When there is a WS and OP is it ever love? I think I understand the FOG , but what exactly does
it mean? Like is the fog being in love or infatuation? How long does infatuation last? Does real love last forever? Any WS do you feel you still love your OP? If yes or no, how long has it been that you have NC with them?

Can you love 2 people at the same time?

Sorry for all the quesions, just doing some thinking.....

NS-

The short answer is no....I don't think you can have true love without honesty and A's ALWAYS involve some level of dishonesty and deceit on the part of the WS and OP.

Being in a fog is like being in love with a fantasy. It's not the real world with all the problems that comes from that. That's where real love comes from - dealing with life and it's problems with all you're worth.

((((((((nobody special)))))))))
It sounds like you need a hug!

I'm going to disagree with litchfield on this one. I do think you can have real love. Now is it a healthy love, I don't believe it is.

Fog...jmho...is a period of confusion in the mind of whomever. It's not being true to yourself, your values, your morals. It's a period of being lost in the moment, instead of looking at the whole picture and accepting your role in the way it plays out.

Sometime real love doesn't last forever. Real love ebbs and flows but continues as the foundation of how we preceive ourselves to be. It can die. It can be reborn.

I believe it's very easy to love more then one person at a time. We all do it everyday. I love all my children. Each one of them have a complete and whole love all their own. I don't take away from one child to love another.

When talking about the love that a woman has for a man or the love that a man has for a woman, we CHOOSE to began that love. We don't just trip over it and fall into it. We get to know them, we allow a closeness to develope. Somewhere along the line we begin to feel "differently" about them then we do others, we're more connected, we discover that we want to encourage this feeling (or NOT) and we make the CHOICE to deepen this bond...and we began to love. It doesn't happen overnight, it doesn't happen when we are not willing for it to happen. Love must be cared for with kindness, thought, energy and caring. It's easily "killed" when we don't make the effort. It's the strongest of emotions and the most fragile at the same time. It can withstand great wounds, it can die of neglect.

If true love existed between WS and OP then the A would not die as it normally does. The fact is that love sometimes requires pain and sacrifice and most affairees 'in love' are in it for the emotional/physical pleasure they experience being together. Is it any wonder that most affairees fail miserably the acid test of love when their A becomes an open R? No because they have already shown that they have an aversion to working to rebuild a damaged R.

<small>[ November 26, 2002, 02:42 PM: Message edited by: TooMuchCoffeeMan ]</small>

how do you know if those good feelings are 'pleasure' or 'love'?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by nobody special:
<strong>how do you know if those good feelings are 'pleasure' or 'love'?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Do you know of any A that is based of pain?

JMHO, I feel that when the "fog" fully rolls in and both are caught up in the affair then at the time their reality is "REAL LOVE" no matter if the affair is known not known, because all they are living on is the wisps of the high energy high they are riding on. After they have time to settle in to the day to day "real life" then it dawns on one or both that "Hey, this is awful familiar" and then the fog gradually lifts; be it that they exist in the relationship or go back to rebuilding what was what they abandoned so freely. Some people I feel are more afraid of the incredible amount of work needed to repair their marriages that they become "in their minds" stuck with what they created. It takes a huge amount of courage, humility, love, spirit and determination to go towards rebuilding. It was much easier for some in the demolition phase, let's face it, you hear so many people say they "can't do something" and not the majority saying "by damn ...I will accomplish that" when it comes down to taking responsiblity for a relationhip and doing the work necessary to rise above what was and make a "NEW" what is!!! Just my belief though. So many on here are of the character of the "by damn..I will accomplish this. I'm so grateful for the strength of everyone here. Together we have the strength and fortitude to move mountains, (wish that darn fog was so easy to move!!!)

No no of course not, I just meant I guess how can you tell the difference between puppy love and real love.

