Please... I am sort of grappling with this question right now... Please feel free to throw in your two cents.

What is the question?

In your honest opinions, how you see the differences between the two and if you can go from loving someone to falling back in love with them after an affair? Those are pretty much the questions I am grappling with right now...

I've been married 30 years in September. I can't tell you how many times I've fallen "in love" with my husband and he's fallen "in love" with me-- and not necessarily always at the same time. If you base a marriage on being "in love" 100% of the time then you're setting yourself up for failure. The important thing is that you are committed to loving each other regardless of feelings. And yes, you can fall back "in love" after an affair, even two. I'm a testimony to that. Does this help?

I think I'll randomly fire a few shots here and there.

I think after a romantic affair a WH will not have the opportunity to achieve in-love feelings toward his BW unless he first chooses to love her and realizes that the other part may take a while.

Love is a choice.

In love is a feeling.

New couples instinctively know how to fall in love with each other. Married couples who have moved past that feeling do a better job when they're more deliberate about it.

Google Helen Fisher.

If your husband chooses to love you and ends his affair and agrees to do what needs doing, he can fall in love with you again.

Magic fairies are not going to flutter down over him and make him fall in love with you.

The two of you have to make that happen consciously.

I'm not convinced your WH has made the choice to do this. You shouldn't bother with him unless you know that he has.

GC

Xetta,

In my humble opinion (IMHO), loving someone is a decision that you make to be committed to that person and behave lovingly toward them. For example, envision a 13yo son or daughter. CLEARLY they have hit those terrible teen years and are not treating you in any fashion even resembling "respect." Yet despite how they are treating you, they are your child and you choose to treat them lovingly. For another example, envision the person in your extended family who treats everyone poorly and with disdain. You don't usually think to yourself, "Well, I suppose I could divorce them." No...you think, "That cousin is toxic to me and so I am going to choose to not be around them because being with them is harmful to me--but they ARE my cousin" and you still love them anyway.

Being "in love" with someone I personally believe is a mirage that has been perpetuated with romance novels and Hollywood movies. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> I think at first you may feel the butterflies in the stomach and that giddy happiness, but that just does not last. That is NOT how someone in a committed relationship feels when they love someone. Loving someone can feel a little "boring" because it's NOT always new and exciting and breathtaking. Those of us actually IN long-term, committed relationships say that we still feel "in love" with our spouses when they meet our top EN's and don't LB. (Now, no one is perfect, so of course everyone LB's now-and-then, but for the most part, they don't make a practice of DJ's and AO's...). Anyway, the feeling after years of marriage is not "butterfly, giddy, breathlessness" but more like deep admiration, attraction to the inner and outer person, and a little bit of giddiness.

Does that make sense?

Your faithful friend,





CJ

Yes...it does help me. It's basically confirmed my own thoughts. My WH has different thoughts though. He was home two weeks ago and we went fishing together and went to a movie together. Yes, he confirmed that he had a good time, but then again, he said he didn't feel romantic... I asked him to give it some time. He's just recently ended it with OW and still very much in withdrawal. He can't expect to recover those feeling immediately. I think it's just unfair to even think that when I have no idea how to meet his needs at this time...or even what his EN's are...

Yes, he confirmed that he had a good time, but then again, he said he didn't feel romantic... I asked him to give it some time.

I don't get wayward people.

This is so easy to understand.

Not you, xetta. I mean your H.

He sounds like a 13-year-old girl. Actually that's not fair. 13-year-old girls are more levelheaded than this.

If he expects to feel romantic, in-love feelings for you in 2007 he'd better wise up. He might not get there that quickly.

GC

Many Waywards seek out the "in love" feelings as a way to tell they are in love. It's a sad misconception that being in love and having the excitement is how to tell if you truly love someone.

This is WRONG.

Love, REAL love, is a choice. It's the choice that you make that goes beyond those fuzzy feelings and butterflies and electric shocks at the very beginning. It's the conscious decision to stay and enjoy and WORK with the one you've been with.

Think about it like this: you've got a best friend. You have been friends for a long time. You love that friend. Even when your friend has hurt you in the past. You chose to FORGIVE that friend. And you should do the same ideology in your marriage. Choosing to love is more difficult than falling in love.

Why? Because CHOOSING to love means you are willing to accept that that person may have or might hurt you. Choosing to STAY with that person, no matter what. Even when you are bored. Even when you don't like each other. You stay with them because everything will work out in the end and you'll still be there for each other.

That's what LOVE is all about. Choosing to stay in a relationship and working to keep the relationship and working to always try and forgive.

IN LOVE: the feeling of falling love. This is like a roller coaster. It ebbs and flows and sometimes the excitement is there. But you have to choose to find it, or even create it. In love... it is a fairweather friend. It might not be there when you need it the most.

But TRUE LOVE. The love that you CHOSE. It will be there, even when you might not like that person very much at the time, you know you need to be there for them.

That's the difference.

At the end of the day, who is your spouse with? You. Go with that. Because they understand that they chose. They just lost their way and maybe they are hoping you'll guide them back.

Give them a reason to fall in love with you again.

HOW? Do what you did when you were dating. Make yourself look good. Take the extra time to look nice. Be interested in the things they are interested in. Be patient. It will happen.

It's a start. Take it as a baby step in the RIGHT direction.

I swear, this sounds just like my FWH right after I'd confronted and exposed. And eventually, with a LOT of patience and kindness on my part, he came around.

At first, he wanted NOTHING to do with me. Resented me being around him. He loved me, but really didn't like me much. I took away his "escape". But he began to see that I was still a lot of fun to be around and he realized that I could be as much fun, if not MORE, that OW. That what he was searching for had been right there all along.

Thanks Will Survive for your insight.

I have got a lot of thinking to do...