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I told xOM I loved him. It was currency. It meant nothing. It's hard to understand but it was what it was at the time.

When people talk of fog, I often think about one of my first serious boyfriends. I was infatuatued and certainly believed I was in love with him (therefore I was in love with him by my own definition). We were both single at the time (I was only 18) but the guy was a total ass and I could see that clearly within a few weeks after he dumped me. I could NEVER fall for someone remotely like him again! So was it real love or was I in some fog? I think it is silly to call it fog. Life is a journey and sometimes we grow and change our minds and our feelings about things and people change, for a large variety of reasons.

I think the fog goes beyond the infatuation that most of us feel when we fall in love -- it is also a byproduct of the secrecy and the vacuum that an affair takes place in. There are brain chemicals rushing around, usually a lack of sleep, and a lot of secrecy. Most waywards relate to being in a fog once they emerge from it, so (gently) it really doesn't matter so much if you as BS don't "believe in it."

Also, there is an addictive element to most affairs that I don't think you can compare to regular falling in love. I have fallen in love, and wanted to be with that person all the time, etc., but I did not have a compulsion to be around them that led me to engage in risky, self-destructive behavior. An affair, by nature, is risky, destructive and self-destructive. You can no more compare an affair to falling in love in a real relationship than you can compare taking a car for a test drive, and hijacking a car at gunpoint. They are both driving a car, but inherently different, in my opinion.

[This message edited by bionicgal at 2:48 PM, January 17th (Friday)]

My H had EA, and I found FB messages where he expressed how much he loved AP numerous times. It hurt and still hurts. I dont know how to get over that. He says that he didnt love her. So what do I believe? To me ILY are very powerful words, and was supposed to be shared between both of us only. He wrote poems to her, and never for me. In his letters he said that he knew it was wrong but he doesnt regret to have these feelings. One cannot imagine what I feel and what I should do to get over. Do you think he really loved her or was he in a fog?

Thank you all for the discussion. It helps.

I saw the similarities in Bobbi_Sue's remark. My relationship with AP was more like a HS girlfriend. We talked and had a physical relationship. She made me happy when we interacted, which I compartmentalize from real life. I guess I said ILY (so much easier to write) in the same way I did when I was 17. When I was in that compartment, I felt that infatuation. I'd like to think I have matured from a teenager, but I have proven that isn't quite true.

That doesn't mean it wasn't a horrible thing. I just want to understand what was going on in my head. I know love isn't just the time between when you go to the bar and when you get home. It's the partnership through the ups and downs and the vast stretches of middle in our lives.

Somethingremorse,

I am trying to understand my H. Did you truly love ur AP or do you love your wife ? My H says that he didnt love her , that he just said to her . He says she was a challenge and he needed to say to get her attention. I just want to hear another WS or mens' opinion on that.

BrokenheartedD...

Please ask your questions on the BS Questions for WS's thread in the ICR forum.

Thank you.

I am horified with the person I was leading up to and during my A.

I think this is important because your state of mind might have readied and primed you for:

I told the AP that I loved her.

When you are feeling depressed and needy, this understanding EAP can seem magical. I think it's clear you were caught up in the EA:

Even before our A, we were close.

I don't know the answer, but why were you moving towards your BW SIL, instead of your wife?

I think I was being honest --i.e., I wasn't just saying what she wanted to hear.

JMO:

I believe we are capable of feeling healthy and

unhealthy love. Affair love is not healthy and is flawed in so many ways. Saying ILY under those circumstances and dark choices is never healthy love.

We love close, good, friends, not to be confused

with love we should have for our S/SO. During

your A, you never considered that your AP was not a friend in the true sense of the word. Saying ILY strengthened a false bond and made the A and the AP more important and significant.

None of this may apply to you. I believe it's only a small part of what happened in WSO's A. The ILY's served a purpose and made the A more acceptable and passionate. He wanted to think he loved AP because it made him feel better about what he was doing and destroying.