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Ms., your DDay's are so recent. You are going to feel many things over the next few months. Right now the best predictor of how things will be between the two of you is how your H will handle HIS life going forward and how much HE works to get you through HIS A. Now he wants first love, romantic love from you? I would be questioning his sincerity in R if you feel he is demanding you move on too quickly. That may be what is comfortable for him, but it is not what is best for you and the life of your M. If the IC/MC is also pushing for your love declaration at this point, get another that specializes in the betrayal of infidelity. If find it odd how the WS can cheat, make us feel completely unloved and emotionally abused, yet as soon as they grace us with their presence in the M again they feel threatened if we do not get over it yesterday.

Your WS had time to process the A as he was in it and possibly ending it. For you, the A started on DDay if you were blindsided. Think of a time line. You are on different sides of the timeline. He is processing on the future side of DDay and more than likely you are processing the past side of the timeline. You will catch up to him in time, but you need time to get through to the same place. I am sure that is clear as mud.

He says he loves me. I feel nothing but sorrow where he is concerned

i'm at the point where i love him as a person bcuz i know fundamentally he is a good man, great father, etc...but right now i'm not in love with him...i'm not even sure if i like him

Loved..that is fantastic perspective. I didn't think of it in that way. I don't think he is trying to rush things, so much as he wants to feel secure. He, I think is questioning whether he can be in it for the long haul as far as the process. He has already processed so much so it would make sense that he is looking toward the future while I am still processing the past. I will make sure to remind him that it is going to take time.

As far as your H defining love by romantic feelings, etc, IMO, he is still in "WS mindset". He wants to live in "new" love, the easy, tingly, hormonal love.

IMO, life long love is based on commitment and choice. Romantic love will ebb and flow during the relationship, but it is not the defining factor, it is not the glue.

With your recent d-days and such I would say that your H is just not there yet, his desires and expectations are not "valid" because he is in his fog still, he needs to do more work, process more, etc. Hopefully in time he will get more lined up with "reality" (not to say that he does not feel his view is valid and that he does not feel he is existing in reality, I am sure he does and it does no good to point out that his perspective could be off, he has to figure that out for himself imo, for it to really be meaningful and to stick).

Now, on to your title question - I no longer feel the type of love that wants to take care of, protect, and defend. I am here, I am doing my part upholding my responsibilities, but he has to take care of himself and protect himself and defend himself, just as I do, I do not do it for both of us anymore, just for myself and the kids. I no longer sacrifice, I am fair, but I do not deny my needs anymore.

Grace

I care for fWS and have complete loyalty to her. I do not have warm fuzzy, bodice ripping, unicorn farting love for her anymore. In my opinion that stuff is just a farce caused by a chemical reaction in your own brain. I think I'm incredibly jaded now.

I still love my H but it really has changed for me. I have prepared myself for the possibility that I could be hurt. I never want to be caught unaware again, so my love is guarded. I feel his love for me has deepened, and i believe his love for me is stronger than the love I have for him

Same here. I think the love my WH has for me has deepened and grown, whereas mine for him has lessened and become very guarded. It makes me sad :(

I lost all respect for WH. I didn't used to think that he would lie to me. Heck, he was brutally honest sometimes. He always talked about faithfulness and I believed him. I don't think he still thinks he did that bad of a thing.

I love him for many reasons, but the part of him that I loved because I respected him is gone, which was about 60% of our marriage.

What Josephine said. Never stopped loving him, but my view of him is different as far as respect goes.

And now, my lack of respect for him feels worse than my lack of trust in him. ugh.

I love him, but I don't trust him not to hurt me again so it's a wary kind of love. Like I'm waiting.

I was totally blindsided by WH's A. I knew we were at a low point in our M at that time, but I thought our marriage was made in heaven & could withstand anything.

Now, I will never have that kind of security again.

I have lost a lot of respect for him.

I question everything he says. After he looked in my eyes & lied to my face about contact with OW for several months after DDay, it doesn't take much to make me suspicious.

Also, now I think he is pretty stupid---if he was willing to really do the work instead of sweeping it all under the rug & just going thru the motions,

I would have a lot more respect for him, & also not think that he is stupid (after all, anyone can make a mistake, but you are stupid if you don't try to learn something from your mistake.)

Also, the purity of our marriage has been tainted.

I will never again have sex with him without insisting that he use a condom.

So, if I am wary, have less respect for WH, still question everything he says, think he's stupid, & am afraid of catching a sexually transmitted disease from him now, I guess my love for him has changed a little.

Hope OW was worth it.

[This message edited by mchercheur at 1:14 PM, September 13th (Friday)]

Mcher I see where your coming from. It's a hard thing to realize that your security is gone along with the innocence of a marriage. I have read that love can be reborn and blossom again. But that's only if both partners are committed and if the WS puts in the work. So far my WH is, though I know we have a long road. I can say that I am feeling more guarded now. But at some point I know I have to take some steps forward. He can't do all the work. We both contributed to brokenness prior to the A. So I do still need to work on those. But I am dropping the rope in the sense that he has work to do that only he can do. I can't fix him, and this is a big realization for me.

