How Couples Therapy Helps Rebuild Trust After Limerence

When one partner experiences limerence for someone outside the relationship, it can feel destabilising for both individuals. Limerence, with its intense emotional fixation, obsessive thoughts, and idealisation of another person, often arises in situations marked by uncertainty or emotional unavailability. Although it is not the same as love, it can feel deeply compelling. For the person experiencing it, there may be guilt, confusion, and emotional overwhelm. For their partner, it can feel like betrayal, even if no boundaries were formally crossed.

Limerence in this context has the potential to create rupture in a relationship. Feelings of mistrust, rejection, and emotional disconnection often surface. The dynamics between the couple can shift quickly, leaving both partners feeling hurt, confused, or unsure of how to move forward.

Couples therapy provides a supportive and structured space to begin unpacking these dynamics. It allows both individuals to express their experience and explore how this emotional disruption has impacted the relationship. Therapy creates room for reflection, understanding, and, when possible, repair.

Understanding the impact of limerence begins with acknowledging its psychological nature. It is not always about the other person, but often about what that person symbolises. Obsessive thoughts, emotional highs and lows, and fantasies about someone outside the relationship can serve as coping mechanisms for unmet needs, attachment insecurity, or internal disconnection.

For the partner experiencing limerence, therapy offers space to explore why this dynamic has emerged. It can support them in identifying the underlying emotional drivers, distinguishing fantasy from reality, and becoming more aware of triggers and relational patterns. Often, this insight leads to a softening of the obsessive pull, especially when the attention can be redirected inward and toward the relationship itself.

For the hurt partner, therapy offers containment and validation. The emotional pain of feeling rejected or emotionally replaced can be profound, and it is essential to have space to express this experience without minimisation. Therapy can help them re-establish a sense of agency and explore their own needs, boundaries, and hopes for the future of the relationship.

Couples therapy also creates an opportunity to rebuild trust, but this is not a linear process. The work often includes relearning how to communicate without defensiveness, creating boundaries around the person or situation that has become the focus of the limerence, and slowly rediscovering intimacy. A skilled therapist may use structured dialogue, mindfulness practices, or reflective exercises to help the couple reconnect emotionally, physically, and relationally.

Importantly, limerence is rarely the sole issue. Often, it is a symptom of broader relationship challenges. Therapy helps the couple examine whether emotional needs have gone unmet or unspoken, whether certain patterns of disconnection have taken hold, or whether attachment dynamics from earlier in life are being unconsciously reenacted. Exploring these questions with care and honesty creates the possibility of long-term repair, not just crisis management.

Healing from the impact of limerence takes time and intention. For the partner experiencing it, part of the work may include limiting or cutting off contact with the person they have become fixated on, and redirecting attention back toward their relationship and sense of self. For the partner who has been hurt, the work may involve reclaiming a sense of safety, setting boundaries, and receiving emotional support through individual or couples therapy.

Both partners benefit from committing to transparency, open dialogue, and shared intention. In many cases, the crisis of limerence becomes a turning point; an opportunity to either rebuild something stronger or part ways with greater clarity and care.

Professional support matters. A therapist who understands the nature of limerence and the complexity it introduces into relationship dynamics can help guide the couple through the confusion. With the right approach, it is possible to navigate this experience with integrity and mutual respect.

Limerence does not have to mean the end of a relationship. If both partners are willing to do the inner and relational work, it can be a moment of profound growth and emotional repair.

If you or your partner are struggling with the effects of limerence, couples therapy can offer tools, clarity, and support. My upcoming book explores limerence in depth and provides practical strategies for those navigating its impact, whether individually or within a relationship.