SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

...if love isn't protecting the one you claim to love, what good is it?

Oldwounds,
Yes! Exactly. If you don't love [verb] the one you love [noun], then what's the point? In a practical quote, "May that type of love never find me."

Between what I've experienced since DDay and this entire discussion, I have no idea what "love" means anymore, regardless of the part of speech!!

I stopped saying "I love you" to my child at some point, maybe a year or two after DDay1? It just seemed stupid. She would either feel and know that I loved her based on how I treated her, or she wouldn't. My grandparents never told me "I love you," but I knew that they loved me. I felt it and I saw it.

I also told stbx to stop saying it to me because I didn't want his brand of love, and also because it made me angry every time he said it, and I was tired of being angry.

What is the point of a word if no two people in the world can agree on its definition?

Pointless semantics. We can't make concrete rational definitions of emotions and actions.

Doesn't matter of you love me and shot me anyway or shot me intending to hurt me.

Sorry I'm consequentialist on this topic.

I think most WS believe they never stopped loving BS. It just doesn't matter how they felt.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 6:26 PM, Wednesday, May 13th]

I am with Thisisfine, as a long time poster and reader here, the love topic always sorts of plays out in the same way and it is a lot of semantics. Actions weigh the most, so I also agree with Gemmy in how a bs could only sanely look at it.

However, I will give my personal view of it, for my own circumstances only. For me, cheating came from a long period of distorting reality to match the feelings I had about myself. I do not feel I was "in love" with my husband when I cheated.

If love is only fond thoughts or feelings, then I would say those feelings existed in me for him. I thought he was a good man, had a lot of great qualities but had come to a place in our marriage that I was starved for emotional connection and I was convinced he could not give that to me and also didn’t feel "in love" with me. I thought he wanted me around because of the services I provided.

Which, in a sense is what people pleasers do- they hustle to be worthy of love and eventually they get tired of the hustle not producing results. The condition of my mind became the conditions of our marriage. Thoughts lie to us. I was unhappy with the life I had created in my mind.

This of course turned out to have nothing to do with my husband, when you go around avoiding conflict and people pleasing, then you starve yourself in the marriage of emotional connection. Because there is no being vulnerable and letting them very deeply into your internal life.

My internal life was actually a mess and when I would say what was bothering me, even if it had nothing to do with him, he was often on a different page and as a result I felt stupid for telling him because I was extremely self protective. I feared rejection, or exposing the ways I wasn’t perfect.

We also had kind of enforced this culture of our love being so easy, how we never fought. He had told me before we got married (he had been married twice before) that he was going to be happy, and that it was important I understood that. He didn’t mean it as a threat, it was more he had stayed in his last marriage even though he had been miserable until she finally pulled the plug. I was more careful about his happiness than my own. Over a period of a couple decades this can become toxic.

Loving someone does come with commitment but commitment isn’t love. Lots of people stay married to people they shouldn’t out of their sense of commitment. The fact he has done this before made it more feasible to me he was staying with me now because it was easier. I cooked his meals and provided sex, took care of the house, laundry, kids, brought in considerable income too. He didn’t need to love me to make this a great arrangement in my mind.

I also was emotionally numb at the time of my affair. I was diagnosed with emotional exhaustion just prior to my affair. I felt dead inside.

The affair broke the numbness, but only because it was firing off the adrenaline and dopamine in my brain this are just caused by the conditions of an affair and usually do not have a ton to do with the quality of the Ap.

After the affair blew up, I went to counseling for couple of months to kind of get myself sorted out. I was a big mess of conflicting thoughts and feelings and was not functioning well at all. Gradually I came to terms with I needed to confess and let the chips fall where they may. I needed everything in v to come out and I had even started to look at where I was going to live because I couldn’t imagine he would want to even consider staying married And truth is I didn’t think I wanted to either.

All this to say- I do not think the worst thing one can say is that they didn’t love their spouse in whatever definition you want to put to it. The worst thing is the betrayal.

I think in a long term relationship you have to keep creating love by doing the actions of love, and of course cheating makes it hard for both the bs and the ws to get back to the business of creating love. Had I just said hey I am not feeling love, other things in the relationship would have stayed in tact, so I think it’s the trust/respect that you lose that causes the most damage. No words or feelings you express fixes that easily.

And I think you have to invest in yourself to have that energy to draw from the well to make that everything work.

