Your comments to NGU and NGU's original post intrigue me. I feel very much like NGU...yes, a little self-pitty, inability to move in ANY direction and I realize that in order to move on I need to forgive and stop these feelings, but, how do you know if you love someone? I can't try right now because I hate him so much for what he did to our marriage that I don't know if I love him.<BR> <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum37/HTML/007598.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum37/HTML/007598.html</A> <P>-LL

LL,<P>There is a great saying by (I am going to get the spelling wrong. The gentleman was a survivor of the Holocaust and a very open champion of human rights) so I won't spell it. <P>But the saying is "The opposite of love is not hatred, it is indifference."<P>You asked if you love your H because right now you hate him so much. Well, the answer is apparently you do love him and you are very hurt. Most people show this hurt through anger, men particularly .<P>Do you remember that fire you felt for your H when you first got married? If you moved close to him now won't you feel like you were moving close to a big fire and fear getting burned? Well, LL the fire is the same. The difference was/is that in the beginning you didn't realize that you could get burned and now you know you can.<P>Anytime you let someone "join" you, become part of your emotional landscape, you run this risk.<P>So I would guess not knowing very much, that you do still have love for your H deep down that is why you feel the pain and the hurt. I would guess that somehow you want him to fix this, but he can't and that is why you are angry. <P>You will have to decide if you can risk getting close again. You will have to decide if you can forgive him (this doesn't mean forgetting). You will have to decide if you both can learn from your experiences and go forward using this knowledge and experience in a positive way (it can be done ).<P>I read this posted here on MB but I really liked it. It was a definition of forgiveness. It said: Forgiving is letting go of the opportunity to hurt someone who has hurt you. Or something fairly close. It isn't a certification that you have forgotten or that you don't recall the pain, but that you are not going to retaliate. Sort of liked that way of thinking. <P>So LL, after this long winded response, my guess is that you do love your H. You are left with a decision: Is all of this pain going to be used as a learning experience to make the marriage better in the future or is it going to be used as the final excuse to destroy it. <P>That choice rests with you. I would recommend that you view this choice in a very selfish manner. Would you be happy in a good marriage with your H or would you be happy without him? You can make either reality come about.<P>God Bless,<P>JL

Hi LearningLife,<P>Do you hate your husband, or do you really hate what he did? Real love doesn't just change to hate because someone hurts you.<P>My response to NGU was referring to the danger of holding on to the hurt, pain, and resentment until it destroys any chance of recovery. I am speaking strictly from my own experience.<P>My husband first confessed his affair and ended contact. But many months later the affair reignited. I think it started again for two reasons: #1 The OW took it as a challenge that we were trying to save our marriage, and #2 I continued to "punish" him with my anger, resentment, and pain.<P>A truly repentant spouse doesn't need to be reminded daily and lectured frequently about the wrongfulness of their actions and the extent of the damage they have done. They know it themselves. It took me a long while to realize that though.<P>When my husband first broke off the affair, they had not had sex. But I could not have "punished" him worse if they had. He finally started to believe that I was NEVER going to get over it, though he had apologized thousands of times and could not possible take it back. At the same time, the OW had reitiated contact, and he knew IF he told me I would punish him even more. Finally, he gave up. After all, the choice was MY anger, bitterness, and resentment OR HER compliments, ego-stroking, and neediness. Not exactly an even choice, is it?<P>I had to accept that the affair HAD happened and could not be changed, and decide that I DID want to save our marriage. That required admitting the affair, forgiving my husband, opening my heart to him again, and committing to moving forward and past the pain.<P>It was not easy, and I am not trying to insinuate that it is. We have gotten this far with excellent counseling, nearly endless prayers, support from this site, and personal sacrifices on both of our parts. Our life together is improving each day.<P>Many people can't accept this, but forgiveness IS A DECISION. It takes work each day to reach it. A betraying spouse cannot do enough to "make this up" and cause forgiveness to magically appear. The betrayed spouse has to make the CHOICE to forgive. Forgiveness will bring peace, but will not take away the pain, nightmares, images or memories. But the alternative is to continue to live with a broken marriage or, eventually, to divorce.<P>I believe that many people have affairs for some kind of escape. A person who has shown the proclivity to use that kind of escape doesn't need to be faced with a bitter, angry spouse 24/7 or it is only a matter of time before they succumb to it again. Bitterness, hurt, and anger have NEVER made a marriage succeed, but they have certainly destroyed many. I determined that I did not want mine to be one of them.<P>I hope this has explained my response to NGU somewhat. I don't know how far along you are in the recovery process, but wish you all the best.<P>Peppermint<p>[This message has been edited by peppermint (edited February 15, 2001).]