I am new here - have been reading a while - but not posting. Unfortunately, I am the WS - not proud of it but the truth, nonetheless. This is my question - and I hope that some of you will be kind enough to answer it for me.

What do you do if you don't think you love your spouse anymore? I have felt this way for a while but the A simply solidified my feelings. I don't think this is "the fog" that I have read so much about. D-Day has been well over 8 months. We have been to counseling. We have been talking and trying to make things work. However, I do not feel the same way about my spouse that I once did and I have realized this feeling has been around for a while.

So what is love? Can you have been "in love" at one time and then not be anymore? Can you have loved someone one way at one time and then love them differently? If you can "fall in love" can you "fall out of love?" Can you love your spouse in a different way than a spousely love? Can you have true love with the OP? How do you judge these things? How do you get answers? Any feedback towards this is appreciated, as I have been struggling with these thoughts and questions for a while - even before D-Day, even before the A.

Yes, you can fall out of love and fall in love again. Please read all the MB concepts here and all the articles. If you are not sure, go to one of the MB weekend seminar, they have very structured program to help you fall in love with your spouse. Your feeling before A was true, but it is not too late to save your M and mend your W's broken heart. You are a professor, so you should know that getting yourself educated is very important. Good luck, glad to see you here. That is the first step for a recovery M.

NP, love isn't just a feeling, it's a commitment to care. Feelings dissipate and intensify but during difficult times you know you can count on that love. Hang in there and try to see all the positive qualities in your spouse and see if the feelings don't grow. You don't have to sit back and hope, you can step up and do. You have more control over the process than you may think. If you proceed with another person don't you think the feelings will also dissipate and intensify?

Professor - LOVE, is the choice to care for another person. May it be opposite sex or of the same sex. LOVE is committment. To committ yourself, your body, your eyes, to the person standing in front of you, your spouse. LOVE is under the act of GOD, that you took your VOWS with LOVE. Did you love your wife at the altar? Did you ask your wife to marry you? Did you tell your wife when she was your girlfriend that you loved her? These are all the actions of LOVE!

Your affair, was out of lust. Nothing else, but lust. Marriages out of affiars, do not last. Given statistics show they do not last. You two were there for each other at your lowest emotional time. And the lust happened.

If you do the marriage builders, you will find the love you ONCE had for your wife. You will find why you chose to marry this person in the first place. You once LOVED her, and now you can find the love once again.

Don't look back at the affair. That was euphoria, and lust nothing else. There are many who had affairs and will finally admit that their bond to the other person was out of emotional dysfunction in their marriage. They found someone to admire them and that is all that was needed for the affair to start. Then when it is all over for good. They look back and wonder why they did such a stupid thing. You are so fresh out of your affair, that you are not seeing except through your rosy colored glasses. Reality will set in.

My X had a sexual affair with a promiscous woman. And he sees now that this woman was only out for what he could give to her. She used him, this was her 2nd sexual affair in her long term marriage which ended up in divorce, her husband was betrayed twice and this woman has psychological problems. But I do see that my X now sees that the woman is a lost cause. She uses people for her pleasure, and one day you will wonder why you went that route.

Some will say that their personalities fit. Yeah, personalities will fit when emotional turmoil has taken over their life. Anyone who gives them respect, admiration, and says the nicest things will be of #1 choice, who wouldn't. But then there are those, who know what committment to God means.

LOVE is a choice, LOVE is a reaction to kindness, LOVE is a pattern of showing affection and admiration.

Practice the Harleys books. Get into counseling with the Harleys. They can restore your love, and it will be a love you have never had before. I know a couple that were divorced for 3 years and were dating off/on during that time. Their love for each other is so strong, after the affair, the divorce and finding themselves. This LOVE was rekindled by GOD intervention, and their LOVE for each other that never left.

