A fascinating and useful thread.

I felt similar rejection of my years of loving investment in Squid, and a similar questioning of the real value of any of our pre-A 17 years together.

It took an unusual realisation from me to change things. I realised that my choice to love Squid, invest in her and be faithful to her had uplifted ME: refined my OWN soul and character. Whether it had been welcome all these years or not made no difference. Pushing against the rock had made me strong, not MOVING the rock.

My OWN character and heart were not stained by Squid's affair,only by my own shortcomings.

This realisation allowed me to value myself as a loving being independent of my role in my marriage for the first time in years, maybe EVER.

Once I realised this I was able to look INWARD for my validation not to Squid. I stopped NEEDING her. I WANTED her but did not need her. This was terrifying to Squid. she had relied upon my unwavering love and support despite her actions for so long, now it was clear that without let or leave, it had gone. She could rely on my duty but not my persistent love in the face of persistent unlovability.

I did what Dobson tells us to do : opened the cage door. Worked well for us.

I am still unsure as to the nature of 'love' in very long term relationships and during affairs. Squid's averred her love for me was platonic while her A was active. yet when faced with the option of leaving me for OM for ever she quailed. Love after a long time becomes affection, reliance, comfort, all kinds of things far less hot than affair-attraction. Is it a different kind of love or is it a dilution of teh same love ? I mean who could function normally if we remained in the fog-crazy puppy love state for ever in a marriage ?

I dunno

What I DO know is my perceptions of love have forever changed. I love Squid because I choose to and because it is good for ME and my kids to do that, not out of any endorphin rush. Squid probably loves me by some definitions of that word, but not in the way she did OM.

Affairs do pretty much devalue the concept of romantic love don't they ? A sad consequence of affairs.

Well Bob, if it's unusual, it's only because it's super-evolved thinking! What a wonderful realization. I guess I feel the same. Never would I consider the love I gave him for decades a "waste", and it most certainly enriched my life and soul. And hey - I KNOW I enriched his.



Yeah... also a big realization. That at the end of the day, it's down to YOU. This has taken me some time to get my head around, because prior to this, I used to believe that when a spouse was unfaithful, in most cases it was a reflection on the marriage and on the other spouse. When the A was revealed to me, I was embarrassed, ashamed, and humiliated. Even though I don't care what people think of me, this was the one instance when I just wanted to crawl under a rock and never come out.



This has also been a biggie for me: the realization that love is within me and independent of externalities. It also allows me to view relationships (romantic and otherwise) along the lines of "I have a LOT to offer this person" rather than "This person has a lot to offer ME!" (Which is, let's face it, what WSs think.)



This is great. STBX, alas, seems to have no such fears, and opening the cage door more or less just let him out for good. Maybe he just doesn't want to be needed and wanted by me any more. Maybe the OW's needs and wants are more appealing. Who knows?



Yep. Pretty much. Very, very sad indeed. No wonder some people swear off love forever.

Orchid: Tough love...is what a BS does towards the WS. Don't expect the WS to reciporcate. It stays tough and does not get mushy at the minimal recovery attempts.


Orchid: What about it? The Harleys are correct. Make sure you are clear about this. Doc Harley knows it is important to know 'why' a WS is coming and home NOT to accept less than your family deserves. In fact it is better to wait until the WS leaves and the Xws or your H comes home. My H told me at one point that I s/b happy he was 'home'. That infuriated me. I told him his body was here and now I had to take care of him as I used to my faithful H while he was still having an A? No way. I showed him the door and that became a false recovery. Don't let that happen to you. That hurt.

JMHO,
L.

Ah - OK, gotcha. I guess I got "a WS as is" mixed up with a WS that comes back for the "wrong" reason. So the important thing is that regardless of the reason, the WS as is (unrepentant, selfish, cruel, etc.) be gone, right?

RT,

I expanded my explanation on the last part of my previous thread. Guees that's why you have that confused type <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> response here. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Despite that you did get the gist of it. As long as he is a WS, he doesn't deserve t/b with your family. Think about it, who else would you allow into your family home if they were (unrepentant, selfish, cruel, etc.). Isn't that the kind of character you keep OUT of your home?

