the very act of having an extra marital affair means you stopped loving your spouse as much. Sure you still love them if you cheat on them maybe but not the way you did when you were not cheating on them?

If there was string emotional and romajntic entanglements involved then its even more obvious that the love for the spouse not only took a back seat to the love towards the new person but that the love for the spouse effectivly ceased for all practical romantic purposes.

Is it negative for me to dwell on this fact? I mean it is a fact correct? If you cheating spouse would never have done this to you when you were at the height of the successful part of your relationship then clearly when their heart turned from you and they began to turn it towards someone else its really just them acting naturally as their love had turned from being directed to you to directing it at someone else.


This is important because what are we going to work on in marriage therapy? Are we going to cure her of being in love with someone else or guilt her into staying for the kids?
or guilt her into staying with me and not hurting me with the truth?

I think that's right. Indeed, this is addressed directly by His Needs Her Needs. Relationships get to the point where one spouse loves the other person less because their needs are not being met.

I think that the positive way to deal with this is to acknowledge one's role in the deterioration of the relationship. That's different than feeling responsible for the affair. If the relationship is not good, the other person should figure it out and say so -- not run off with someone else.

Relationships need constant work and attention. I believe that your relationship with your spouse should be #1 in your life. Ahead of work. Ahead of kids. Yet it's amazing how far down the priority list relationships go for some people.

Just my $.02, but during my EA I didn't love my spouse any less, just my needs were being met by someone else. He hadn't cared enough about me to fill my EN, so someone else might as well (this was my thought process). But I still loved, and love my husband. What I SHOULD have done was tell him that my EN were not being met and we could have worked on it together.

But I will always love him and my children. He does not understand this, but if I didnt' love him at all I would have left.

affairees, both current and recent

mix up the usage of 3 things

love & desire & need

love in a long term committed marriage goes beyond feelings and becomes loving actions

having an affair is a most Unloving action ... so the betrayed partner (rightly so ) feels very UNloved .... they recognize that they were

needed (as a spouse)
desired (but not in "that way")

but were not treated with love

Pep

If you loved someone, you would not even ponder the thought of cheating. This IMHO period.

You may like them a whole LOT, but you dont love em.

Dr. Shirley Glass addresses this issue in her book, Not Just Friends.

Imagine what it was like in the first few dates with the person you ultimately married. You experienced powerful emotions of attraction, etc. You can't say you knew your date well, because you were in the early days of your romance. You wanted to see the other person all the time, talk to them; perhaps you began the physical part of the relationship and you found yourself wanting that too. You work hard to be the kind of person you think they want. You don't do anything to make them angry or show disrespect. In fact, you work hard to please them (although it doesn't feel like work).

Glass calls this Stage I of a romantic relationship. It is primarily fantasy-based and involves projecting what you want in your lover on the other person, whether they possess those traits or not.

But after a while this passionate feeling subsides. You begin to see flaws in your partner. Once your partner seems "hooked" on you, you don't work nearly as hard trying to win them over. You still love them, but your love has moved into a more mature kind of love. This kind of love is reality-based, and Glass calls this Stage II.

People who have affairs are comparing their Stage I affair with their Stage II marriage. When you are swallowed up by the emotions of Stage I, Stage II may seem pretty mundane by comparison. The two stages are like apples and oranges and comparisons between them are unfair. It's the difference between fantasy and reality.

This doesn't mean the WS loves you any less, though they may have to examine their deepest feelings to know this themselves.

IMHO

There are factors involved in an M.

My mom told me once that long term love is different from infatuation.

Love-
"A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness."

Infatuation
"A foolish, unreasoning, or extravagant passion or attraction"

My mom used to say the problem with M is that the butterflies you had when you saw the other person deminish afte a while. That is replaced by this overwhelming feeling of love.

My told me that there are days she can't stand to be around her H but she knows one thing if there was a time she couldn't be around him it would kill her inside.

I think sometimes that the WS becomes infatuated with the OP confuses infatuation with love. Then they cannot love the BS because if they did they couldn't do this to someone they loved. So they must not love you.

The blemishes you have are maximized while the blemishes of the OP are minimized.

At some point they need to back off of the maximization of your blemishes and see the real person. The person they do love but just are to afraid to admit it.

Rejection is a Bi$#%. Hard for the FWS/WS to lay themselves out to the BS to be rejected. They have/had and OP that wants them.

Sooner or later the blemishes of the OP will surface.