That is where my X and I do have a LOVE that will never leave. For we were married for 25 years. I do LOVE this man, but I don't like his actions. He does LOVE me, but doesn't like my actions. We both are finding ourselves, and learning more about ourselves after being married for 25 years.

Good luck, and I do wish that you give this marriage a chance. GOD hates divorce, and GOD made your marriage with LOVE and Committment.

nuttyprofessor

If you've been reading here for long, then you will know that what you feel for your affair partner is not love. It is an addiction. It is an addiction to how well you like how you feel when you and your affair partner "fill" each other's love banks.

However, you also realize that your new "love" is not based in reality. It is a relationship founded upon lies (both of commission and omission), deceit and secrecy, not to mention the fact that you haven't had to meet each other's needs while at the same time slipping into day to day routines...running the kids to their activities, cleaning the garage, doing the laundry, fixing the broken gutters on the house. You get the drift.

Instead, you are in a powerful fog, induced by the fact that you've conviced yourself that you've met your "soulmate".

All at the expense of paying little, if no attention to your spouse's needs, or being the father that you once were. In fact, all of what used to be your life, albiet not a perfect one, has been pushed to a very low level of priority in your mind.

Your wife knows. She can feel the disconnect. She has either confronted you, or is in complete denial. While she may be responsible for a part of what left your marriage vulnerable for an affair, it is not her fault. Only you can shoulder the responsibility for choosing to cross the line into adultry.

Your have put your wife into a position of having to live a life without being able to make decisions on what is best for her, if the truth were known to her. Imagine if the tables were turned, then how would you feel?

Your wife should be privy to the fact that you are not happy in your marriage, and likewise informed of the action you have taken. She should be informed of the MB philosophy, and this website, so she can educate herself as to what options are available to help her "compete" fairly in this drama.

Look at the statistics on how many relationships form while in an affair last beyond 6 months. Those relationships that start with a foundation of lies and dishonesty result in divorce nearly 95% of the time.

Are you so sure that your wife is really as bad as you have convinced yourself she is? Is the marriage you have had with her for so many years really just a big mistake? Or have you "re-written" history a bit for the sake of your new "love", and now you've sold the "story" so hard that you believe it yourself.

Going through a divorce is hell. Finding out your spouse has had an affair makes hell look like an amusement park. Your wife will endure pain like she's never known before, all because you, probably a really fine person in many ways, made a very bad decision.

Isn't it worth taking a second look back at your marriage, and with a verifiable plan, MarriageBuilders, making absolutely sure that woman that once was your soulmate, may still be?

Keep posting and reading this forum. There are many wise people here that will help you do the right thing.

SD

<small>[ May 25, 2004, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: shattered dreams ]</small>

Professor,
I have a great book for you to read on love: "The Road less Travelled"

It does a great job differentiating between loving someone and the feeling of being "in love."

The feeling of being "in love" is fleeting it only lasts awhile in any relationship. It's caused by a brain chemistry cocktail of endorphines amongst others. That's why it's similar to being addicted or "high."

The test of a relationship and better yet the test of the individual is whether they take things to the next level. Loving someone. This is a decision. A decision to act in acertain way for the one that you care for.

I'm not doing the book justice. Most libraries have a copy.

cwmac

Hi! I just had to reply because from what my W tells me she feels the same way. She says she lost her feelings for me even before the affair. The affair just solidified the fact. However, I feel people have to understand these things happen in long-term mature relationships(I don't mean affairs) Peoples feelings will go up and down. It is true when you first start to have feelings for a person your brain produces a drug called dopamine which is a precursor of other substances including adrenaline. That is why you get that high. Over time your body builds up a tolerance and you need more to get the same feeling. Many people will associate this feeling with love. Of course there is much more to love in a long-term relationship. Many people also compare there feelings now to this high they used to have and say they have lost their feelings. They are their they are just different. In many ways you control your feelings. If you want to love your W and have these feelings you have to act like you do. If you start doing caring things and put yourself in a frame of mind that you do love your W I think your heart will follow and so will your feelings return. You can't compare things to how they once were. I once saw a show that referred relationships to coffee drinking. When you first started coffee you could drink 1/2 to 1 cup and feel invigorated but as time goes on you need 2 cups then 3cups then 4 cups then 5 cups then 6 cups....(get the point) to get the same feeling. Many people try to get the same feeling as that first cup but it will never be the same. But in a long-term mature relationship things can be better because you know each other and can care for each other in ways you couldn't when you first met and didn't know. Anyway sorry this is so long. Hope it helps and when you find a way to get your feelings back for your W, tell me what you did so I can get my W to do the same thing.