So I believe basically, if you do not love yourself- you won’t be investing in the things that make a relationship healthy, for example, you may be like me thinking you have to jump through hoops to the point of exhaustion to get someone to stay with you. As a result you do not lead communication to have your needs met or to share your internal world. Instead you will always be looking at someone else’s weather and what they are doing to show you love and you will always be misidentifying it because it doesn’t look like you believe it should

Those who love themselves believe they are loveable and will be able to see someone else’s day to day weather isn’t always about you. They will be able to make proper bids for connection and be able to hold space for the other person when they are struggling without making it about they just don’t love me."

Those who do not love themselves also can get to a place of dehumaizing themselves by the neglect they hold over their boundaries, needs, and feelings. Someone in that state dehumanizes everyone around them.

So in my experience is that love doesn’t exist in the scope of an affair, not towards their spouse, their ap or themselves. But admitting that is scary. It feels like a verdict of the outcome of the marriage.

Reality is, love can be created at any time, and sustained through a healthier mindset. Saying I didn’t love my husband during that period doesn’t mean I didn’t love him before or that I can’t love him now. I simply went though a period of not being capable of loving him—- and that in itself would have been okay if I had talked to him about it, leaned into plausible solutions instead of disregarding him and leaning into escapism.

This is my personal view—-I believe other combinations are possible depending on the circumstances so I am not trying to debate anyone else’s experience.

What makes you think you get to debate with us on equal footing then, on what love is? I think you should instead demonstrate a lot more humility and self-awareness than you are doing here, OP.

Won’t be fooled- a lot of the things I learned here I did so because I was brave enough to show up and debate things even though I was a ws. And eventually, many of those debates changed my mind and shaped my experiences.

At least she is here posting her own feelings and experiences. I see no reason to shame her for wanting to continue a conversation that was already being had.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:06 AM, Wednesday, May 13th]

Love as parts of speech feels like a distinction without a difference, ultimately. But, if this allows someone to move forward from a harmful situation when they are stuck on the "but I love them/they love me" thing, ok. However, it could just as well cut the other way, used as justification or excuse for causing harm.

Several years ago, a former WS explained very cogently how they loved their BS while cheating. Alas, I couldn't take it in at the time.

But so what? The actions - the betrayal - are simply and unequivocally unloving. I get that my W's A was about her, not me. That really helped me recover. But I - and every other BS - still have to deal with the grief, anger, fear, and shame of being betrayed. I still have to figure out what I'm going to do with my relationship with WS. I still have to do the work of rebuilding my self.

So, while I understand your point, I'd imagine that it's equally irrelevant to your BH. And I would highly recommend that you stop trying to convince him that you never stopped loving him during your affair.

Top notch summary, IMO. A feeling that isn't expressed in action ...IDK... doesn't exist accept in someone's head, which means it might be self-delusion.

*****

IDK about safety. While I believe we're all connected in some ways, I also believe we're on our own in others. What I get from my W is 1) (I believe) I'm a better me and a better person with her than without her, 2) joy, 3) comfort, 4) someone who seems to want what I want to give.

I can't get those benefits without opening myself to pain, as far as I can see. No one can. Life is risky.

*****

Writing as a mod, posts that adhere to the guidelines aren't simply permissible. They're welcome.

My wife told me she always loved me, was never going to leave me, and actually stated this to the AP during the affair.

After hearing this, I had to edit my world view to re-establish my cognitive equilibrium. My wife saying she loved me, and even showing it, simply was not enough for me anymore.

Eckhart Tolle’s definition helped me most. In my layman terms, his definition is "loving another is seeing improvement of yourself through another". Verb, actions, feelings, it doesn’t really matter. And, if you combine this definition with the saying "you love others only as much as you love yourself" then it starts making sense. A person with low standards, low values, low self esteem, will declare to "love" their spouse and still cheat. It is love in their mind, but it’s a shallow love, a love of low standards. Also, limerence confuses the picture. Limerence is not love in my definition.

Still-livin—-

That is so very true, all of it.

hikingout Post #24:

Won’t be fooled- a lot of the things I learned here I did so because I was brave enough to show up and debate things even though I was a ws. And eventually, many of those debates changed my mind and shaped my experiences.

At least she is here posting her own feelings and experiences. I see no reason to shame her for wanting to continue a conversation that was already being had.

I have to stand by what I wrote.

There is a big difference between coming forth with saying 'Wait this is all so confusing to me as a WS...I thought I never stopped loving my BH during my affair and this is my thought process...' vs something like 'WW here, I don't agree with you all on what love is and let me debate you...' The chasm between those two different energies are like day and night.

