All,
<br>There are a number of posts where one mate says I love you but I'm not in love with you. The more I read this the angrier I get.
<br>I'm sorry but I've mulled this one over for a long time, and the more I think about it the more I'm convinced it's just anotther one of those bs designations that people use to justify behavior that has it's roots a little deeper than they are prepared to think about.
<br>I hate such designations because when it's used so much everybody just accepts it as an accurate description and I feel that therein lies a danger because I think it's truly bogus.
<br>If a man tells his wife he loves her but sleeps with another woman then he is a liar, because love is not just something you feel, it is manifested in concrete actions. You may still feel something for the spouse you committed adultery against but you don't love them, not in the true sense of the word.
<br>In this same vein I think that saying you love someone but aren't in love with them is one of those false labels that allows one think they've described something when they really haven't.
<br>Just my thoughts.

And very well put!!!!! I agree wholeheartedly. You cannot love someone and hurt them with an affair which I have found the most painful hurt I have ever experienced.
<p>Kathy

Hmmm Bruce, I'm trying to remember if the people who have said this are all ones who have cheated, I can't remember.
<br>As for my relationship---my husband told me long ago that he loved me but wasn't in love with me---and thought that it was OK. He wasn't complaining, he just had no clue what to be in love meant. I believe that he loves me with all his capabilities, but it's just not what I call "in love".
<br>Currenlty I feel as tho I am NOT in love with him. I love him deeply and care for him and want him to have a decent life and a great reltionship with my kids--but I don't have a relationship with him that is anything what I'd hoped it to be nor have the energy to feel differently. I DO NOT use my feelings to justify ANYTHING I do---the fact that I am not in love with him TROUBLES me. It is not a cop out it is a concern. Does that explain anything? I haave to agree tho that there are a lot of us out there who feel this way---it's sad (and tormenting) to want to be in love with your spouse but just have lost that feeling.

Bruce,
<p>I think it is possible that some people use this as an excuse to avoid the deeper issues but there are some who have no other way to describe what it is they are feeling. I have love for close friends, family, and my children but I am not in love with them. It is very possible to fall "out" of love with your spouse and yet still have feelings for them as a friend. I think this happens with people who break up with boy/girl friends and yet stay very close to them as friends because though they are not "in" love with them they do still love them.
<p>After all I have been through with my H I would say that loving but not being "in" love with my spouse fits. How can one go through six years of being the only one trying to make the relationship work and maintain the feeling of being "in" love? I haven't because being "in" love has to come from both sides. I do still love my H though. That is why I am still here and trying to make it work. As you can see I am not trying to use it as an excuse to end my marriage just to explain where my marriage is at this point in time.
<p>I hope things with your wife improve. I think given time her computer time will cut itself back. I've seen many people become obsessed with online chatting only to taper off after time. There were days I couldn't get my H away from chatting even with a fire in the house. Now he never chats at all. For most people it is a phase. My prayers are with you.
<p>Steph

Well GBM, I think you came real close to describing how I feel about my husband. I don't feel like I'm in love with him, I have not had any affairs and am not considering one. Sometimes I feel like perhaps we should divorce, sometimes I feel like why divorce? is the alternative better? He doesn't talk or share his feelings so I have no real idea of what he feels. We went thru all the marital motions up until a week ago - there was a "conflict", I had an angry outburst and its been cordial at best since then. It troubles me that I feel so emotionally withdrawn from him. Many times I think that if we were in better financial circumstances or if we did not have an eight year old, we would probably not be together. I can't even bring myself to share my feelings with him anymore and so the charade continues day after day.