Hi,

I thought I'd give you my opinion about what I think/feel about what love is.

I think "True" love happens only once in our life and if feelings do fade, what we then feel is the "craving" for what we once had.

Therefore any further relationships will be based on what we once had and they will be evaluated for what once was. (maybe not at the beginning but once the butterflys are gone)

Hope this isn't too complicated.

I came to believe this because when my husband was involved with OW, he was craving for the feelings he once had with me.
OW couldn't fullfill all of his needs so this made it difficult for him.

Once the affair was out in the open and once I knew what he was craving for, I gave it to him "Full Blast". I gave him a perfect Plan A and his love for me returned within a very short period of time.

We talked about this many times.

My husband saw a few simularities in OW that seemed to be "gone" in me.
He longed for those times. He longed for the "Me" that was chirpy and happy and easy-going.
He longed for the "wife" that always took great care of him and that told him loving things.
He longed for affection and admiration. All things that seemed to be lost and gone.

But they were still there. Buried abit but not gone. Once we both became aware of this and many other things, we were able to recover and regain what we once had.

So was it really "love" that my husband felt for OW????? No it was infatuation and lust.
It was a "longing" for what he had shared for almost 30 years with me.

He had just forgotten to "open up" and be totally honest with me.
Getting involved in an affair was "trying" to go the "easy way" but that's fantasy. Love doesn't just happen. It "grows" and has to be "taken well cared of" otherwise it will fade.

We have now been married for almost 24 years and we have known each other for almost 30 years.

Marriage Builders and the knowledge of "Emotional Needs" is the key for us for our successfull and loving relationship that we now share again with one another.

It works and "Love" does come back.It's a matter of giving 100% from both sides. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

take care
bb

Professor,

Please read this thread, it will give you much insight into the nature of love and differentiates between real/true love, romantic love and feelings of love. Actually that thread is an extraction from the book, The Road Less Travelled written by M. Scott Peck.

<small>[ May 26, 2004, 07:41 AM: Message edited by: Suzet ]</small>

Well....

no matter the subjective words used to describe love....I think that the truest definition of love is that it is actions....

actions that are loving...
actions in physical manifestation
actions in thought process manifestation....

and to understand YOUR defintion of LOVE...you probably should look at YOUR actions you used...OR DIDN'T USE to

fall into love...
fall "out" of love....which is a misnomer...people don't FALL into or out of love...
they either act lovingly...or don't ACT lovingly...

However, I do not feel the same way about my spouse that I once did and I have realized this feeling has been around for a while.

well I bet that before you didn't "feel the same way about" your spouse...that you didn't ACT the same way about your spouse either...(like courting times)
even just small acts withdrawn without much of acknowledgement that it was happening...

that at some point consciously or unconsciously you began not to put the same amount of energy in to


thinking of her
valueing her
seeking out her companionship
seeking out her approval
seeking out her happiness...

meaning that before you actually ACKNOWLEDGED not feeling in love...you had already engaged in many actions that were not loving and thought processes that were not loving....

but the A simply solidified my feelings.

well think about that statement logically...

you found another person and put all this energy, thought, hormones, emotion in to their total being and life....took great risks to be with them....
and all of those actions took away from giving those things to your wife....

so you withdrew all the actions of loving from your wife gave them to another woman...and then say that proves you weren't in love with your wife...
yet it was you who quit ACTING loving to your wife....

