I had a pretty big day last night. I gave my wife an ultimatem to quit her job, no overtime, and provide me with phone logs. She said she will let me know tonight.

But she also dropped a big line. She asked why I even bother anymore if I think she is such a horrible person. I said because I love her, we have a family, and a marriage to protect.. She then tells me, "you cant truthfully tell me you love me anymore!". I said, well, do you still love me. And then she drops the big one. "I love you, but not in-love".

This really hurt me. What does this actually mean? Yes, we have been together for almost 8 years. So the honeymoon is over. But how do you tell your life partner you dont love them the way you should, and continue to want a marriage!? This baffles me. Perhaps I have a higher standard of what my marriage should be, but if its a marriage without love. I dont want it.

You did say she is in or was in an affair, correct? If so this is classic line a WS uses to justify the unjustifiable.

In any case there are people (I dare say most of them that fall into an affair) who don't understand real love and marriage. They think that if you don't act and feel like you felt on your second date or when you were having a high school crush then you must not be in love. Marriages are supposed to grow, change, mature, It doesn't mean there can't be passion, romance, and "those feelings" but it does mean that the way you felt when you first started dating someone cannot be realistically compared to a marriage of 5,10,20 years. The mature marriage cannot stand up to "the feelings" at the beginning. This why an affair is such a rush for those involved. They forget that they felt the same way towards you in the beginnning. they begin to compare the affair feelings to mature marriage feelings, responsibilities, real life stuff, etc...

This is my first thought, and yes, she has had an affair, and its up for debate whether the affair is continuing. Perhaps she is comparing feelings for the OM to me.

However, is it not possible she is aware of that also, and there is a more profound justification to her thoughts. Is it possible that she truley does not feel love for me anymore? Even a matured love? I know many of you feel once an affair starts, it rarely ends easily. However, there is a real possiblity the affair ended when she said it did. I dont ignore any aspects and possibilities. So it is possible she is not comparing it to one of infatuation.

She refered her love to me as a family love. Not one of a partner and lover. I suppose I can create those feelings again with hard work, and beging the courship ritual all over. On the other hand, perhaps this mentality of hers is so ingrained in her soul, that we will never achieve true love again. Even a mature one.

I have always found my wife sexually desireable. Even in the troubled times. However I cant help but to wonder if she feels "molested" to a point, by my sexual requirments. How can you tolerate a sexual relationship with a brother or sister. How could you tolerate a sexual existance with someone that is loved as a family.

And if the later is true, is it not worth starting over. Finding someone who will geniunley love me like I expect, and deserve?

Man, my mind is swirling like a tornado lately.

Read the article posted under "Hurtingless" signature. It explains this all.

Love is not a feeling it is a choice. Simple as that. If you and if you WW put the same effort into your M and sex life she was/is willing to pour into the A and met and allowed you to meet her most important needs, then those feelings you had in the beginning would come back.

Hearing that lately myself.....Sorry Man!

My W is bipolar and alcoholic so I never know if she means it.

I am three months into this stuff. So pretty much a novice but learning quickly. My WW had an EA.
My wife told me after her first session with her IC that she had "emotionally Divorced" me. No feelings at all. I read in the book about the 5 love languages that this is an excuse used to allow them to love someone else.
She still will not say ILY. No sex or close affection.
She now thinks love making should be just romantic and straight forward, so to speak. She resents anything we did to spice things up in the past....even though she did enjoy that at the time, told me so, and even instigated some of the time. She resents the use of "toys". I burst her bubble when i told her that we did that when we were dating. She looked confused and asked "we did?"
All of these are still excuses for justifing the EA and a wish to continue. I just posted on my chain about some of this... see "new poster wife fence sitting on separation" for more.
I do beilve it is fog talk and justification stuff. In my case I think it can gradually dissapear if all goes right and eventually the love can return....once they "wake up".

CM:

I think it was Suzet who posted this excerpt from M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled":

"Of all the misconceptions about love the most powerful and pervasive is the belief that ‘falling in love’ is love or at least one of the manifestations of love. It is a potent misconception, because falling in love is subjectively experienced in a very powerful fashion as an experience of love.

Falling in love is not an act of will. It is not a conscious choice. No matter how open to or eager for it we may be, the experience may still elude us. Contrarily, the experience may capture us at times when we are definitely not seeking it, when it is inconvenient and undesirable. We are as likely to fall in love with someone with whom we are obviously ill matched as with someone more suitable. Indeed, we may not even like or admire the object of our passion, yet, try as we might, we may not be able to fall in love with a person whom we deeply respect and with whom a deep relationship would be in all ways desirable.

This is not to say that the experience of falling in love is immune to discipline. Psychiatrists, for instance, frequently fall in love with their patients, just as their patients fall in love with them, yet out of duty to the patient and their role they are usually able to abort the collapse of their ego boundaries and give up the person as a romantic object. The struggle and suffering of the discipline involved may be enormous. But discipline and will can only control the experience; they cannot create it. We can choose how to respond to the experience of falling of love, but we cannot choose the experience itself.

Love is not a feeling. Many, many people possessing a feeling of love and even acting in response to that feeling act in all manner of unloving and destructive ways.

It is not only possible but necessary for a loving person to avoid acting on feelings of love. I may meet a woman who strongly attracts me, whom I feel like loving, but because it would be destructive to my marriage to have an affair, I will say vocally or in the silence of my heart, ‘I feel like loving you, but I am not going to’. My feelings of love may be unbounded, but my capacity to be loving is limited. I therefore must choose the person on whom to focus my capacity to love, toward whom to direct my will to love.

True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision. Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom. When we are concerned for someone’s spiritual growth, we know that a lack of commitment is likely to be harmful and that commitment to that person is probably necessary for us to manifest our concern effectively.

Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. If it is, so much the better; but if it isn’t, the commitment to love, the will to love, still stands and is still exercised.

The common tendency to confuse love with feelings of love allows people all manner of self-deception. It is clear that there may be a self-serving quality in this tendency to confuse love with the feeling of love; it is easy and not at all unpleasant to find evidence of love in one’s feelings. It may be difficult and painful to search for evidence of love in one’s actions. But because true love is an act of will that often transcends ephemeral feelings of love, it is correct to say, ‘Love is as love does’.'

-ol' 2long

Frankly, if I had my druthers, as 2 which kind of love 2 receive from my W (assuming I could only pick one), I'd take "I love you" over "I'm in love with you" any day.

I've said many times on here that I came 2 a point where I clearly unders2d what my W meant when she said "I love you but I'm not in love with you", even though I don't think she unders2d it herself. And so the opposite is also true, and should be spoken by the WS 2 the OP: "I'm in love with you, but I don't love you".

Because that's the truth.

-ol' 2long

2Long,

I love you, but I'm not in love with you man!

I enjoyed your post.

Plank.

Plank:

That's good! Because homey plays that, but not that !

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

-ol' 2long

I love you but am not in love with you is a solution to a logical conundrum. It makes no sense in the real world. I am one year since Dday. I just used that same line on my WW. She was devastated. It is not something I could have said early on but it works now. Actually I didn't even say I love her. I said I still have feelings for her. Ouch.

Just remember that you are the one with all the power in this struggle even though you don't feel like it.

Don't take the "I love you, but am not in love with you speech to heart.

This is exactly what ws say when involved in an affair.

This is not something that is unique. Most BS say it.

My ws said that to me two months before DD.

I instinctively knew he was having an affair with another woman. Woman's intution.

Gather information on your ww, keep your sources secret and line up your ducks in a row for exposure.

Don't forwarn ww that you are going to expose the affair to family and friends or the OMW.

Get together with one of the seasoned pros here, and plot your plan of exposure.

Don't forget to start your Plan A.


Best of luck

k.d.'s heartbreak

My WW said this almost a year before she left me. She was already 'looking' for an affair, I think. My gut told me all sorts of bad things about her, and I bet they were mostly right. I was blind, though, and thought I could keep her from straying.

I was wrong.

She still says she loves me but is not in love with me. She says she loves me the same as she loves all of her friends (I could say rude things about that but try not to), and that I am not in any way special, not anymore. Ultimately, I don't know what to expect anymore, but when it comes to her, I'm gradually losing my urge to care. She is ruining her life, and although she may be happy now, she will wake up in 10-20 years and wonder what she's done. By then, it will be too late to salvage any sort of relationship with me or our son.

Don't take the words to heart. She only thinks she means them. Don't give up until you have to. BUT, and this is important, be willing to give up, if it comes to that. If you don't give up, you will just continue to suffer.

CM, during my fog and withdrawal, I felt very confused about my feelings for FOM and questioned my feelings for my H. At the time, I was also thinking I love my H, but not in love with him. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> This was all part of the “fog” and my own lack of knowledge and understanding about the nature of love and the differences between infatuation; “falling” in love and mature love in a M. At the time, I didn’t understand how it could be possible to develop such deep “in love” feelings for another man while you still love your own spouse… I thought it couldn’t be possible to have feelings for two men at the same time. However, I have read and researched a lot on this topic and discovered the following:

People and especially WS’s often confuse real, stable & mature love (which can only be obtained through a long, committed relationship like a M) with the first stages of immature, puppy love when people “fall” in love and when hormones and chemicals are running high. These are 2 completely different types of love (mature & immature) and many people often expect to always have those “in love” feelings for their partner. They think something is wrong with the M if those euphoric feelings wear off. When the WS then get involved with someone else and experience those early stages of love & feelings again, they start to say to their spouses: “I love you, but I’m not in love with you”. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> I thought the same thing during and after my EA, but I have learned and grown and realized that I was indeed “in love” with my dear H, but just in a more mature way.

To explain this better: Dr Phil once said there is a difference between “falling” in love and “being” in love... He said spouses don’t stop to love each other, but instead, love transforms and develops into something more mature and stable. To use his exact words: The partner in a long & committed R became the soft place to fall. This is so true. My H is indeed my soft place to fall. He is the only one who knows ALL about me: he knows all my strengths & weaknesses, he knows the beautiful parts about me and the ugly parts; he knows me on by “down” days and my “good” days, but he still loves me and accepts me just the way I am, with ALL my faults and flaws.
The following is from a website link and very insightful:

Often the problem with foggy WS/FWS’s is their ideas about love and the true meaning of mature love in a M.

Hope this could help and give some insight.

Hmmm.. I thought this would be somthing that wouldnt bother me considering all I have been through. But I think about it more then I should. Thank you all for your insight, especially Suzet.

To be honest, I feel sometimes like I really want to find out that she is continueing the affair, so I can end it without guilt. I fantasize about starting fresh, being away from all this chaos, and finding someone that does love me as I love her. I know my personal limitations right now are razor thin for betrayal. I dont even think a simple lie I could tolerate, now that I feel she does not love me the way I love her.

CM... you can't end it without guilt, even if you know she's in the wrong. You love her, and no matter what will feel bad for ending the relationship. You may not have any reason to feel guilty, but you may still feel that way anyway. It seems to just be natural... we feel as if we gave up, or we feel as if we didn't try hard enough.

Don't fear that feeling. When it comes, accept it and move on. It is part of the process. I'm learning that gradually myself.

If I stop to dwell on the feelings as they hit me, they just pull me down.

As a book I'm reading has said: Don't sweat the small stuff (and it's all small stuff).