And I see your edited reply. ITA 110%

SOMEBODY Special (because I just can't call you "nobody!" <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> ):

From Greg Baer's book "The Truth About Relationships":

Real Love is, "I care how you feel." Conditional love is, "I like how you make me feel."

Romantic love, the kind of love that enables As, is conditional love. When we get tired of that kind of love, or when it fails 2 give us what we "want", the A (or whatever the R, including M based solely on conditional love) ends. If you work 2 rebuild your broken M by genuinely caring about how your spouse feels, with no expectations of anything in return, you are giving real love. You don't have 2 be infa2ated with your spouse 2 be in love with them.

SOMEBODY Special (because I just can't call you "nobody!" <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> ):

From Greg Baer's book "The Truth About Relationships":

Real Love is, "I care how you feel." Conditional love is, "I like how you make me feel."

Romantic love, the kind of love that "causes" As, is conditional love. When we get tired of that kind of love, or when it fails 2 give us what we "want", the A (or whatever the R, including M based solely on conditional love) ends. If you work 2 rebuild your broken M by genuinely caring about how your spouse feels, with no expectations of anything in return, you are giving real love. You don't have 2 be infa2ated with your spouse 2 be in love with them.

I will only speak from my expereince, but for me, yes it was real true love. Now Healthy love - that's another thread entirely.

Truth be told I don't know why I would have stayed so long ( nearly 10 years) if it wasn't.

When I was ready for healthy love I ended my EMA.

Well DUH you have to say it's real love geez otherwise you'd have to admit you wasted ten years of your life. And of course you have to continually justify what you did.

Katie:

Not 2 be harsh, here, but what exactly is "unhealty, real love"? You didn't use the term, but you implied that the concept exists.

Unhealthy real love. Lets be real. Look on ANY thread on MB. I'm not trying to be cruel, but really.

Personally I think it's possible to love another person and have it not be in your best interest.

I loved my MM the best way I knew how. I was a lost 21 year old girl when I met him. Strung out on drugs (and other things). A real mess. He was my knigh in shining armor to say the least. During out relationship I got clean, got healthy and turned my life around.

So healthy in fact that I came to see, that I had outgrown him.

There are people on here who's spouses have had many, many affairs and they stayed. Love. Sure it is. Healthy - queationable.

Katie:

"So healthy in fact that I came to see, that I had outgrown him. "

You're kidding me, right? This was a loving relationship? You NEEDED him 2 help YOU get over your addiction. Once you accomplished that, you OUTGREW him.

You were using him, and didn't know it. What was he doing with/2 you for those 10 years? My W had a 11 year A with a MM with kids. Do I believe her when she says she loves him still. No, I don't. It doesn't jive with her OTHER admissions, on her own, that the relationship was a destructive fantasy that hurt BOTH of our families horribly, maybe irreparably. My W had 2 lie 2 me for 11 years, until I found out in January. That ain't love.

Keep in mind that I'm coming from a very strict definition of love - wherein there is either Real, unconditional love (you aren't in it for YOUR own gain, you care about the other person's happiness) or there's "immitation" love (where you are in it for how it makes you feel), which isn't "real". Add 2 that the fakery required by the secrecy - which might add "excitement" 2 the mix, but it certainly doesn't build good moral character. That ain't love.

Speaking from my own experience as a WS, yes I am sure now as i have been before that it was love.

Fog as i see it is being lost in the moment, when nothing else seems to matter but being together, when you are blinded by the fantasy of the two of you. This is when you refuse to acknowledge the consequences of your actions to others and when you refuse to face up to your wrongdoings in the marriage and the affair.

Fog normally doesn't last very long, reality in the form of your children, BS, finances, family, D Day and even the OP etc will push its way into your fantasy world sooner or later. This is probably when you makes your choices. Do you really actually love the OP? Do you still love your spouse? Can you love your spouse? Do you want your marriage? Do you think you can be with the OP? Do you think you can leave your spouse and children? Do you think they will be ok?

