SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Read something in the WW section that I wanted to ask here since I won't post it there.

Its about a WS saying they never STOPPED loving their spouse.

While I believe that they did love their spouse, and come to love them again and reconcile, come on, there was at least some brief periods that they did NOT love their spouse. Otherwise they wouldn't have cheated.

Unless during their sex sessions they were thinking to themselves, "I love my spouse"

I guess the question is, when they are grinding away with their affair partner, were they thinking they love their spouse? And how do they explain it if they do?

This isn't so much looking for explanations from WS, more thinking what those of us that have been betrayed think about that concept.

[This message edited by nofool4u at 12:05 PM, May 24th (Friday)]

And how do they explain it if they do?

In my case, that my definition of "love" was solely feelings-based and not at all actions-based.

I was able to have affectionate feelings for someone (defined as "love") while also being completely uninterested in putting that person before myself in any way, shape or form and being unwilling to do right rather than wrong.

In the 3 years since, I've come to realize that I'd never actually loved anyone but my cats, as far as "loving as an action" goes. I liked some people...I liked being with them...feeling the affection and warmth toward them, etc...but love as an action, a verb, rather than a feeling/noun? Nope.

So in my case, although I was able to say I loved my XH while cheating, I was misusing the word "love."

[This message edited by heartbroken0903 at 12:10 PM, May 24th (Friday)]

Im not a WS,so I can't comment on how they feel..and each WS is an individual..so generalizing doesn't work.

I know my WH claims he loved me the entire time.

However...his actions were not loving. He was distant and cold during the time he was cheating on me. I know I felt very unloved during that time,and asked several times what was wrong..he was "tired" from work..that's all he would tell me.

An affair is not an act of love. It's abusive. I would call it extreme abuse(and Im well versed on abuse..was abused as a kid and have been abused early in this marriage). An affair is emotionally abusive..no need to explain that. But an affair is also physically abusive. Having sex...usually unprotected,(but even if condoms were used,STD's can still be transmitted..condoms aren't 100%..and oral sex is almost never protected)...with someone other than your spouse ...puts your spouse at risk for STD's...the wayward is risking the health of their spouse..Hell..they risked our LIVES...it doesn't get much more physically abusive than that. Again..I know abuse..hell..my father shot my mom in the head when I was 9,moved us back in with him and the fucker raped me repeatedly until I moved out...so I don't use the word "abuse" casually.

There is no love in abuse.

[This message edited by confused615 at 12:13 PM, May 24th (Friday)]

However...his actions were not loving. He was distant and cold during the time he was cheating on me. I know I felt very unloved during that time,and asked several times what was wrong..he was "tired" from work..that's all he would tell me.

Same here. He was acting that way to me when he was just obsessed with porn and of course while he was cheating, but for two years or more, he was like a different person. Cold, distant, un affectionate, and used all kinds of excuses except for the truth. I still struggle with how he could have still loved me during this time.

Im not a WS,so I can't comment on how they feel..and each WS is an individual..so generalizing doesn't work.

Well then I guess the question, which only a WS can answer is, when they were having sex with someone else, where was the "love"?

I know generalizing doesn't work, and I have no doubt that in "general" some WS did love their spouse through the affair.

I just have this vision in my head of when a WS says they never stopped loving their spouse, of the WS and their AP enjoying the sex they are having with each other, and while its happening seeing little voices inside the WS's head saying "I love my spouse"

I simply think there are times where there is a temporary lapse in that "love" where an orgasm is more important.

And my x-wife said something along the lines of "I never stopped loving you", and I did respond "while you were f#$%&g him? Ya, riiiiiight"

And my god, I am so sorry for what happened to you with your father. I can't even begin to imagine.

[This message edited by nofool4u at 12:21 PM, May 24th (Friday)]

I agree...the need to get off...get his ego stroked..get external validation...was all more important than the "love" WH claimed he has always had for me.

I told him if that's his way of loving me,he can GTFO.

MrKOKO tells me now that he always loved me.

Really?!?!?! Where was the love when he told me ILYBNILWY? Where was the love for me while we were separated for the year as he continued his A with the out of state TicK? I certainly never saw that love. Nor do I ever want that kind of "love".

I think he only realized that he loved me when I picked myself up after DDay, dusted myself off and thrived! All without him!

One of my favorite lines by Halle Berry in Boomerang when Eddie Murphy told her he loves her just after cheating on her.

"What do you know about love? Love should have brought your ass home last night"

I agree they don't. My WH definitely didn't love me the entire time. He started to detach little at a time, then the "i love you's" stopped, then the affection stopped. Then I rarely saw him.

He definitely didn't love me then.

Strange, he has witnessed first hand how putting energy into a marriage results in loving feelings actually returning. Yet it still hasn't dawned on him what love actually is.

Unless during their sex sessions they were thinking to themselves, "I love my spouse"

My wife says she did, and I believe her. Actually makes it a whole lot harder to deal with as a result. That even though she loved me, thought of me, she still gave into another man for his satisfaction at the expense of everything. Of course he turned around and said she wasn't enthusiastic enough and next time it better be more satisfactory, so hey it apparently wasn't worth it for him either.

