A little history...NC since July. OW still tries to contact in different ways. We try to ignore her. We're doing pretty well. FWH is remorseful and trying hard.

I have seen many of the emails and more recently many of the IMs that went on for months. I have asked many questions and gotten reasonable answers, but many half truths. I asked did he tell her he loved her. And he said when prompted. She wanted to hear it. That was right after I confronted him and several months later. He had pretty much convinced me that he was just saying it to her, but didn't really mean it. He didn't show any real WD after it was over. And he seems happier now.

So fast forward to this weekend and I get a hold of old IMs. They are all about the same. It really told a different story. It appears that HE was really the one that pursued her, relentlessly. Here is an example:


OW says:
Go get your hug.
FWH says:
I need a hug from the woman I love.
FWH says:
I will quit telling you I love you if it will help.
OW says:
That is what I assumed.
OW says:
no, it won't.
FWH says:
Then I love you. I need you. You mean the world to me.
FWH says:
I will always love you.
FWH says:
I will continue to love you even if you shut me out of your life.
FWH says:
I will love you even if you do not love me back.
FWH says:
I will love you if you just want me to be a fishing buddy.
FWH says:
I can continue to tell you that I love you or I can love you in silence.
FWH says:
I will love you even if you never let me see you again. It will hurt, a lot, but i will continue to love you.
OW says:
Are you done?
FWH says:
Never. I will love you for life.
OW says:
Enough. You can email me tomorrow, if I feel like I have something to say you can come over then.
FWH says:
OK. Have I remembered to tell you that I love you today? I will email you tonight. I'm going to scan some photos in of the woman I love and send them to you. I won't send them to all the magazines and papers yet. I will need to write the story behind them and I am to tired tonight.
OW says:
ok
FWH says:
Good night. I love you. I need you. Any little bit that you can give me. I'm going to another computer to scan the photos.
OW says:
Good night.


OK, now I get he didn't want to tell me it all. But what is this really? I know most of you will say that it is just fog and the addiction talking. I just don't see it that way. From this and all the others that I have read, he was doing this constantly. I HAVE TO BELIEVE that he loved her. So, yes he chose me, yes he says he loves me, yes he buys me things and tries to show me. BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE that he loves me and not her. Where did these feelings go? Has he squashed them so they can't get out? Is he really hiding these feelings of love for her so not to hurt me? And is he here with me only out of obligation? Does he even know what his true feelings are himself? Is he fooling himself?

Right now, I do not believe he loves me though he professes it. So please tell me something other than it was the addiction talking and this is just fog talk. I don't believe it. Any help is appreciated.

this is obsession, not love. big difference.

Thanks Biggles. Ok that's different than addiction and fog. There's no love there? How can you tell? How is that possible?

i think the obsession and addiction arent far removed from each other. he's begging for a fix, promising his loyal love forever. its fantasy talk - not reality. this is the kind of talk that goes on in affairs. notice how he just kept emailing her looking for any response at all. even an "ok" to get high on. smacks of addiction.

if theres any relief in knowing its not true love then try to take that consolation michelle. i dont get the feeling from what you posted that it is.

youve been through a lot.

Thanks again Biggles,
This has been very difficult. I'm afraid that there won't be a thing that he will be able to do to prove to me that he loves ME. He says it, he holds me, says he's sorry. He does everything right. I just can't believe. And the walls are going up.And I can feel them.

Is this my problem? He can only do and say so much. I WANT to believe, but the words are there over and over. It's just so illogical to me that those feelings he had for her weren't real. He must have thought they were, at least then. How can it just turn off like a switch?

i think it is on you now. it was for me. i was in the same place you are at. heres how i handeled it.

1. is he/she doing everything possible to be transparent and totally honest?
2. is there true remorse?
3. have they taken steps like i.c. to get to the bottom of their issues?
4. is he/she trying to meet my emotional needs?

once i could check off those items i knew that i MUST open up and be willing to risk being hurt. you wont feel your love for him until you are able to be vulnerable and open. its scary but it can be done. there comes a time when you have to take the wall down. youll know when that time is. talk to him about it, let him help you take it down. that way he can have a hand in the process. he can show his love by understanding that fragile time and he will have the opportunity to draw you back out.

there is healing. promise.

MicheleG -

I think he sounds manic in that IM conversation...is he manic depressive?

Biggles is right...this is obsession and not love...he's looking for a high...he wants this woman to say the same things back to him...or I should say...he's looking for any type of response from her.

No where near love...not even remotely close.

Once again, thanks Biggles. He has done all but IC. He tries so hard. I have told him my feelings about his "love" for me and of my disbelief. He said that he knew that he could not ask anything of me, but to just give him time. He will show me. Even that is the right answer, I know. It just doesn't seem that cut and dry for me. Not with all of that he said to her.

