Is it Love, Lust, or Limerence?

Learning the signs for something real

This post is part of an ongoing blog series, Dating-to-Marry, that aims to share practical tips and resources to help Muslims embark on finding love and marriage. Bismillah!

If I were to make a list of the top five best experiences in my life, I would say riding in a hot air balloon, gallivanting with friends in my twenties across Europe, and completing Hajj would all make it on the list. But the experience that would go above the rest would be falling in love.

When I say “love,” I’m not just talking about the type of love that led to a marriage proposal. I’m talking about all the moments before when I would meet someone at an event or online and I would get serious butterflies in the pit of my stomach. Those encounters whether they lasted for weeks, days, or mere hours, when I would essentially have a crush and that crush would lead me down a rabbit hole of trying to find out if it could be the bedrock of a real relationship, was thrilling. Those encounters that sometimes led to intentional relationships, but more often just imaginings, were all exciting for this good Muslim girl who didn’t become boy crazy until years after college.

Now, as someone who has been through the wringer of relationships (married and now divorced) and has been researching healthy (and not so healthy) relationships, I understand that some of those feelings, those crushes, were not all just stepping stones to love. Sometimes those instances were actually moments of lust or limerence. But how can you tell the difference? What are the signs that indicate your romantic feelings are attached to something real? Something that can lead to a lasting relationship? Here’s a breakdown of the differences between love, lust and limerence.

Lust:

As Muslims, we are taught that there are spiritual, emotional and physical dangers of interacting too closely with the opposite sex (your non-mahrams). Islam forces us to recognize that human beings crave each other in sexual ways. The intrinsic desire to be touched in a sexual manner is natural. Islam doesn’t create shame for feelings like lust, but it creates parameters in which these feelings can be embraced and unleashed. Unbeknownst to many, Islamic scholars in the past studied the significance of sex and sexuality in efforts to help married couples keep the love alive. Books like A Taste of Honey unveil this side of the deen.