I know my wife loved me. She however loved me in a very sick codependent and unhealthy way. It was a toxic love, but still love nonetheless.

She actually used her love for me to justify hurting me, that's how twisted her mind got. She figured I needed to leave her and take our daughter away because of how terrible she was, and her affair would ensure that. Otherwise I'd stay and she'd keep hurting me and I deserved happiness with someone who would treat me right (her words).

Wayward spouses at the time of their indiscretions are broken, have poor coping mechanisms, poor boundaries and/or are narcissistic assbags. Some of course don't love their spouse. Some don't even love themselves (I'd personally say most don't at the time). They often don't have a healthy sense of what love is (and I'd say a surprisingly large portion of BSs don't either). Self destruction and selfishness often supercede the love one might feel for someone else.

This subject comes up here on SI every so often with a lot of BSs being incredulous to the notion that WSs could love their spouse the whole time. I've seen DeeplyScared, the lady who owns and runs the site with her husband MangledHeart, repeatedly assert that she loved her husband the entire time she was unfaithful. Many other waywards have asserted to such, and ya know what, I personally believe them.

Because if you ascribe to the notion of "you don't hurt the one you love" or "you wouldn't have done that if you loved them" than there's plenty of things I've done to show my wife I don't love her. And I'm sure every person on this site regardless of what letter they use to describe themselves can say the same. Love isn't always actions, it isn't always feelings, sometimes it just is. And everyone's idea of what love is or should be is personal and unique.

[This message edited by VD2012 at 2:35 PM, May 24th (Friday)]

Thank you VD2012, there's a lot of food for thought in your post. My WW claims to have loved me the whole time, and I struggle with the concept of it tremendously.

I started a thread in General today called "I Love You!!" before I read this. It falls into the same lines of thinking.

My H hated himself more than he loved me. That's how he was able to do it. He was punishing himself by having his A's, not me. It wasn't about me, it never is. Compartmentalizing also makes it INCREDIBLY easy to live two separate lives... one in which you love your spouse and come home to them each night, AND you have sex with others and have a life of a single person.

My WS says he didn't think of me when he cheated. He hopes that he would have stopped during if he had thought of me. Suspension of reality during?

He also says he never stopped loving me - but perhaps didn't understand love. He feels that he does now, and as a newfound intensity of feelings. Like when we were first together. But it sucks because now I weary and wary of it all.

He has used the phrase, "I loved you the best I knew how". I don't understand. Did he suspend loving me?

Exactly, doesitgetbetter. Compartmentalization makes it possible for WS's to love their BS's and yet betray them in the most awful of ways.

Yes, I believe my FWH loved me even though he committed infidelity. Does that make it any better? Hell, no. I used to feel that it did. Ya know, he always loved me, never loved the OW. Now, it really doesn't matter if he loved me, hated me, was totally indifferent to me. No matter what he felt about me, he still fucked the ugly c u next tuesday, and that doesn't change, even if he loved me then or hated me.

What matters to me is that he loves me now and knows how to show it. To keep his actions loving towards me always. That he doesn't compartmentalize and keeps talking to me about everything. Total transparency. That I am the #1 priority in his life. That he thinks every day how he can make my day a little better, a little easier.

Does it really matter if they loved us whilst they were in the midst of the affair?

Not a WS. And so much/most of what my WW has said made any sense to me.

WW said to me that she did not stop loving me during her LTA. She just loved OM MORE than me.

I dont really under stand that.

If I take the part where she didnt stop loving me. I have to say that in my view. That is not love. And if that is WW version of what love is then I want none of it.

"One cannot serve two masters."

I will never believe I was loved during his affairs.

AJ's MOM

There is no love in abuse.

There is no way a WS can love a BS during an A. Affairs are abusive and the action is abusive, therefore I think the love for the BS is absent at the time of the A. When they get home they probably feel scared, anxiety, guilty, mixed in with the good feelings of the A too. When they are acting loving towards us during their A they are being deceitful and lying about their love for us and that is abusive in my eyes.

I have questioned this so many times and this post makes me a little sad ....in my case my WH did say that my image popped in his head and he " realized" what he was doing and could not finish the act and kicked her out his room . But the act happened even if he or she didn't get they're jollies .

[This message edited by huRtZ413 at 4:33 PM, May 24th (Friday)]

As foggy as I was, I never loved the AP. Maybe...well, clearly...I am full of shit and capable of deep delusions. But, I say I always loved BH, and I disagree: it is absolutely possible to love your H but cheat on him. Compartmentalism is powerful and effective; when I was "grinding away" I had zero thought of my BH. And vice versa. Cold, horrible, now shamefully embarrassing...but true.

That said, my (primary) A was brief, so my experience may be different than most waywards.

Mine said when (warning TMI) she got on top he thought of me so he then got on top. Yeah that made me feel loved