Just wondering?

Good question.<p>One I am pondering at the moment as well. Mine is still here at the moment. Dont know why, maybe guilt, remorse, a feeling of obligation, who the hell knows. Says he loves me, but if he was unfaithful (still undetermined) how could he love me??

Better yet why would an OW want to be with a man she knows can't be trusted,who lies for his own benefit and has no respect for a woman he made a vow to?

There is enough variety in what leads to your question that it is difficult to give a simple answer.<p>The thing is the WS may not stay. Or the BS may not let them.<p>If the WS does say they love the BS, then what did the WS feel led to the A?<p>Drinks? Opportunity? Weakness? Selfishness? Stupidity? Unmet needs? OP attraction?<p>Love unfortunately doesn't mean that a person never makes a bad decision or indulges in bad behavior that hurts the one they love.<p>And, you can't change the past. Once the betrayal has occurred, it can't be taken back, even when the WS may wish they could.<p>It is possible for the WS to love the BS and betray them, it's a marriage that is in trouble, even if the BS didn't know it was in trouble. And for some WS, they didn't intend an affair, but they made increasingly--or even sudden--inappropriate decisions that put them in an affair. At that point the WS may realize they do love their BS.<p>So, if you are the BS, your WS says they love you and are remorseful and want to stay in the marriage, it is the BS decision if you want to try to recover the marriage. If the WS is still in the affair but saying they love the BS, then you have different decisions, like if you are willing to Plan A.<p>What would make it possible for you to rebuild with your WS? WS Accountability? Remorse? Affection? Becoming a Marriage Builder and using the 4 Rules of Successful Marriage?

Yes...but that's another topic Tiny Dancer. I would like to know the mindset of those married men involved in infidelity. Why stay with someone you don't love enough to be faithful?<p>[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: chloe2 ]</p>

Girls, girls, girls [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>what a question [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] had to laugh when I read this one because the question isn't gender specific, even if you might feel that way at the moment. SOME women mistake LOVE with SEX just as some men mistake SEX for LOVE.<p>Just a thought ...... but could it be the roots of a marriage are far deeper than those of an affair. A tree with deep roots takes a lot of energy to uproot. I never found an answer to the why? I'm just learning to focus on the future and the how?<p>take care ladies [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>- Freddy<p>[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: Freddy ]</p>

Freddy: there's something to be said for your statement. I believe this to be true. A woman (OW for example) will use sex to win love. A man will use love to get sex. <p>Food for thought, my H told the OW he loved her, why? because he wanted sex. She gave it, why? because she thought she loved him. Egads, what idiots. Sometimes I think they deserved each other. Sorry, bad week l year d-Day.<p>Take care

Why do they stay with someone whom they don’t love enough to be faithful to? I think that the answer is a simple one. But not one we necessarily want to hear.<p>Because this is not about loving their spouse. It’s about being selfish enough to get their needs met and not worry about anyone else. Let’s face it, they have it made. They have at least two people to meet their needs.. the BS and the OP… One to take care of house and family, the other to make me feel real special. Shoot I’d love that too if it did not hurt so many people. So why would they leave? It would mean they lost at least half of these benefits if not all of them. They do not want to have to choose one or the other, or loose both. It is not in their best interests (according the a selfish mind) to be faithful or to choose one or the other.<p>And if the BS finds out, if they do not throw the WS out, then both the BS and the OP are working overtime to make the WS so happy that they will choose them. <p>So they play games, hide the affair, lie, etc to keep their party going. And they never have to stop until there is a consequence to pay. <p>The WS often leave it up to the BS and OP to duke it out. Then they take whichever one is left standing at the end.

I'm a betrayed spouse but want to take a shot at an answer.<p>In its most simplistic form, I have the same question. However, the "what is love" concept has been disussed many times on this forum and the answers are as varied as the members.<p>For instance, there is the love languages approach... If you love me, you would shower me with gifts while the spouse is thinking that all they need to do is have good, meaningful conversation (just like what they like)<p>Then there is the emotional needs concept. "Satisfy my top needs and I will feel good and know that you love me."<p>My point is that, unfortunately, love does not guarantee fidelity as seen by the many stories on this board alone. <p>In many cases, the fidelity arises when very important needs are neglected by the spouse and then fulfilled by someone else (the OW/OM). I, personally, have found few stories where the WS knew at the onset of the affair, or even at the end, that they no longer loved the BS. <p>As I recall, (it's been awhile [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img] ), our vows to each other said we would, "love, honor,keep him..., forsaking all others..., etc." Fidelity was stated separately from the love and the honor, etc. because each is equally important to a good marriage.<p>In the aftermath of an affair, both spouses have to examine what contributed to the poor state of the marriage. While the WS may have broken the vow of fidelity, perhaps the BS broke the vow of honor. In many cases, both will find that they fell short in some important area and that is why they choose to stay together to work it out.<p>Enlightened

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by chloe2:
<strong>Yes...but that's another topic Tiny Dancer. I would like to know the mindset of those married men involved in infidelity. Why stay with someone you don't love enough to be faithful?<p>[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: chloe2 ]</strong><hr></blockquote><p>
Maybe the answer is that the two are NOT mutually exclusive. That in many instances the married man DOES love the wife but just uses the OW to fill some unfulfilled need at home. That is what I often see around here, that the WS loves the wife but just uses the OW.

Better yet why does anyone want this man in the end?

