I was wondering: does anyone else out there wonder how and why they still love their WS's? I miss mine, even though she lied to me, disrupted our family and abandoned our home for the thrill of romantic fog. I wonder if I am just as addicted as those WS's we lament on this board.

Do we miss the person or the "package"? I feel I miss my family and all that comes with it. My identity was so wraped up in being a husband that it is wretching to lose it.

Still I miss the person my wife was b4 all this occured. The one who I could trust and who looked on me a a partner, lover and friend with whom she would spend her life.

I'm busy and growing but wonder: what fills the void left when your life partner leaves? What makes you stay? What makes you fight? What would make YOU leave?

<small>[ September 19, 2004, 09:49 AM: Message edited by: dleightonc ]</small>

dlc:

"What makes you stay?"

Love. We've known each other for 30 years. We've got 2 great kids 2gether. We have a somewhat good, somewhat dysfunctional extended family 2gether. We have experiences 2gether.

"What makes you fight?"

Love. It's responsible 2 fight for what I believe in, and taking responsibility for the consequences of our own decisions in life is liberating.

"What would make YOU leave?"

Love. It would be a self-preservation of my self-respect if I got 2 the point where the best viable option would be 2 leave. I'd still love my W if she were my x, 2. A different, compassionate, detached love, not a romantic one. ...if I got 2 that point.

-ol' 2long

Hind sight being 20/20, I would have to say that I loved my WS's behind. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> No really, I was caught up in as much fog as she was, just of a different nature. I was "in-love" with an "idea" and "dream" that never was reality. I stayed and faught for feeling that I never truly had or could even comprehend at the time.

You know i've been thinking the same question. My wife says its because I want her as a possesion. Never mind because we have 3 kids and God hates divorce. Can trust ever be recovered?

I often ask myself this question. Is it because we are afraid of the unknown, starting over again or is it the familiarity that we do not wish to give up.

I often I long for our old marriage back (minus all the problems though). I long for the man that I used to look up to, the one that made me feel safe and protected. This is gone and I'm not sure if this feeling will ever com back again.

I love my husband very much. I guess if I did not, then I would probably be gone already. I do think though that sometimes this can also turn into an addiction on the part of the BS. Fighting for a man/woman that plays "hard to get" in a certain sense, even though technically we already have him/her.

I have seen cases that when the WS actually does repent and comes back to the marriage, after a while the BS does not want him/her anymore. In a way the "thrill of the chase" is gone...

It is really strange. But maybe it is also a way for the BS to protect his/her feelings from further hurt.

I do not believe that a marriage affected by infidelity will ever be the same again.

Kati

Nope, don't miss my WH at all, nothing, nada. I don't even think about him much. I don't want to hurt him, and am thinking about staying married so that he will have health insurance.

I hope someday to remember the happier times. But I am not there yet.

My life is much better without him. It was very hard at first, but then I started changing. I enjoy my life now.

I did a lot of things to raise my self-esteem, exercised, rearranged house, painted, did the yard, went out with friends. Though I work full time, I started a property management business, and it is going very well.

The property management business almost runs itself now. I have a maintenance and cleaning crew to do the work.

I'm now thinking about the future, and buying a boat.

So get out there and get busy. You WILL have a good life again. You just have to do the hard work.

I have thought about this a lot. I believe I love my FWW because the loving shared adventure of our lives made not just deposits on our LB$s but also made some shrewd long-term real estate investments off-shore. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

For 21 of the 22 years I've known her she's been everything I've dreamed of in a wife, a partner a friend. I guess that her giving in to a proven "predator" at a time when our M and other circumstances made her vulnerable while dreadful, hasn't been enough to deplete the LB$ and the long term investments in my heart.

It may deplete, and I still worry that I will not recover from this betrayal, but right now, I love her, and would die for , or kill for her.

I think mebbe thats why the marriage vows we shared said " for better or worse". theres a provision for a kind of deep-core love that lingers when folks SHOULD try to reconcile.

* and yes I know the vows also say " forsaking all others " <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> Well, I have forsaken all others at least...

I love my FWW because that is my duty as her H. I cannot abandon her, I've done enough checking out and tending to my own needs over the years. This is her time to be lost, and time for me to help her find her way home. This is my time to better myself as a H and Father. I feel an obligation to my W, her title affords her that, and I try not to lean too much on my own understanding of the how's and why's. For me it has taken time to realize every poor decision my W has made in her A was not to spite me. YES, I was hurt/am hurt by her actions and abandonment of her vows, but she has made mistakes. The part I dread is now that she's in the early stages of recovery, she still hasn't felt the full effects of her actions. I do not wish this on her, and I hope to be far enough down my own personal road of understanding to catch her when the pieces do fall. I am her H and the leader of my household, we have let each other down and I'm not talking 10 years ago when I had an A. What was I doing 6 months before her A? Was I being attentive to her needs? Was I being the H I should have been? I must obviously answer NO to both those questions, and since I answer NO to those questions, that is why I find it in myself to support her during probably the most painful, challenging time of her life. I'm her H and if I walk now, what does that say about my integrity to my M, just because she's made a huge mistake doesn't give me a right to make one myself. I know that all sounded mushy, <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> but it's how I feel and what I believe.