The former energy at least acknowledges how one's wrong thinking led them to really hurt their partner. The latter energy reads to me like pride, the sinful kind.

I can only imagine how enraging, infuriating, and painful it would have to be for her BH to hear from her that during her affair she never stopped loving him. We all sin yes, but it sure as hell is hard to be gentle with someone when they are still emotionally sticking the knife into someone else you can identify with.

I am thinking of a WW who was here way back in the day back before I even posted--I was a lurker before--this WW posted on here before COVID by at least a year IIRC. She seemed to think of herself as just more....high-minded (that's the word that comes to my mind) than the rest of the board, and she really seemed to scoff at everyone here telling her just how long and how hard it was going to be for her husband to recover. I have no idea of what happened to her and her husband but I truly hope she either found humility and then remorse, or if not that, that he moved on from her.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 12:32 AM, Thursday, May 14th]

GotTheMorbs, I have a question for you.

I agree with you that it is possible to love one's spouse and still have an affair. What I'm truly curious to understand, however, is what, if any, difference this makes.

How do you think this knowledge, accepted or rejected, changes the situation for your husband?

[This message edited by Unhinged at 3:20 AM, Thursday, May 14th]

Love often involves some kind of sacrifice

Not often. Always.

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends"
John 15:13

The true & timeless definition of love is sacrificial actions for the benefit of another.

What sacrifices? (I'm asking for specifics on this.) And what sacrifices don't have ...um... silver linings?

It's very rare that one member of a relationship is called upon to give up their life for the other.

I have found that compromise, creating win wins is far better than sacrifice. Self sacrifice when there is too much of it is really detrimental. Two people in a relationship should really be two full people.

I was thinking more this morning on how I would define love. It’s been a long while since I thought about it.

Love to me I believe is a spiritual emotion and is most evident in acts of consideration.

I believe that marriage is a commitment, and there are parameters of that commitment that center around acts of consideration.

When I cheated, I disregarded my husband which was the opposite of consideration. And I think that’s why most bs’s, any that I have ever talked to would have a hard time seeing love where they were so blatantly not considered.

And there is no value in saying you love someone while you cheated on them. Where you can add values to make sure they are considered in all things big and small and that includes working on yourself not to ever hurt them or anyone else in that way again.

That doesn’t mean you are condemned. Redemption is always possible regardless of the outcome of the marriage. There are likely lots of still valuable and loveable things about you. But reconciliation really takes years and years. So those who are successful at it I believe is because those acts of consideration were delivered consistently over a long period of time with little or no failures in that regard.

You can do that without sacrificing. It just takes emotional intelligence and forethought and a lot of communication.

I have found that compromise, creating win wins is far better than sacrifice. Self sacrifice when there is too much of it is really detrimental. Two people in a relationship should really be two full people.

I was thinking more this morning on how I would define love. It’s been a long while since I thought about it.

Love to me I believe is a spiritual emotion and is most evident in acts of consideration.

I believe that marriage is a commitment, and there are parameters of that commitment that center around acts of consideration.

When I cheated, I disregarded my husband which was the opposite of consideration. And I think that’s why most bs’s, any that I have ever talked to would have a hard time seeing love where they were so blatantly not considered.

And there is no value in saying you love someone while you cheated on them. Where you can add values to make sure they are considered in all things big and small and that includes working on yourself not to ever hurt them or anyone else in that way again. You have to work to show them they do matter after showing them they didn’t

That doesn’t mean you are condemned. Redemption is always possible regardless of the outcome of the marriage. There are lots of other valuable and loveable things about you. But reconciliation really takes years and years. So those who are successful at it I believe is because those acts of consideration were delivered consistently over a long period of time with little or no failures. Because every time you fail to consider them, it triggers all the feelings all over again, reverberating the trauma.

It just takes emotional intelligence and forethought and a lot of communication.

I haven’t read all of the replies yet. Like I said, I’m currently away for work, so expect sporadic responses from me.

I do want to elaborate on my bike simile. While it’s not the best, as I don’t mean to compare BS to inanimate objects or oversimplify things…The rider is the WS, the bike is the BS, and the ride on a lovely day is the relationship pre-infidelity. For whatever reason, the rider sticks the stick in— or cheats— breaks the bike, sabotages the ride, and injures themselves. It’s a dumb move by all accounts. The rider could have loved the bike dearly, valued it, wanted it whole and functional and otherwise protected, etc., but for some reason only known to them, and maybe only subconsciously known to them, they stuck the stick in. Maybe there was a little voice in the back of their head screaming, "Hey idiot, this is a bad idea. Don’t do that!" But they ignored it and rationalized the behavior and did it anyway.

