings seriously and that they are valid.
- Encourage mindfulness: Intrusive thoughts can be scary and distressing, and mindfulness can help reduce anxiety. Encourage your teen to do something that incorporates mindfulness, whether this is meditation, journaling, or another activity. Our page on mindfulness may be useful for exploring ideas.
- Demonstrate healthy boundaries: Be a role model when it comes to relationships. Show your teen what creating and maintaining healthy boundaries looks like, and what a healthy relationship entails.
- Seek professional help: If limerence is causing your teen significant issues, you may want to bring up the idea of them talking to a therapist or seeking professional support. Attachment repair therapy for obsessive attachment can be useful when tackling limerence, as well as the therapy options mentioned earlier on this page. Your teen doesn’t have to go through this challenge alone – support is available and can make a real difference in their life.
Healing Relationship Addiction With Mission Prep
If you recognize the signs of limerence in your teen, remember that your family doesn’t have to struggle alone: we are here to support you. At Mission Prep, we specialize in helping teens navigate emotional challenges, including attachment issues, through a variety of therapeutic options. Whether you’re seeking inpatient, outpatient, or virtual therapy programs, we can provide a compassionate space where your teen can heal.
Every teen deserves a chance to build a brighter and healthier future, one in which mutually fulfilling relationships play a role. If you’re concerned about your teen’s emotional well-being, don’t hesitate to seek help. Reach out to us today to discover how our team can help your family find the support you need.
References
- Tennov, D. (1979). Love and limerence: The experience of being in love. New York, NY: Scarborough House.
- Bellamy, T. (2020, September 5). What is limerence? Living with Limerence. https://livingwithlimerence.com/what-is-limerence/
- Duke, N. (2024, August 29). Is it love or limerence? Here’s how to tell the difference. Cleveland Clinic. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/limerence
- McGarvie, S., PhD. (2025, March 27). Attachment Theory, Bowlby’s Stages & Attachment Styles. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/attachment-theory/
- Wolf, N. R. (2017). Investigating limerence: Predictors of limerence, measure validation, and goal progress (Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park).
- Verhulst, J. (1984). Limerence: Notes on the nature and function of passionate love. Psychoanalysis & Contemporary Thought, 7(3), 417–447.
- Bradbury, P., Short, E., & Bleakley, P. (2024). Limerence, Hidden Obsession, Fixation, and Rumination: A Scoping Review of Human behaviour. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 40(2), 417–426. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-024-09674-x
- Haghighi, A. S. (2024, January 24). What to know about limerence. Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/limerence
- Drescher, A. (2024, February 6). What is limerence and how do you overcome it? Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/limerence.html
- Wyant, B. E. (2021). Treatment of limerence using a Cognitive Behavioral approach: a case study. Journal of Patient Experience, 8. https://doi.org/10.1177/23743735211060812