Here is MY point.........even though my EX and I didnt get along alot of times.......neither one of us met each others EN real well.......I still LOVED her enough to not have an affair on her. I still LOVED her enough to care about her feelings and what would happen if I went off with another. THAT is love.......NOT, saying my EN arent being met, so I will go off with this other person and see if he/she can do this for me. That is being callous......and its not LOVE. Sneaking around and hinding things, and lying to your spouse is NOT love. I dont see how it can be interpreted any differently.


Sorry, but this IMHO. *shrugs*

what's love got to do with this at all...

anyone in an affair..or pretty soon after an affair...

has no idea what love means..

they have turned the defintion as they turn the definition of many many words to meet their own selfish needs...

do they stop loving....
I don't think it's that they stop...I think they stop their ability to love...

the acts of an affair are only disrespectful...
both to the spouse...the OP and the OP's spouse...and all the children and family slimed in to the their wake...

affairs take a long time to build up in rational levels in a once healthy normal brain...

it begins tiny and insidiously...
till WS say insane things like...

I never meant it to happen...
I never would be the type of person to have an affair...
We couldnt' help it...
etc etc...

the whole time each little move tiny tiny step towards building a relationship with the OP...is accompanied by a tiny tiny piece of chipping away at the BS...

all to allow
all to rationalize...

till they believe their own creation of lies....

they convince themselves slowly....
that BS is ALLLL bad
and
OP is ALLLL good...

THEY MUST DO THIS


to deny
to rationalize the carnage of their actions....

they seperate the whole thing of being any of their responsibility....

and OP who accept a WE destruction of a BS...is equal and the same...
for the OP encourages disception
encourages vileness
encourages selfishness...

again all to feed their own distorted needs...

nothing loving about any of them....
nothing...

I'd look cross ways at and WS that uses the word love...
and take great a great sigh...
and search for pity..
and tell them...

dear dear WS...
what you call love is so far removed from the true LIGHT of LOVE>.....
true love only exists and thrives in an honest world..

not in one of falseness and betrayal..

speak your words of love for the OP...tell them that the love they think they have is a soul-loss love..and one that you are not interested in..

tell them

I dear WS..you have much much more value and worth in this world...and for you I want real love....born of honesty and honor....not your self creation to justify horrific acts....God doesn't make love like that....

love schmove....

ARK^^

Maybe you're right. If I had truly loved my H then I would have just said "No." But does that mean I can never love him again? Does it mean that I don't love him now that I am in NC and plan A and trying to make my marriage work? Can it never be forgiven?

My bishop (at church) said he feels like sin- any sin- is like a form of temporary insanity.

My actions are inexcusable. I never mean to say that it was my H's "fault" I did this.

But do you mean I don't love him now or that he can't love me- in the fullest sense of the word- now that I have done this terrible thing?

MrsRob...

Are you describing the feeling of love for your H, or your choice to love?

Resentment, anger, frustration can cover over our feelings of love...making love a choice, choosing to act from love rather than on it, is what rebuilds your marriage.

Could you have chosen your affair from resentment, entitlement, lack of respect (either direction)?

Choosing to love one another...choosing to honor the marriage, even when we're ticked at our spouse...choosing to speak for the marriage, even when we feel shut out...those are the ways we build a thriving marriage...staying honest, open and not acting our feelings, but our beliefs, which is where those feelings come from.

Did you believe at that the time of your affair that your H didn't love you? That's common. We don't think about whether we love our H's or not...but if we are loved, and loved well.

Choosing to love takes away that crutch, that perception...you act on YOUR love, and flow over with it...not trying to eek it out of another person...funny thing...when you do that? We feel greatly loved.

LA

LA- Your words have touched me deeply. I need to act from love. I have been praying for a mighty change of heart, and it is working.

I think I felt unloved for a long time, even though my DH does things for me- he does the things HE wants to do, not the things I want him to do. SO WHAT!! No excuse for an affair. I am changing. I also had a serious accident and almost died from blood clots and I truly think I was really emotionally a wreck from that....

I just want my DH to not leave me before he can see that I have repented and changed.

I think that people who have affairs have not stopped loving their spouses, but have stopped loving themselves and are looking for reassurance that they are loveable.

Just my two cents.

MrsRob,

Vows has a good point...and I want to emphasize it. Because when you don't feel loved, it is about you, not the other person. I say this because of what I learned, where I was...very close to where you were...and I had no idea how much MY filter was in the way of my feeling loved...