An onlooker might witness the whole thing and assume that the rider must not have been having a good ride, or that they obviously didn’t love their bike [enough] if they could be so careless as to break it like that, because they could never imagine treating the things they value like that. But the onlooker’s assumption of the biker’s feelings is just that: an assumption, which may or may not be accurate. If the onlooker walks up to the biker and says, "People who love their bikes don’t stick sticks in them and break them like that. Clearly you must not care for yours. You should give it to someone who does," and that’s not at all how the biker feels about the bike, is that really going to be helpful to the biker? They might be like, "What are you talking about? I adore this bike and would never part with it…" Wouldn’t it be better to ask, "Why did you do that to your bike? Do you care for it?" And go from there, if the desire is genuinely to understand and help the biker not make such destructive decisions going forward?

Again, it’s definitely not a perfect simile, as a bike is an inanimate object that doesn’t have feelings or a say in the matter, obviously very unlike a romantic partner. But again, I wrote the original comment in the context of a reply to someone telling a WS that they must not [have ever] love[d] their BS since they cheated on them. Like I said, I don’t think it’s at all helpful for the WS here for strangers to be telling them what they're feeling. It's not up to anyone to tell WS whether they do or don't value their BS, whether they love them for who they are or just for how they make them feel, or whatever else you assume the WS in question must be feeling, since you could never imagine betraying someone you love like that, and you assume that all humans who feel what you feel for your loved ones will reliably and predictably behave the way you expect them to behave... Just ask them, instead.

People are complex and do stupid, destructive things for a variety of reasons, often for reasons they don't even know and which might take them a lot of work and introspection to discover. This is why I brought up the separate parts of love: how someone feels about their partner [love, noun], how they treat their partner [love, verb], and how each person expects to be treated when someone else loves them [be loved, passive verb.] Again, how someone loves[verb] their partner doesn't always align with how or whether they love[noun] their partner, or how their partner wants/needs/should be loved[passive verb.] And again, I can 100% get behind the idea that love[general] should not look like someone treating their loved ones poorly, hurting them, betraying them, etc., and that when a WS has committed infidelity, that is not loving behavior that the BS should accept, regardless of how the WS feels about the BS. But this is outside the scope of the original context, which is speaking to the WS.

Just as I discourage anyone from assuming how a WS might feel, I will not assume to know how any BS feels, as I have never experienced infidelity betrayal, and even if I did, my experience and resulting feelings may not be the same as yours. But I have been trying to understand it for almost a year, and I imagine if positions were reversed-- if I was the BS and my husband was the WS-- that the way he loved[noun] me would be wayyy secondary to the way he loves[verb] me. In other words, as I and others have essentially said, the way he felt about me is inconsequential if he continues to hurt me and betray me and otherwise fail to love[verb] me the way I want/need/ought to be loved[passive verb.] The only reason how, exactly, he feels about me[love, noun] would matter is if I am evaluating the motivation he has to change his behavior [love, verb] so that it better matches how he says he feels, and so that I can be loved[passive verb] the way I want/need/out to be loved[passive verb.] Someone who doesn't actually love[noun] me is significantly less likely to love[verb] me properly than someone who does love[noun] me-- but again, it's not always a 1-to-1 correlation, so to speak, and people often behave unexpectedly.

So if the context shifts from talking to a WS

to talking to a BS,

we shift from

evaluating whether the WS feels love[noun] for the BS in the first place, and why they betrayed their loved one, and how to get to a place where they can love[verb] their BS, themselves, or whoever they end up with, properly...

to whether the WS is capable of loving[verb] the BS in a way that meets their standards for being loved[passive verb], and how the BS should proceed depending on what outcome they desire.

I hope that clarifies things going forward. I'm not breaking love into three parts as a means of encouraging people to stay with abusers because they say they love them, or saying that it's okay to betray someone as long as you feel a certain way about them, or anything like that.

Edited to fix mistakes

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 5:02 PM, Thursday, May 14th]

hikingout,

when you weren't "in love" with your husband, did you still "love" him? i.e. ILYBINILWY

It's such a common phrase that I think it's worth recognizing this is likely a coping / compartmentalizing mechanism many waywards express.

I don't think it bifurcates "love" any more than "noun/verb". It's just not particularly relevant to the actions of betrayal the wayward partakes in.

It's a set of messy emotions and motivations that any wayward goes through (except the occasional narcissistic / sociopathic ones) to justify their behavior.