Heroswife,
He is not manic depressive. Actually a very stable individual. However, I will say (and this scares me a bit) that this is similar to how our relationship started when we were teenagers. He was obsessive, possessive, jealous and controlling. After Biggles posted the first time, I googled stuff and found that what we had was not love in the beginning. It was "toxic" love. But I think it was just like this. I had not been in a real relationship until we met. I was 17, he was 18. He came on strong, just like this. I see it now, I didn't know it then. I just thought he was in love with me and head over heels.
Later he mellowed and I just thought he was maturing. Now with this thinking I could go off on all sorts of tangents. Maybe I need some IC. LOL.
I will say that he does get obsessed, the one he has had for years is his fishing hobby. We've joked about it, but maybe it's not a joke.

micheleg..

you should know that the term fog....is not a term that denys that a WS feels a certain way...or even feels like they are in love...

the fog is the term mostly applied to the IRRATIONAL leaps of ILL-logic that stem from their deep deep preservation need to rationalize and justify...

spouses who acted loving for years then involved in an affair telling a spouse they don't think they ever did love them....

spouses saying things like....it just happened we didn't mean to fall in love...unable to see their own energy expendature...

we all agree that the word love...love shmove...blah blah is really NOT a feeling...

love is an action word....

what you are reading are your husbands feeling in action....

the same actions that YOU were once receptive of....
taken from you...
applied to her...
thief...

which he is now returning to you....

he has stopped the loving ACTIONS...declaring love...text messaging sweet little messages....to her....so the feelings without the actions fade and become a very very distant memory...often greatly tainted with the reality of the stakes...and the pain they caused...

love is an action....
the feeling is the end result of that action of love being reciprocated and acted on back towards the giver....

love is an action...

we know this for we don't survive loving in a one sided way....it is destructive...

those messages are the past actions of your husband...

it is actions that define us..

he is not acting that way towards HER or ANYONE else...for she really could be anyone...anyone can be the object of our desire....

yet he acts that way with you alone...

words are empty without the acts...

he didn't have to squash feelings....he withdrew the actions that fed the feelings...
and saw..
how little meaning she had...
but perhaps how great meaning the actions had...
so now he brings his acts of love to you.....

for that is what love is..
love is an action...

ARK

Ark
You do have a way with words, very profound. Thank you. I can wrap my mind around most of that particularly...

"he didn't have to squash feelings....he withdrew the actions that fed the feelings...
and saw..
how little meaning she had"

Is it truly that simple?

Michele-
Sorry to hear about your doubts. I have many myself. Can I ask how do you find old IMs? I have been seaching and searching but he permantly deleted everything. The more I find that jives with his story the more peace I find but I just cant find anything. He even deleted our home account b/c he had corresponded with OW at home. Thanks and good luck with everything.

What a FWS felt for OP isn't love. It is a very strong attraction, but it isn't love.

The whole relationship between OP and WS is built on lies. So, what they think of each other and feel for each other is based upon a fantasy.

Once the fantasy of the OP starts to dissolve, it goes pretty quick.

HopingFor,
The IMs were sent to me via OW, nice huh? However I can tell you that I have found old emails on the computers that dated back when it all started in 2004. On the computer you can find them in the temporary internet files. They are not dated, just a bunch of strange numbers. I opened them all. Some were emails, some were nothing. It took ALOT of time. I had to type in the pathway:
Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5

The User is the person's name. Be careful. Sometimes seeing these things is extremely painful.

Thanks Jimmy Mac. It is hard to believe that it wasn't love. i have never been obsessed like that so I cannot understand it. I know there is truth to what you say. H seemed to get over it very quickly, it was almost abnormal. I was waiting for withdrawal and it never came. Where did his mind go for a year? Or is that a question for a shrink?

Michele,

Can you give me ONE good reason you have not taken this pile of S*#T she has done to you and you H to her C.O.!

There is no reason for you to continue to put up with this B.S. when you hold the cards.

Do not let this women get away with this, and/or do it again to someone else. Make her know they will be a price to pay.

Please...

JustKeepTrying,
Ok, you got me. I knew if I showed my face around these parts, someone would ask me that question. I can't say that I have ONE good reason, I have many smaller reasons.

I do not want to be laughed out of the CO's room because my evidence does not convict her. I am trying to gather it up so there is no doubt in any doubter's mind that it is she who is doing all of this.

Less importantly, I hate to destroy someone's lifetime career. I'm a kinda "live and let live" person. I know it doesn't apply here. But it does go against my nature to rat someone out. So to speak.

I know, it is me and my M that is at risk here. But the funny thing is after posting this and getting some responses I have started checking more info on the web. It really was an obsession. So her sending this to me helped. At first it didn't, but I think I am beginning to understand his A. I now see how it all started, and who started it. This answers many of my questions. It puts a time frame on it all.

My rollercoaster is heading up a hill right now. I'm not mad that she sent it, odd as it may sound. This is the best I have felt in a long time.

Michele: When the WS figures out that the relationship is an emotional dead end and his "addiction" to OP wains, then the A dies a "natural death" and the WS moves on.

If D-day was about the same time as the natural death of the A, then NC will not have any affect on WS, and so the WS will not experience withdrawl.

The only word of caution is to make sure that WS really has no feelings for OP and is not hiding them. WS have a tendency to be real good at masking their feelings.