All,
<br>I would like to respond to the posts here on loving but not being in love since some have raised some good points. But I'm too depressed now to try.
<p>I crossed some sort of Rubicon tonight. My wife told me she thinks she will have to go. Perhaps I caused it by putting some pressure on her about how she acts. I was warned about doing that. However I cannot stand to live with her and be alone at the same time. Looks like I may not have a choice.
<br>I said that I cannot believe that she is going to discard a whole family before she even tries to do anything to move toward resolution and healing. But it seems like my words bounce off an impenetrable shield. And she redily misinterprets what I say. Evey time I say we are too emotionally bogged down and that we need a third party to help us she says I can do that but I'll be wasting my money because no one can change the way she feels.
<p>Every thing that comes out of her mouth is defeat. Whatever I think of that we might do she forcasts it's failure before she even knows what can happen. She told me that she has so programmed herself with defense mechanisms (like being on the computer for hours) that she isn't aware she's doing. "That's how bad it is", she said. She said I talk as if I can change that overnight.
<p>I said over and over that that is not what I'm saying. I told her that she is saying everything will not work without even entertaining giving it a try. She is not that kind of person in any other area of life. I said that all I want is for her to take the smallest of steps, with or without feeling. I've talked until I've got a headache about how I am ready to make any sacrifice to help her get to the point where she feels happy about things. She said she knows that, that she has been watching me and sees that I am doing everything i know how to do. Yet she says she is damaged. She said the leg is already broken. She said the fruit is rotten.
<br>I said that people are running and playing football on formerly broken legs, and that a person is not a piece of fruit. I said that she can be revived over time, and that she will get my full support. But she seems so locked into this defeatist attitude.
<br>My heart was broken all over again and I was good for nothing. I sat on the couch while she sat on the computer. When she got off she asked me if I wanted some popcorn.I didn't and she went in the bedroom. I was so distraught. I called her and she came in. I held her hand against my face and cried. Perhaps it was the wrong thing to do. I don't know. I only know the pain was excruciating. She just said, "You shouldn't be torturing yourself like this". But she offered not the slightest touch or comfort. I asked her why she was so cold. She said she wasn't being cold but that when I get this upset it bothers her and she can't really offer me anything.
<p>I do not understand this. Right now I'm too burned out emotionally and shell shocked to try. I don't know what's gonna happen folks. I can't believe the thing is coming unraveled in this way. If I was beating her, spending the rent money on booze, coming home late, not paying bills or any of that sort of thing I could understand. But my eyes and my heart are toward her 100%. And she knows it.
<br>I tell you I would give anything to understand what can make a woman do this. What can make her put us in the position to have to tell our boys that mom and dad won't be together when she isn't being hurt or abused, pressured in any way?
<br>I told her that if she does this it will be destroying a family strictly on a personal preference, without having even tried to see if it can be corrected. She said that's how it would have to be.
<br>I said that we've been through this discussion before and that this time I was not going to end it negatively. I said that I intended to fight for my marriage to the end and that I didn't want to end without getting her to say she would take some kind of baby step with me to see if we could resolve things. "We'll see", was the best I could get.
<br>I'm going to bed now. I'm drained exhausted. Tomorrow is another day. I'll worry about making it through when it comes.

Bruce, I am so sorry you are going thru this. I don't know of anything I can tell you to comfort you. I wish I could remember all the circumstance of your relationship---didn't you say before that you were the one who neglected her in the past (first) and now she is numb to the relationship (if that wasn't you--sorry--I have a hard time keeping all straight). But I can see how your wife would be so hurt that she doesn't want to try. Try stepping back from the situation and look at it objectively, are you smothering her? are you pressuring her to react before she's had time to process her feelings??
<br>Try not to make the situation the center of the universe, maybe just casually heal the love. here's an example, as I was posting an answer to a post here (that got deleted cause I turned the computer off mid-sentence), my husband walked in from work. He didn'dt know what I was doing. But anyway, perhaps because of my guilt for talking about the relationship adn having him walk in on it, I wasn't in the mood to talk about our relationship with him, but HE WAS. He broght it up, we eneded up having a really heart to heart talk. Ended up having to go to out to dinner, had a nice time and came home, put the kids to bed and had a really GREAT time. I think somehow we reconnected. I am so excited. I haven't felt like this for ages. As late as just yesterday I was still thinking of seperation... I know we may take two steps backwards again, but it feels so GOOD to have reconnected with him again. I have motivation to diet again! So there is hhope----I'm answering my own question from earlier posts, you can fall for your spouse again. I'll keep you guys updated as for how long this high can last. But Bruce, it is possible, just rethink your tactics. Ask your wife what would help her. Sorry for all the rambling, but I think that you need to know that hope is not lost.
<br>Also, Steph, you say things so well, in so many fewer words than me--thanks!!