Can you have true love with the OP?
well since there is no real definition of true love...I'm gonna just state that an affair is not based on truth....

nutty...

you used to put energy and thought in to loving and cherishing your spouse...
and at some point you quit doing that ...
and then your feelings caught up with your actions...
and you then began doing all those loving actions and thoughts again...except with the small glitch thrown in that it was not towards your wife that you did this...

marriages do not exist outside of our own creation
neither does love...

our marriages are what WE (YOU) make them to be..
our LOVE is what WE (YOU) make it to be.....

you have chosen to define love as a feeling only...releasing all ownership...
love released of ownership is exactly the type of thing that leads people in to affairs...
if you believe it should just happen to you..and thrive on its own...and others should do all the work....
your quest for love..will come up empty again and again....

and you said you didn't think this was fog.. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

ark

Hello NP,

Welcome to MB.

The first question I have is if you have ended the adultery yet? Until you have no contact(NC) with the OW then you will not rediscover any feelings of love with your W.If you have been reading here for a while you would know this.

You asked if you could have true love with the OP? Well,in my opinion and most other's here,true love with the OP rarely happens.Why? Because for one thing,that "love" that you may think you have was based on lies,deceit,secrecy,PAIN to others and is also not based in reality.Infatuation is what you are feeling and it is wrong to try and solve marital problems by adultery.You need to look deep within yourself to figure out why you would cross that boundary and why you let another woman fill in your needs.

Do you have any children? How long have you been married?

People that leave their spouse(S) to be with OP have a 97% failure rate.Of those 3% left that remarry their OP,75% will fail too.

The odds,if you will,are highly stacked against you if this is the path you are considering and what a monumental gamble you are taking instead of putting your heart,mind and soul into what should have all these things rightfully so,your W and marriage(AND children if you have any). This does affect everyone around you,not just YOU.If you are only going to go through life getting your own needs met by whomever irregardless of how other's in your life feel or are affected by your actions,why did you get married and choose to be with your W? Why then would you choose to be with OW? Just for continued good times with no other requirements,responsibilities or attachments?

IS the OW married as well so there is even more at stake here?

Let's say you leave your wife and go live with and maybe even marry OW.Can you live with yourself knowing what you did? Can you honestly believe that this OW will not in time,have issues,baggage,thoughts,feelings,habits and responsibilities that just aren't in the forefront now and that you might feel irritated about? Don't believe for one minute that what you are going through now will NOT happen to you and this OW.It happens to ALL relationships.You ALWAYS have to tend to your marriage just like a garden or it will die.

The difference here is that you have a history with your WIFE,you have a marriage with your WIFE,you have none of that with this OW.She is a temporary fix to a bigger problem that you and your W need to solve *together,she needs to get lost and go find an unmarried man for herself.What kind of woman is this OW to be involved with a MARRIED MAN? You may come to her defense and say that she wasn't to blame but that is FALSE.Think of how you would feel if another man was involved with your wife and how he would be VERY unwelcome into your lives,to say the least.

If you can't picture that now,think about it happening to your OW.What if another man came into her life and took her away from YOU? Wouldn't feel too good now would it.Well,if it doesn't then think of your wife in those shoes and multiply times a THOUSAND! THIS is what she is going through right now,if she even knows about your adultery.

I truly believe that the love you once had with your W is still there,beneath the surface and if you gave the time,love and energy into growing that love,you will find it comes to the surface and can blossom again.BUT,you have to put that time,love and energy into your marriage, NOT this OW.

I hope you will continue to come back and disuss this with us.Let us help you avoid becoming another possible statistic of Divorce.

O

<small>[ May 26, 2004, 08:24 AM: Message edited by: Octobergirl ]</small>

NP .. where r u ? and what is your story ? -rh-

nuttyprofessor.... update please??!!