First, know you are loved. Without doubt. You are marvelously made by God...he didn't create a speck of junk in the universe. You are complete and whole, equal to every other human on the planet...'cuz they're made the same way.

Self-care is the key to getting your needs where you need them...and I believe you'll be shocked how much more love you feel coming in from your BH when you do focus on self-care.

Be open and honest with your BH about everything...do not act from your fear...your consequences will be what they will be...not in your control...know that. Know it to your core. You can't mitigate, dodge or lighten them...only own your own stuff, be fully in your center and power, and act from that love I know you have...the real stuff, from choice.

Speak and act gratitude...ownership; act from your remorse for amends...do not self-denigrate...you are no longer that person who would choose fantasy over reality. You are not.

Do a resentment timeline of your marriage...sit and list all the resentments and put it down for a couple of days. Go back and add more, re-read, let it brew in your mind. See where you created your resentments through expectations of what you cannot control, where you lost respect for your BH and yourself in doing so...find that meager payoff you had in resenting and know it for what it truly was...then choose to not act on anything you will resent. No sacrifice, no self-put downs...be honest and open about why you cannot do or go along with something you will resent.

In your amends, find out how much acceptance played a part in your terrible choice...share with BH if you find out it was you not accepting yourself and you projected it onto him...find out what the essence is that you do to others because you do it to yourself...what you may believe you feel from others which you are not doing for yourself...and acknowledge this to BH. Share. Not educate. I found this to truly build trust, demonstrate my true desire and give my BH a breathing space to deal with his own pain...

When your BH triggers, encourage him to share it. If he has to go through your cell phone bill, ask him to do it in front of you...you're a team. His fear is your concern, though not in your control. Be safe, listen and repeat, acknowledge what you hear...his thoughts, feelings and beliefs are his...yours are yours. Know this important, respectful difference.

Concentrate on your own remarkable changes...and they will be, when you switch from choosing your actions from fear rather than love...use anything smacking of deserving or entitlement as a signal you've stepped into the old way of believing...for now, you're new. See your BH as new. Believe with all your heart that you can have a thriving marriage...and do not rate or judge your BH in any way right now, because he's transformed through pain and agony that is close to annihiliation.

Was for me.

LA

If you accept that love is an action and not a feeling, then, yes, the very act of infidelity states that your spouse did not love you during his or her affair.

Having an A is not a very loving thing to do.

Moreover, A occur within good marriages and affairs don't always occur within problem-laden marriages. The variable is the WS and something missing in them that they seek in someone else. IOW, they seek external validation instead of internal validation.

I think they have stopped loving themselves, for whatever reason. It seems like that would be requisite to continue down such a destructive path. But there is also comfort in an affair, for the WS...

Yes, there is much comfort in an affair for the WS. They revisit first stage love and live the high longer than the affair itself.

Conversely, there is nothing in the affair for the BS but heartache and misery.

I see what you guys are saying, she may not love him more or even really feel the love. Its more of a fantasy for her, a fantasy i cannot live up to with real life giving and actions.

But how am i supposed to stop it from happeneing again then?
How can i compete against a phase 1 romantic entanglment.
She sure as ****** wouldn';t be able to compete with that either if i was doing it?

She had to love me less and love him more or at least want him more than she loved me and our family. Thats the bottom line, in the end it might be a bunch of nonsense in her head, but she still chose it over us.

"She had to love me less and love him more or at least want him more than she loved me and our family."

What you are missing is it wasn't about the OM or you. It was about her. Your feelings, you family's feelings, or OM's feelings were not important.

How do you stop it from happening again. You find out why it happened once she is out of the fog and make sure those things don't happen again.

There is a certain set of events that led to this action. If you eliminate those set of events then you have a better chance of it not happening again.

You also need to rely on the fact that your FWW sees the damage and has a conscience.

Some people quite frankly just need to get it out of their system. They only needed to do it once to prove whatever they were trying to prove.

I was kinda wondering if I am still attractive and now I know I am. Now back to my normally scheduled life with my BS and family. Hey whats for dinner honey I am home.

yes but my concern is if she truly loves this other man our marriage is lost/ sunk already. All my effort will buy is more time and pain.

she tried it once for 6 months already, we are now dealing with a second seperate attempted affair with someone else.

I wrote of the first one as it being an old love of her life from youth, b ut now i am thinking maybe she realised that she loved this other guy and not me and couldn't get him. So now she is jujst unhappy being stuck in a marriage where she is not with her true love so why stick to any marriage rules now.