GBM, thank you for posting your positive experience! It is great to hear that someone is making progress, regardless of what the issues are ... I think it gives us all a little more positive energy in our own struggles toward happiness.

GBM,
<br>Thanks. And I'm truly happy to hear about you and your husband.
<br>Yes, I have made this the center of the universe. Yes, I need to change my tactics. Right now I don't know what all I'm going to do but I'm going to do something.
<p>Ali,
<br>I talked to some people about the retrouvaille weekend. I just got some fax sheets this morning. I'm going to try to go. Hope my wife will co-operate. Thanks for the info.

Ken, Greg
<br>Thanks for what you both wrote. I have read what you wrote Ken several times. Wow, I can relate to everything you said. I keep telling myself that I have it so good, a husband who loves me deeply, my son and I are very well financially supported, my H. is great around the house and a super dad; so I look at our situation and tell myself I must be crazy - I will never have it this good again so just accept the way things are and live with it. But that doesn't solve our problem. I'm not sure what happened, but I know that we have been living as best friends since the day we got married not on an intimate level what so ever. I don't know what caused the change, if it was his controlling ways, or my lack to speak up and tell him that I was unhappy then, but here we are stuck in what seems unsolveable situation. I don't need hot steamy pation everyday, or even expect, but I have no such feelins towards him what so ever. So what now?
<br>Greg, about the seperation, (I know we were talking on another thread), it's a very scarry thought. We talked about a seperation previously, but then things just calmed down and we are back to our co-existing, non-communicating state. It's like we live on the top floor of a high rise, but all the floors under us are simply there to hold us up, we don't actually go down there to visit (that's my analogy for the evening). My 7mos old son is playing an active role in my decision making. I find it unfair to him to uproot him and move somewhere else, and I find it very difficult think of seperating him from his father. I know there is no way I can seperate myself from him. I have been with my husband since the age of 18yrs, ironically how I felt about him really started to change right after we got married. Is seperating going to help me find the answers I'm looking for? We dont' have any resentment between us right now, and I
<br>don't want to cause any trouble. How do you fix a relationship by spending time apart?
<br>Anyways, thanks to all those out there listening and writing about there situations.
<br>It's nice knowing your not alone,
<br>Nat

wow-----H and I also talked aobut the Retrovaille weekend. He's hesitant, but by the middle of the eveing he was willing but not happy about it. Bruce, I am glad that you keep on goining on, it is SO hard isn't it. Best wishes again. Hope you guys get to go on the weekend.

I have not posted for the past couple of days. Basically because I had a super weekend with my wife. On Friday evening, we had a long CONVERSATION. Yes. We talked about feelings, and things in the past, and what's going on now. She expressed her feelings on things that I did/didn't do that had always bothered her. I expressed my feelings. I was draining, emotinally and physically. Saturday was similar.
<br>It was not easy. I don't remember, ever, talking to her this open.
<br>This has not changed her unhappiness, or that "IN LOVE" feeling in her. But, it does make me understand what it is that we are talking about. When she mentioned some of the things, I felt awful that I never considered her feelings in these actions.
<br>What hurts the most is knowing that we could have just talked like this for years, and probably avoided much of what we are going through.
<br>She found this site and might even read this. She said that it doesn't bother her that I use it, but she finds nothing in it.
<br>Bruce,
<br>I know it's discouraging at times. I don't blame my wife for feeling this way. I have come to realize that I have been fairly emotionless for quite some time. I don't know if it was the "out of love" thing, but it was something.
<br>Keep trying.
<br>