I think at this stage I just enjoy talking to my WH. I love him, but I'm not in love with him (and I definitely don't have the blind trust and unconditional love that I used to have). Sometimes, he disgusts me so much that I don't think I can ever really love him again.

I feel like all of his previous flaws that he used to have that I took as endearing or didn't bother me much before, have been magnified. They seem unsurmountable.

I have no trust or respect for him. In my darkest days, I wonder if he ever really loved me to begin with, or if he married me because it was the easy thing to do at the time and was the path with the least amount of conflict. I wonder if that is the reason he is with me now.

He is still stationed in Korea, but I don't think about him sexually anymore. I don't really want him to touch me...or really even see me naked.

I enjoy his company...he is the person who knows me best, I like talking to him...but right now, I don't feel much more than that.

It has changed for me as well.. I like many of you was blindsided.. I loved him and trusted him explicitly. Yes we were having some tough times but cheat on me... Have sex with someone else repeatedly and unprotected at that. Never. I was that fool wife that swore up and down that My husband would never cheat .. he was my soulmate and he understood that would kill me.

Well what a fool I was.. So right after DDay and during HB I was in love. I had forgiven to an extent. Fast forward to 18 months out. Some times I look at him and I honestly don't know if I love him. But then I think about being without and I get sick. Literally throwing up. So I guess like many of you I have a wary love. I feel like I am waiting. Not sure for what.. i guess for him to fail again. I cannot have blind trust ever. He on the other hand says he loves me more than anything more than before. He says the rights things but I don't feel it.

How sad for us all

..

..all of the above, if that makes any sense!

..how could it NOT change after what happened???

smy

I still love my WS but I don't trust him not to hurt me again. That was a big part of both of his EA's. First one was, he loved me but not in love with me and would never leave me because of the kids. Second, he loved me but was not in love with me and was pretty sure he was going to physically cheat on me some day.

So do I think he loves me? Kind of. I love him, but I am just waiting for him to hurt me again.

I have a bit of a strange situation: I NCed WS within three weeks of Dday because I told him he had to NC OW and he took the A underground one more time. I moved out immediately.

Because the process was so fast, he is preserved in my mind as who he was before Dday in many respects. I didn't stick around long enough to let the asshole cheater version of him sink in. So I have 10 years of blind, innocent, unconditional love weighted against something like 5 conversations that were a mix of sorrow and hostility.

In that respect, I love him the same.

However, a few days ago a "coworker" (probably OW) called me. Just being remotely in touch with him and his world via this person was nauseating. When that happens, there is an emptiness inside of me where that love used to be. There's nothing. And I just feel like I need to take a bath.

I'm lately of the opinion that, had we R, it wouldn't have worked. Might have taken years-- but I don't think I would have tolerated the kind of doubt and limbo and emptiness his A caused.

I'm actually no longer sure why ANYONE would stay with a WS.

It died a slow, agonizing death.

Now there is no love.

Phantom: funny you say you don't know why anyone would reconcile. I used to be the same way. My line was in the sand for sure. I was determined I would walk away. Even after both DDays I had my plans in my head on how I would. But, I stayed, in part due to faith beliefs. But also in part because I realized I couldn't just not love him. I realize now that affairs are complicated for all parties involved. It's just not always cut and dry. I think it helps that so far my WH is demonstrating all he needs to to show he is committed to the reconciliation process. So I dunno, I figure why not do all I can to fix it (though he has to fix his issues on his own) before walking away. I stand to loose a lot if I walk away.

My love for WS has definitely changed. My love for DH was always dedicated, committed, and always felt like we were a team. Us against the world, persay. I always loved him for the man he was, for being my partner, for being a wonderful Dad and spouse.

Now my love for him is more of a decision than anything. I *love* his sense of humor, I love his way of being a Daddy to our children. But I don't love the *man* he is because I don't believe, unfortunately, he is a *man*. He didn't man up to being unhappy and leave before seeking out an affair partner. He didn't man up and tell me that he went back to her, even though he had multiple opportunities to tell me. He broke that part of our dynamic. I cannot, at this point, see him as *strong* and *amazing*. I see him as weak and cowardly. I still don't know for a fact, even though he says he would, if he would truly tell me if he wasn't happy again. The proof is in the pudding and he proved he wouldn't.

I do *love* him. With all my heart I love him. But it's a sad, broken love at this point. I'm hoping that changes with time, because I really want the man that I know he used to be back. I really loved that man.

I never want to be caught unaware again, so my love is guarded.

^This. I love him, but only as much as I'll allow myself at the time. It's exhausting, trying to control my level of emotion for him, but I feel like it's something I need to do in order to avoid being hurt by him again. Sometimes I get that "I'm still so in love with you" feeling, but I refuse to show it. And I get that "I don't know if I can spend the rest of my life with you" feeling, which I also refuse to show.

The result is turmoil, emotionally, inside my head, and flat nothingness outwardly. It can't possibly be healthy... or good for the relationship, if we're ever going to R.

I told my WH and our MC that I love our family and he is part of the family, so I still have some type of love for him. But, to paraphrase a popular Meme on Pinterest, the sick feeling in my stomach is from the butterflies that have died. He says he loves me, but that seems incompatible with what he did to me and, even now, I don't feel any love coming from him. It's just a feeling inside him, not a verb.