L.

Oh, there's no question about us having this horrid stranger in our lives. No way!

Thanks for the clarification. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I thought your questions were quite interesting, so I sent my FWW a link to your thread last night so she could have a look and perhaps respond or talk about it with me. Instead I was greeted with silence on the matter, so I didn't push it any further. She told me later that she didn't feel the need to talk about it.

I'll give you my point of view:

1. I know now that my FWW fell out of love with me years before her A started. She just wasn't "in love" with me anymore. The feelings weren't there, and as she's pointed out to me a number of times, her actions follow her feelings. She didn't stop going through the motions that she expected a W to do (she even accepted a new wedding ring from me only days before her EA graduated to a full-blown PA), but apparently her heart wasn't in it. So, I guess her answer to your first few questions would be along the lines of "well, I was not in love with my H at the time, so the questions really don't apply to my situation".

2. As for love playing a part in her coming back, I don't think that was the case either. Her A was coming to an end when D-Day arrived. The OM essentially told her that he did not feel for her the way that she felt for him. She was basically rejected by the OM. Even then, she did express that the love she felt for him at the time was greater than the love she felt for me or our family. I'm fairly certain that her decision to stay was primarly "for the children" and not because she saw any particular value in what we had together. In fact, just prior to D-Day, she'd invited the OM to our house to tell him that she was going to tell me that she didn't love me any more.

3. I'm hoping that, as our recovery progresses, she, like me, regrets how she contributed to the demise of our M prior to her A, regrets her actions during the A, and places enough value in whatever love we share together now to ensure that she never risks it again. I can't help but feel that it's a little to late though - the damage that her A has wrought has already been done to both of us, and we may never recapture those "in-love" feelings that we used to share, the feelings that made our bond so special to both of us.

"he doesn't deserve t/b with your family."

Orchid that must be the first time I have ever and I mean ever...Know what you are talking about.

It is one way I got through my husbands affair.


They deserved each other during 'their time'

Max

ps

by the way I feel if my husband did not love me while taking part in his EMA...I would have divorced yrs ago.

I guess , not that I am lucky, he had what is commonly called, an add on affair.


Max

Thanks for your story, ManInMotion. So it would appear your FWW was a classic case of just not having the A work out, and coming home for reasons other than "love". That's interesting. And good. Just goes to show that once they're home and the OP is out of the picture, you can recover a lot. I am very sorry you haven't been able to re-capture the "in love-ness" though. What a terrible price to pay.

Thanks MadMax, I agree: the WS and the OP most definitely deserve each other, and not the good stuff, during their time. This is the first time I've ever heard of an add on affair, though. What is it?

To be accurate, my FWW never left our home. Well, at least she was physically there - her mind was apparently somewhere else, on someone else. She did tell me afterwards that when she was with me she was with me, and when she was with him she was with him, but I suspect that's not quite the truth.



It is a terrible price, but unfortunately that's the hand that fate has dealt me. I know that the saying goes "it's better to have loved and lost rather than to have never loved at all", but I sometimes wonder if that's really true.

BTW, the OM isn't completely out of the picture yet. My FWW's just taken on a new responsibility that will have her meeting once a month for several hours at a location just two minutes' away from the OM's house.

Did it help that she was still at home, do you think?


Oooohhh OUCH! Have you talked about this? Got a strategy in place?

Well, it helped her A, as most of it was carried on at our home <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />. She invited the OM over a few times while I was away on business, and on one occasion invited him to spend the night. I really would have preferred that she did not bring her A into our home, but unfortunately I had no choice in the matter. I just asked her about this though, and she said that she had no intention of leaving me or leaving our home. Only on D-Day did she mention that she felt she needed to "get away".



We talked about this a bit last night and a lot more today. I'm not quite certain that she's ready for that kind of temptation yet, but she says that she's committed to recovering our M, so I will try to trust her. I suspect that I will have to remain very vigilant though.