Whatever you decide on, you deal with it the best you can. Dazed Blonde said you deal with the real world and all the problems that comes with it with all you're worth and reallove come from dealing with life. That's right. Now that's true if you decide to work on the marriage or leave the marriage. Now if you both come out ok then your love must be true and real.

TMCM said if true love existed between WS and OP then the A would not die as it normally does. That's true and if that happens it often does require pain and sacrifice to the affairees.

I just don't believe its fair to say that all affairs are based on 'unreal' love. I was a WS, when reality hit us i decided it was best for me & everyone else that i work on marriage, no contact for a bit over 6 months, i am divorced now and back with OP. I have never been more comfortable with xwife and vice versa and she has never been happier i think in the last 5 years and i truly am happy for her. I am more comfortable and a lot happier with myself, having worked through a lot of problems to get where i am now.

So IMHO i reckon the love i have for OP is true and real.

Of course that not ALL EMA's will be the product of simple infatuation but instead of true love between the affairees, but that group is extremely small from the statistics available. So that being the case, it is safe to say that affairees do NOT experience true love because they only experience emotional/physical pleasure and NOT the daily stresses of everyday life with one another. If you don't beleive this just turn around a see how long an A last.

<small>[ November 27, 2002, 12:59 AM: Message edited by: TooMuchCoffeeMan ]</small>

Hi,

just wanted to share my opinion about this. "Was it really Love?"

well I've spoken to my H a few times about this and he told me at the beginning he had really thought it was. After talking even more and doing alot of reading I have came to the following conclusion. This is what I think about it in our case.

My H and I met very young. We always had a very loving and intimate realtionship.
It was never a big problem for either of us to fullfill each others needs. This just happened naturally.
We got married 5 years after we had known each other and our first child was born.
We moved on and our relationship became even stronger. We were moving on in the same pace.
Then our second child was born. Still we had no problems. We always had our evenings for ourselves and shared our hobbies together. We were still moving in the same directions.
We felt that our relationship was very special and we still didn't have problems fullfilling each others needs.

After our 19th anniversary something started to happen. It was not good. We started having problems communicating and I now know that we were in the state of "conflict".
We were bouncing between the state of conflict and intimicy.

I don't know if you have read about the "giver" and "taker" within ourselves but it has made so much clear for me.
My H somehow got stuck in the state of "conflict" and his "taker" was on the go.

We were drifting apart. My H then moved to the state of "withdrawel" and I was stuck then in the stage of "conflict".

My H was longing for the good feelings we had for one another in the past. He was craving for love and he wanted to talk and feel understood. He wanted this, no matter what. His "taker" was very strong and something inside of him was telling him he deserved to feel loved, desired and sexually fullfilled. His taker was telling him that he had gave enough throughout the years and if he wasn't going to get it from me, he deserved it from someone else.

I t was just a matter of time. Anger started to grow inside of my H and I got more and more frustrated. A wall had risen between the two of us.
The wall was so high that I just couldn't get through to my H anymore. He wasn't letting me. I was falling and I was extremely depressed. Nothing good to be with nor to look at.

Then along came OW. Happy, understanding, easy-going. One thing lead to another. My H was getting what he was craving for and what he had missed.
He was experiencing the same feeling we had had for the most time in our marriage.
It was if he was experiencing "the past" that he had shared with me, except with another woman.
He was getting what he was craving for and what he thought he had lost and therefore he believed that OW was his true love.

He didn't realize at that time that he was not letting me make him feel this because he had built a wall around himself and simply didn't invite me to join anymore.

He was letting OW fullfill what he was missing. His Top 2 EN at that time and this was conversation and affection and this simply made him feel that this must be love. SF fitted perfectly into this too.
I now believe that when someone is in an affair, their "Taker" and "Giver" are in an extreme. They "Give" extremely and they "Take" extremely.