FM

<small>[ September 16, 2004, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: FamilyMatters ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I was wondering: does anyone else out there wonder how and why they still love their WS's? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I just wrote a big 'ol post while working through some feelings associated with this question. You know what I came up with about 2 minutes ago?

I love my WH because he is not just a WH. I can love him while hating what he is doing and how I feel.

He's having an affair, but is not the sum of that affair.

He is more than he is being right now and THAT is the person I love.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What makes you stay? What makes you fight? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I stay because I have faith and hope in the man I married rather than the man he has allowed himself to be right now.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What would make YOU leave? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I don't know. I imagine if I lost that hope or faith I would leave. If I could no longer respect myself in the quest to save our marriage I would leave. If he could no longer be a man to be respected or looked up to by our children, I would have to seriously evaluate why I was still there.

Fortunately, I still have that hope and faith and believe that he is more than this affair and our marriage is more than this crisis. I pray I'm right.

I miss the connection we had as friends. We used to be able to tell each other anything. Also I miss the shared experience of parenting, the shared pride and joy of our kids' childhood.

Now It's business with the kids and my heart guarded. Maybe, then it's the freedom I felt that I miss most.

i don't know why i still love him.
for all that he's put me through I know i shouldn't but I still do.

before i found out about the A we never argued. Now just hearing anything from each other starts the yelling.

i don't know what will make me stop loving him but i actually hope it happens soon. maybe that hope will kill the love. who knows, nothing else seems to help

Unfortunately, my husband still has all the qualities that made me fall in love with him. Unfotunately, his deposits and withdrawals are still about equal right now, still keeping my love for him in the black. Unfortunately, he has also developed some qualities that I do not like <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

He is hard-working and deteremined. He is self-motivated. He makes sure I'm taken care of, even though it's seen as a duty right now, rather than out of love (ie financially).

He still knows things about me that no one else knows and he still loves at least those parts of me. I nkow things about him that no one else knows, and I still love him.

He can still make me laugh and still make me smile. While he's not doing the right thing, IMO, *he* thinks he's doing that right thing..and that's important to him and I love that about him. Too bad it affects me negatively.

I don't want to love him anymore. But I do.

Boy Maddy, that was both pleasant, and very hard to read. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

I don't wonder about my STBX anymore.

<small>[ September 16, 2004, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Tom Joad ]</small>

I still love my WW because she was a part of the best years of my life. My greatest experiences in my life were with her. She at least deserves my love for being a part of that. That is despite her current behavior.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by dleightonc:
<strong> What makes you stay? What makes you fight? What would make YOU leave? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">oh boy...bad day to find this question.

I have no idea why I stay.
I fought because I thought that this would be the kick in the *ss that we needed to get a great M. As it turns out, 5 years after the fact, we are exactly at the same place as we were pre-A- taking each other for granted, not spending time with each other, leading seperate lives. No continuation of the A that I am aware, or any new OW. But now I'M the one at risk because my needs are not being met and although he knows what they are and how important they are to me, he just wont fill them. And my LBank is dropping by the day.

I'm seriously considering separating. I told him I would only stay if we could turn this around and have a better M. And it's just as bad as it was before.

So right now, I have no idea why I love him, I have no energy to fight for making my M better and I'm thinking of leaving.

I better not post in recovery.

Well, I'm not going to say anything about still loving STBXWH, because I don't think about it that way anymore. But I will say what brings me the greatest sense of loss.

It is the fact that he is the only one in the world that shared the birth of my daughters, every little moment of their childhoods. he's the only one that loves them like I do (though his actions have led me to question the depths of his love). He's the only one that understands their personalities, their quirks, knows how to handle them like me. He takes pleasure in the cute little things they do that only a parents gets excited over.And he shared the years of my life and the experiences that were the most precious to me - the years of starting our family. That's something I can never replace, something no one else will ever be able to share with me. And that makes me so sad.

Bob and FM sound like they are puting down the words in my head that i've been telling my self why i've stayed.

Faithinme said almost exactly what I'd have said, except for one thing...

I love my WW because I choose to. If I stop fighting and working to protect that love, it will go away. I choose to love her not because of who she is any more. I'm not sure who she is any
more.

One big thing I struggle with is the idea that if my WW continues to embrace this A, it will define her. One of her best qualities has always been how much she listened to her conscience. And now, it's like she's drowning it in the bathtub. What will remain?

GC

I love that, GC. You CHOOSE to, that's why. When I was fighting for my M, that's what I did. That's something he couldn't understand. I wasn't putting up with all the crap and loving him anyway because he was such a great catch, such a wonderful husband! I was making a CHOICE to love him, because that's what I had vowed to do on out wedding day.

GC, excellent point. I am too loving FWW because I choose to. Sure, history etc makes it easier but I am choosing to because I think its the right thing for all of us to do.