Bruce,
<br> Your post describe my wife to a T. Since I'm into it 13 months right now I can tell you I did many things wrong, No 1 was hanging on and asking her to work on things. She even told me that the more I pushed the more she wanted to run. She was in the withdraw mode and she would not even accept help bringing in the grocires. It took a long time being seperated to figure out that just letting her do what she wants is the only thing that brought us to a friendship that we are at now. I know the pain of letting go and how hard it is to do belive me, I spent 2 weeks in a mental hospital not wanting to live and if that wasent hard enough she or my boys never visited and I only got 1 phone call from her. She explained how she dosent love me and never has and how the only reason she had children with me was she thought she would be too old to have them if she left back then. She has since said that she dident mean those things and was just trying to hurt me and tried to explain how much I had hurt her in the past. We now talk much more see each other more and just plain get along good. We are not dating yet I have asked her but she says she not ready yet, so I cant ask again. I'm sure in time she will ask me, yesterday she called me 4 times about little things that could have waited untill today when we exchange the boys. LESS IS MORE please remember that. Let her go if she wants to, let her do what ever she wants and support her decisions, dont try to push or even suggest your views and will on her. Agree with every thing she does even if you know your right. Dont argue even when you know shes trying to push your buttons DONT FEED INTO IT. If she leaves use that time to get to know yourself and try doing things that you wanted to do but couldent because of your marrige. Respect her and her decisions and if your spitural then pray for acceptance of your situation. It dident take a week or a month to get to where she's at now so dont expect it to be better in that time. Take it one day at a time be the best you can be and try to change some of the things about yourself that you dont like, in time she will see them, let her gaurd down. Actions not words will change her heart. Bruce Its the hardest thing you will ever do but it pays big dividens in the end. There she is again my wife just called again! Go figure I stop calling and now she calls me. TIME, PATIENCE, and LET IT GO. She will be back. Good luck and God bless.
<br> Ken

Bill,
<br>Boy, do you sound like me. When I think of how I could have moved on this thing a long time ago if I had only known it makes me so sick. I don't know why they wait until the waves are at the door but they do. If I had had any idea of what was building up I would have jumped dead on it.
<br>Today I am at work. I am mentally and emotionally drained, didn't sleep well at all. I'm having a very difficult time dealing with customer demands. I almost want to blow up on somebody, but I know I can't.
<br>I'm taking tomorrow off. I asked my wife if she would but not sure she will. I'm not even taking it a day at a time now but an hour at a time.
<p>ali,
<br>I'm not sure we'll make retrouvaille. We would have to be there Fiday afternoon which means leaving work early on short notice. The only place I can leave my boys is with my wife's sister and she lives 90 min. in the opposite direction. I can see this hindering my wife, who has to be convinced to go to something like this when conditions are favorable.
<br>I also checked out Marriage Encounter. I called and talked to someone locally who was very nice and understanding, having been through marital problems. Marriage Encounter will have a meeting closer to me the first week of next month. There is also a local group.
<br>But if my wife says yes then retrouvaille it is. I'll do whatever it takes. Hope you can make it.

KenS,
<br>You are right that my wife is in withdrawl mode. She will accept help and even do some things with me, but she told me she was just co-operating to maintain peace. It's not that her heart is in it.
<br>Two weeks in a mental hospital? God, but that is scary. And it's all the more scary because I feel like I may not be that far from it. I can see that trying to get her to do things isn't working. Like you said, it seems to make her want to run.
<br>But what about one of these weekend things like Marriage Encounter or Retrouvialle? I have checked into them. Today I talked to some people over the phone who tell me what it did for them. If my wife will go I'm sure going to take her.
<br>I understand what you're telling me, and I know its going to pull my guts out to do the right thing. But if I can get her to something that might shorten this process I don't see how I can pass it up. Right now she is getting no positive feedback from any source, and I feel that if she could get some , the right kind, it would help us.
<br>Yes, I pray all the time for God's grace to deal with this. All I can say is that I've never been so scared in my life, nor has my heart ever been this sad for so long.
<br>