I'll just try to explain why I think that this is unhealthy. The "giver" gives without thinking about the outcome. My H was investing all the time he could steal to be with OW. Within time this would of lead to drastic complications with our business. Money would of became short and customers would of started to complain and go somewhere else. OW was "Taking" this time and was feeling "Special". It made her feel important and loved. But this wouldn't of stayed this way for very long because she also wanted to be taken cared of financially. (She didn't work)So either way, within time she would of lost this loving feeling when the time they would spend together would reduce due to my H long working hours.

On the other side my H's "Taker" was telling him that the money he earned (I also don't work outta the house) was taken for granted. I was dealing with all of our finances and he felt that I wasn't doing this good enough, but he didn't want to do it either.
OW told my H that her H wanted her to stop spending so much money, my H agreed with her that her H was wrong. OW was spending a great deal of money buying gifts for my H and getting new clothes and all that stuff. Things that my H was enjoying. (my H "Taker" was telling him this felt good that she was doing this for him)
She didn't want to deal with anything "financial" and therefore my H and OW felt the same. The both didn't feel that "fianaces" were something important to deal with.

They had never dealt with it and therefore they didn't see the importance but since they felt the same about it, they thought they were "soal mates" since they felt the same.
They both wanted to be "take cared" of. The both wanted to be with someone that would take over the responsibily. But they were not aware that neither of them would want to do this once "reality" came into their lives.
Just simply becaause they felt the same made them think that what they felt was love.

If they would of been dealing with one another in "Reality" they would of both felt helpless. This would of surely lead to complications because neither of them had ever needed to be responsible for "financial" stuff.

But this is only one example. The affair itself didn't include many things of real life. It shut out the most important things. It shut out reality and since only approx. the "2-3 EN'S (at that time) were being fullfilled they felt love.

It was the "craving" feeling that the affairees had. In our case it didn't matter who the OW was, any woman would of made my H feel special at that time. He would of felt love just getting these feelings met no matter who gave it to him.
This is why I believe my H was able to stop his affair immediately. I was able to give him what we had always had before my H affair. It wasn't anything I had to learn, I had it the whole time, it had just faded.
I think that if we had never shared this and if he hadn't of realized that we did share this specialty throughout most of our marriage, my H would of had a much more difficult time realizing that he didn't feel "true love" for OW.

Gosh, I'm sorry that this has gotten so long. It just really got me thinking.

What we both just had to learn is to become aware of our feelings and what happens within ourselves when we feel neglected. We had to learn how simple it actually is to fullfill each others needs and just keep that up. We had to learn to talk about our feelings and inform each other as to what state we are just in.

This way we can prevent being the reason to make each other feel sad or neglected.
This is what we have indentified to be "True Love".
It a good balance of the "Giver" and "Taker" and just not anything extreme where the outcome is unknown.

Hope you understand.

take care
bb

So I guess my quesion is where do I fit in all of this? When I started EA with OM I was terrifically in love with H. Infact I was planning a surprise birthday party for him( with OM)I could recall seeing OM 2 times before that.But When i saw him at the party something clicked. I felt terribly guilty because I knew I loved my H and that he was fulfilling me ENs.What I felt for OM was instanttanous.It wasn't until I became infatuated with OM that I felt my ENs were being neglegted by H. The EA lasted only 4 weeks, one pa 2 weeks into it,and the contact has been over for 3 mos.

Why do I still love him? Even before he showed up at my door, I would think," You know I love him and thats ok, its just nt meant to be.My dh loves me and I love him, I just have to accept that.This has to be enough for me. I wonder how he is doing, i wonder how his son is( he is a single father). I would think about the mundane things with him, I imagined what we woud fight about if married, I feel like I KNOW it wouldn't have been easy ( just like it wasn't easy with my H). I am ashamed to admit that I feel like it was Love at first sight with OM.I felt like I wanted to be married with OM, to have all the problems married couple had with OM.Does that make any sense?

still confused and starting to think there is no black or white answer