One of the many things that I have been trying to work through since d-day has been the pain of my FWH telling me that he never had the "romantic in love" feelings for me that he had experienced with his OW.

He was alcholic when we met and I didn't know it. I had never in my life had to deal with an alcoholic so I had no clue what I was in for. He never missed a day of work and I was not with him 24/7 so I didn't put all the pieces together until much later. He quit drinking about one or two years after we were married.

He tells me that he thinks his drinking dulled his feelings when we were dating and that's why he never had those feelings for me. Of course this crushed me and still does. It's bad enough that there has been another woman in our marriage that never should have been and now I get to live with the fact that he never had those feelings for me. He says he loves me better than he loved her but it hurts none the less.

I was just curious if anyone else has ever experienced this.

Thanks.

Well, yes. But from the other end. You shouldn't be hurt by this, mopey, it is not personal. His inability to feel romantic love for you had nothing to do with you, but with his alcoholism. A practicing alcoholic doesn't have feelings of love like normal people do. We just don't operate like that. But he CAN love you now since his brain is not pickled.

Let me put this another way: would you be "hurt" if a blind man couldn't SEE you? Or would you understand that the man is BLIND and can't see?

But Melody.....did you feel those romantic feelings for your H during that time? I mean....you wouldn't have wanted to marry him if you didn't feel something, right?

This also is compounded by the fact that he told the pastor during our pre-marital consultation when asked "why do we want to get married" I said "I loved him" and he said "it's the right thing to do". I totally missed that when he said it that day and now I have those two pieces together.

I also read on Al Turtle's website where the beginning romantic love stage is important in a relationship.

He has always made me feel like I wasn't good enough and I'm scared of putting myself out there again.

no


Yes, I would have. Alcoholics can and do get married every day.

Do you want him to fall in love with you now, mopey?

I'll need time to wrap my brain around this one.

So.....if you didn't have those romantic in love feelings.....what did you have? What made you want to marry him? Was it more of a logical decision vs emotional decision?

mopey, can I ask why you are torturing yourself with this instead of workng on your marriage? You can't change what he was, but you CAN change your marriage TODAY. You can have a passionate, romantic marriage TODAY. Don't you want that?

Oh yes, definitely.

But I'm afraid the chemistry may not be right since he never had it for me before. I just feel so cheated. He had that with the OW and not me. I'm not sure what to think and I have been chewing on this info since around Christmas.

Of course I'm afraid he misses that with us too. It makes me so sad. I'm afraid what we have may not be enough if he couldn't feel anything for me then and he just married me out of obligation. (We were sleeping together and I had kids.) Old school I know, but his father abandoned him when he was about 12 or 13 I think......for an OW.

It haunts me Melody. I am crushed and afraid it could happen again. Chemistry is chemistry and he didn't feel it with me, ever. What am I suppose to think? I consider him a serial cheater and flirt. Someone was always more attractive to him than me, throughout our marriage.

I refuse to put myself in a position of totally committing myself to this relationship without knowing, this time, what he really feels for me. I am finding out that I never really knew my husband at all. It's almost as if we're dating and I'm finding out whether or not I want to marry him again. I have a choice to make and I'm trying to make it. I know I want my marriage but I want to know the truth about my marriage without being so blind this time.

I need to work through this stuff so I can have a happy marriage with him.

It sounds to me like you are searching for grievances by picking at scabs. You are not "working through" anything, but picking at old scabs to see if you can set up a new infection. You are torturing yourself over something that really had nothing to do with you that is in the PAST. And you can't change the past. You can only change the PRESENT.

In the PRESENT, you have a sober husband who seems to love you and seems to be trying to recover your marriage. Is that not correct?

What do you mean he is a serial cheater? He has had other affairs?

I know you know your stuff, but this is hard for me to hear. It's not how I feel. I don't feel like I am trying to hold on to the past, I feel like I am trying to make honest informed decisions about my future, since I really knew so little about him all of these years until now.



My highest priority since d-day has been to work through this recovery and not around it. My H has gas lighted me for years, about different things, making it where I don't know sometimes if I even trust my own judgment, much less the words that come out of his mouth, still. It is getting better though. I don’t think he’s lied to me in the past 6 months.




Him never having romantic in love feelings for me in the past has EVERYTHING to do with me. And just how do I get over not being tortured by the fact that he's NEVER had those feelings for me but did with another woman while being married to me? I know that's in the past but I didn't know about it until 6 months ago. That is not something that is easy for me to let go of just yet.

My pain is a signal and I have to determine what to do with it. I went into this marriage with one eye shut and I don't plan to do it again. It hurts sooooooo bad. Why continue in this painful recovery blinded? Am I just suppose to believe what he says to me all of a sudden just because he says so?

That's why I started this thread. I wanted to know if this happens to engaged couples where one is an alcoholic. If his emotions were dulled, how did he know to marry me? Did he do it out of obligation or what? This is not a deal breaker for my marriage but something I feel the need to understand.

Some of his words and actions show me that he wants this marriage and some don't. which confuses me and makes me think about this stuff.



