When you look back was it really love? How do you feel when you remember telling your BS, that you didn't really love them and you wanted to be with the OP? <P>------------------<BR>See each day as a new beginning!<P>Cali

Cali -<P>My H and I have been in recovery for over a year, and I can honesty say after about two months of no contact, I had a feeling that what I had with the OM was not really love. He wasn't my soulmate, he wasn't even anything special - he was just there fulfilling some kind of need that I had at the time. After about four months of no contact - I knew that it was not love, period.<P>I never really told my H that I thought I was falling in love with the OM, just simply because the OM and I never talked about our feelings for each other (even though the A lasted for about 5 months), and luckily, I ended the affair and confessed to my H before I got in any deeper.<P>At times, I wanted to feel like I loved the person, and kind of convinced myself that I was falling in love with him to not justify, but rationalized what I was doing. I knew it was wrong, but I had myself convinced that I was meant to be with this person, that he might just be my soulmate. Now, after a year, it almost makes me want to get sick to think I felt that way. The relationship is what I was in love with, not the OM.

Yeah, I thought I was in love. Looking back, it was, as SKM says, him (a regular old guy - only worse somehow for doing this thing called "cheating" with me) fulfilling some needs.<P>I feel that the OM in my case did take advantage of the fact that I was vulnerable, as he had cheated before, and I had never cheated in my then-19 year marriage. It is certainly no excuse, but he sure did know the things to say. Blech <P>It wasn't love, by the way, but it was *something* that I can't quite put my finger on - lust? or neediness? or maybe even addiction? It wasn't love though. But yes, at the time I thought it was, and told my then-H so. I felt like crap when I told him -- utter crap. But it "had to be done" because I couldn't lie to him.<P>------------------<BR>~Sheryl<P>And we know. We who have seen. ~Pellegrino

Nope, it was not really love. But then again, I never thought it was about "love." I wasn't looking to be swept off my feet and carried off into the sunset. I was looking to have ENs that were not met in my marriage satisfied--they were. And although I never told my H that I didn't love him or that I desired to be with OP, I do remember feeling pity for him when I told him that I wanted my needs met that he refused to. I felt neither guilty nor remorseful about my actions, just sad that it hurt him.