Shannon said…. “Better yet why does anyone want this man in the end?”<p>Well, if one assumes that once a cheater always a cheater then I would agree with you. But there are many good people who fall from grace with themselves once in a lifetime. Do we throw those people away?<p>If we say that any WS is a throw away person, then conversely we’d have to say that any OP is also a throw away person. There are many who believe that any person who would have an affair with a married person is morally deficient. I know that you do not agree with that. <p>Just as you hope that you will move on with your life, learn from your affair and have a good marriage one day with no infidelity. Every WS hopes that they too can redeem themselves. <p>I agree, who wants a habitual, life long cheater? I did not.. Divorced my ex-H for that reason amongst others. But my current H is a different kind of man. So I’m giving him and our marriage another chance. In my eyes he’s recovered from the personal problems that led to his affairs. He’s himself again. So far I’m very happy that I chose to work it out.

I could not come up with an answer for your question Chloe, but Zorweb hit the nail on the head in my opinion.

some1s_mom,<p>I asked my H (FWS) this same question a long time ago. That's what his response was to me. At the time I wrote it down and saved it because I seemed to simple and so true. So it comes streight from a WS.

chloe....One I am pondering at the moment as well. Mine is still here at the moment. Dont know why, maybe guilt, remorse, a feeling of obligation, who the hell knows. Says he loves me, but if he was unfaithful (still undetermined) how could he love me?? <p>snl...He doesn't. I have pondered this question a lot, and like others have said here it depends on how you define love.... the harleys say people in-love do not have affairs, I agree with them....this is a very hard thing to admit (either as bs or ws) and many won't, they will run away from it, and explain it other ways...and maybe they are right, but you asked, and that is my opionion.<p>However, that does not mean they cannot come to love you, and IMO that is the question ws and bs need to answer, what is love, and do we have it (or can get it), this requires a lot of soul searching, and radical honesty, two things humans are not very good at....but is part of the growth one can embrace from infidelity....<p>not to be confused with caring love and such, one can care alot about someone, a spouse, but that will not prevent infidelity (although it can help), infidelity is about bonding, oneflesh, in-love, and that is something humans seek, if they have it in marriage I do not think they wander, if not they are vulnerable to infidelity....likewise infidelity arises from all sorts of behavioural issues, personality disorders....sometimes those are couched in "illness" terms, and the ws needing to be "fixed" and/or marital issues needing to be "fixed"....maybe, but I would say as long as those things exist, there is no capacity to love, and instead the marriage/relationship is not about love, but about caring, dependentcy, possessiveness, dominance, security, children and so forth...one has to be at some level of psychological health to give in-love IMO.

The thing is, the OP (if single) isn't already commited to someone. The WS has vows with someone and is betraying those vows. I guess I'm angry at the MM who go back and forth - they claim they want to work on their marriage and still secretly contact the OW...they continue to add more lies and deception to the mix after d-day...<p>and no this didn't happen with my xMM! I left him first. His wife never found out.

Shannon,<p>Yes a single OP has made no vows and is therefore not breaking any. However they are still doing something that is morally wrong.<p>Let me give you an example. If I am in business with a partner I a rip them off then I am guilty of breaking the partnership agreement.<p>If I have an accomplice, then that accomplice is still guilty of theft. They just did not break the partnership agreement.<p>An affair is, IMHO, a type of theft.<p>Even if your MM did not leave his wife and she does not know, I think that what I said still applies. He had both of you and neither of you were enough to fill all of his needs. Why do I say that? Because he left neither of you for the other… a classic ‘cake man’.

Ok, I'l bite. I am a married man who cheated on
my wife. I never did not love my wife. My whole life is build around her. <p>My affair was just sex on the side. To much was going on at home with deaths of loved ones, we were relatively new parents, the opportunity came and I took it. She was never a replacement for my real life, my wife or anything. She was just easy sex on the side. It was fun and that was it. The OW meant nothing, my wife meant everything. It was cause I was a fool and needed my ego stroked. It was never that I didn't love my wife.<p>If anything I loved her more. I knew I had the real thing at home. The other woman reinforced how special my wife was. She would never sink so low as to do what I had done. She has morals and character. She is not a game playing, manipulative user like me or the other woman. <p>I guess I would question why the other women believe that they are in love. Real love is so much more than sex. It is more than lying to tear one off. It is total and 100% acceptance, it is sharing home, family, pets, vacations, friends, fights, it is everyday. I can tell you without reservation that the time I was involved with another woman, my wife was always the love of my life. The thought of leaving my wife never entered my mind. The affair had nothing to do with my feelings for my wife.

a Hus...Ok, I'l bite. I am a married man who cheated on my wife. I never did not love my wife. yada yada yada<p>snl...One word, bullpuckey.....if you are in-love with someone, you don't cheat on em, you can't cheat on em, is impossible....<p>ws often say this to mitigate their guilt IMO, no doubt you care about your wife, even the most dysfunctional of marriages spouses care about each other, in-love is a whole different matter. What I think, is folks with your situation are in-love with the benefits of having that spouse.... further IMO people who can talk about so dismissively, and use another human being as a piece of meat (as you just admitted too) are incapable of loving anyone but themself. I find your dismissal of your issues as just needing sex horrific, hopefully you deal with your very real issues in a lot more depth than you have.<p>This is not a diss, and if you are offended is not my intent, but since you posted what you did, you are accountable for it, and this is how I see it.....<p>This comes up fairly often, especially with men, the ow was just a piece of meat, trash, meant nothing to me, I am really a great guy who just loves my wife to bits....I ain't buying it, someone who can be so causual about human relationships as to use another just for sex, has got big time issues. Frankly I would never took ya back (but I'm a guy, so that doesn't count)....I would much rather you had simply fallen in love, maybe in confused fashion, but to simply use someone for sex, makes my blood run cold, what kind of person does that anyways?

I totally agree sad n lonely!! Well said.<p>zorweb - I agree that what the OP has some responsibility in what happened. What I was mostly referring to was the MM who go back and forth, claiming recovery but still having OW on the side. Who would want that kind of man??