I know I can't change the past. But honestly, I am just starting to understand our past, why things were the way they were. My H has shared things with me I never knew. There are a lot of revelations I have had since d-day through our conversations to work through recovery. I need to understand what went wrong so I can better prepare for the future, right? I need to feel secure that what he feels for me now is enough to never want another woman. I am fearful that I could do my best to meet his needs and it won't be enough because "something is missing". I feel that way because obviously something was missing when we were dating and I didn't know it. That's why I posted this thread. I wanted to know if other alcoholics felt feelings such as the romantic in love feelings. I just want to know if he's telling me the truth or not about that. He's told me so many lies over the years I don't know what to believe anymore.



Yes, he seems to love me and I do believe he is trying......but maybe not quite as much as what I need. I think I need more reassurance than what he's willing to give. My self esteem has been shot to ****** and I'm working on that and I feel he could say more to help me with that, if he wanted to. Things were going great for the past month but I had several big triggers over the weekend and he and I both didn't handle it very well. Let's just say I wasn't feeling the love and it kinda made me wonder if he really does love me, thus making me think about all of this stuff.



Never really considered them affairs until well after d-day.

This first one is hard to talk about because it was such a red flag and I feel like such a fool.

1st one……two weeks before we got married we went to a party together. It got late and I was tired and wanted to leave but he wasn't ready. I left and thought nothing of it. I got a phone call a few days later from the hostess of the party, whom I never met before that night, who informed me that my fiancé was all over one of the girls at the party trying to kiss her. She did not want his advances from what she said. Of course I was shocked and stunned. It was two weeks before my wedding. I loved him so much. I told him I wasn't going through with the wedding and he begged me to. He professed his love for me. Told me he didn't remember a thing about it because he was.....drum roll.....drunk. I fell for it. I had seen him in a blackout before and I chalked it up to him not knowing what he was doing. Some time after that he told me that drunks don't do what they don't feel like doing and they don't say things they don't mean. When he told me that, I immediately thought about that night. That was years ago.

2nd one……when I was snooping before d-day, I cracked one of his e-mail accts and found an e-mail from a girl he played an online game with and a response e-mail back from him. Apparently they use to e-mail all the time but it was apparent from that e-mail that they hadn't talked for awhile. Right now I’m so tired I don't remember how I brought up the subject to him, but he realized that kind of communication was dangerous and he e-mailed her a NC letter before we even knew about MB I believe. He didn't know I read the NC letter but he told her in the e-mail that he realized there was nothing but friendship between them but that they did flirt a lot. He told me they didn’t flirt a lot. I felt that was an EA after learning enough on MB. It felt like a betrayal to me.

Of course the 3rd one, that I know of, is the 4 month affair that I talk about on here specifically.

In between those three EA/PA’s, there has been a whole lot of flirting and gas lighting. I was tortured by that for years. He admitted in a post, that he never posted, that he use to flirt with intent.

I swear, this weekend, it felt like he was flirting and didn't even realize it. I had the person he was flirting with and another woman (who is a BS) look up at me at the same time with that look. I was dumbfounded and embarrassed. I have talked to him about this and he thinks he was trying to be helpful. That certainly could have been the case and I believe it was the case , but it was uncomfortable regardless. Let's just say he went out of his way to help this woman and it felt odd. I don't think there was really any intention behind it but not sure what to make of it.

Melody…..did you ever feel like you were missing something in your marriage because your feelings were dulled while drinking?

I really appreciate you opening up self yourself to me. I guess I just need reassurance that I’m doing the right thing and that’ll I’ll be safe.

No it doesn't. It has to do with the capabilities of a practicing alcoholic. He didn't have romantic feelings because he was a practicing alcoholic, not because of any deficit in you. But, you are trying to convince me this is about you. It is not.


I am not talking about your feelings, but about what I SEE you doing. And that is pick at scabs. I think" you are doing this because even after I explained to you the mindset of a p.a. you persist in making his lack of romantic feelings a personal thing, rather than a classic TRAIT of a practicing alcoholic.

Can you explain why you would try to spin this in the most negative, personal light when that is not reality?


BUT, you do not recover by picking at the scab, you recover by working on solutions and living in the present. You recover by working with what you HAVE, not what was in the PAST. Dredging up old grievances is not helping you recover, but keeping you angry and diverting you from solution oriented tactics.


But what difference does this make today? How does this help you fall in love with each other TODAY? Are you doing the things TODAY to help your husband fall in love with you? Is he doing the things TODAY to help you fall in love with him?


Are you being lovable? Or are you pushing him away by picking at scabs?

mopey, do you have the book, Fall in Love, Stay in Love? I would suggest that would be a great start if you want a great marriage TODAY. If you want a great marriage where you are both in love, you must start working on your marriage as it is TODAY. Learn how to care for each other and meet each others needs TODAY. You can't turn back time and meet unmet needs. But you can fall in love TODAY.

mopey ~ ML is absolutely right on this. The active alcoholic's primary relationship is with booze and nothing or no one else. It has absolutey nothing to do with you.

Love is a choice, not a feeling. Deal with the choices that both of you are making in the present, not with the past.