KenS,
<br>You are right that my wife is in withdrawl mode. She will accept help and even do some things with me, but she told me she was just co-operating to maintain peace. It's not that her heart is in it.
<br>Two weeks in a mental hospital? God, but that is scary. And it's all the more scary because I feel like I may not be that far from it. I can see that trying to get her to do things isn't working. Like you said, it seems to make her want to run.
<br>But what about one of these weekend things like Marriage Encounter or Retrouvialle? I have checked into them. Today I talked to some people over the phone who tell me what it did for them. If my wife will go I'm sure going to take her.
<br>I understand what you're telling me, and I know its going to pull my guts out to do the right thing. But if I can get her to something that might shorten this process I don't see how I can pass it up. Right now she is getting no positive feedback from any source, and I feel that if she could get some , the right kind, it would help us.
<br>Yes, I pray all the time for God's grace to deal with this. All I can say is that I've never been so scared in my life, nor has my heart ever been this sad for so long.
<br>But, Ken, I appreciate the realistic words.
<br>

All,
<br>After reading the posts of KenS I decided it was time to take a stand in my mind about how I was going to act from here on out. A co-worker of mine in whom I've confided has told me he thought some of my actions were weakness. I had wondered about that myself but he sort of confirmed it. As bad as I felt I had planned to somehow begin to act more as if I was in charge of myself.
<br>Well, I had asked my wife earlier if she would go t the Marriage Encounter next month. When she came home she said no because she had already planned to visit her brother in Atlanta during that time, which I do remember she had told me a couple of times. At first I was dishartened.
<br>Then she proceeded to explain to me that she didn't want to feel pushed and that if I wanted to see about going to something later she would go. But she said that as long as she feels she is being pushed that it makes her want to run. She said she will participate as long as she doesn't feel pushed.
<br>Then she started telling me about how I need to make some adjustments in my behavior. SHe said she has perceived me as weak in certain areas and that I need to reconstruct myself to improve. She spke to me very mater of factly for about 20 minutes. I listened.
<p>Afterwards I told her to think of what she just did. I told her that she just gave me constructive criticism without slamming me or making me feel belittled. I told her that I know her words were true and that I will make the needed changes. This was very positive for me. Up until now it has just been come home and do your own thing without regard for me. Now she makes a sincere and solid attempt to let me know what I need to do. Obviously she did some thinking today about how she would act.
<br>The things she said did not bother me (they might have at one time) because I knew they were true and I am ready to take action on them. And it made me feel good because meaningful interaction is a sign that she has not frozen herself all the way. At least that's how it seems to me.
<p>What will tomorrow bring? I won't even try to guess. My wife said a lot more but I'm just describing the gist of it. All of it was good. I sensed real concern from her, not the indifferent, coldness of recent days. If tomorrow is another rough day then so be it. I'm learning to take my blessings as they come and appreciate them. Whatever happens she has given me solid feedback on the kind of man she can respect. I can't ask for more than that. I'll be happy to supply it. Not only for her, but for me.

All,
<br>Well, folks, I'm pinching myself. Am I dreaming. My wife went out jogging earlier in the evening. I fixed supper and got the kids their baths.
<br>When she got back she took a bath and I worked out on weights. After I took a shower and put the kids to bed she asked if I wanted to go in the bedroom. Does a thirsty man want water?
<br>It was great. Not only that but afterwards she stayed and talked to me like old times for almost an hour. She didn't go out on the computer. I was very grateful.
<br>Hey, I don't know what happened but I'm certainly thankful. She even reminded me that we're going out of town together this week end. Whatever tomorrow brings I'm feeling good tonight. If it peters out it won't be because I sabotage it. Not this time.

Congratulations, Bruce ... I hope things continue to be positive for you and your wife. I have to say again that I appreciate hearing about everyone's little successes ... it makes it a little easier to deal with the pain and setbacks to know that there is always hope!
<p>terri

Bruce,
<br>I feel great for you. But, remember to roller coaster returns the other way. Don't get disheartened. You seem to be moving in the right direction.
<br>Today I am quite down. Couldn't sleep last night, so I am quite tired this morning. I called my wife to let her know I wanted some talk time tonight. I just need to air out my feelings. I don't thinking she will say anything. I think she needs a rest from all the talking this past week.