SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I believe the cheater can really really believe this. My Wh did. Cheating made him so very happy. He was in cloud 9. While I was blind to it. It was perfect for him. He became more affectionate. He planned more. Bought gifts for me. He shared his happiness. Was almost grateful to me.

There was always less sex with me. Mostly zero. He saved it. As things became complicated. Either by me figuring it out or Ow making demands. He then hated me. For ruining the perfect life. He resented me. Punished me. The perfect cake eater.

He thinks he did love me. Maybe even more. The truth is he isn’t capable of real love. His self centered joy was love to him. He had zero clue what I felt. No awareness of anything but him. And how dare anyone take his joy.

Wh is npd. His happiest moments were my worst. He had no idea. He’s immature. Selfish. Entitled. With a huge awareness issue. Delusional. Def not an expert on love So it doesn’t matter what he thinks love is or how much.

[This message edited by cancuncrushed at 9:59 AM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

I guess this is kind of a flippant answer but I think I'd be saying "If this is how you show love, I wonder how you'd show hate!"

"If this is how you show love, I wonder how you'd show hate!"

/\/\/\/\/\/Riiiiiight?

No, I don't think cheaters know how to love at all period. No matter if it is LT, ST, EA, PA whatever. Love doesn't damage or hurt, and love has empathy and compassion for others. Cheaters are broken and that is the biggest way they are broken - they can't truly love anything or anyone. not even themselves.

ETA - I do think people can learn "how" to love with hard work tho. True love requires trust and vulnerability. I think WS's can get there, but it is pretty rare.

[This message edited by EllieKMAS at 12:16 PM, November 6th (Wednesday)]

Such great responses.

Marz hit it out of the ballpark. So did CanCun.

And true. These folks don't love anyone, truly, except themselves. Sometimes, not even that.

I hear that still. I haven't addressed it yet but I will. I believe if that's how my WW loves me, then please stop loving me.

Saying, thinking or believing something is true, does not make it so. My WW said, "I always loved you". Please, it's simply not possible to truly, honestly love someone while carrying out emotionally, physically and financially abusive acts against them. Like RedHead said, if that's their definition of what it is to love, please stop!!

I believe they well may be convinced they do however, they are also delusional about a lot of other things they use as justification for their actions, it's the same thing, just from a different direction.

These folks don't love anyone, truly, except themselves. Sometimes, not even that.

I think, most of the time, they probably love themselves the least. I know that my fch was at his lowest when he cheated. He felt like a failure. He did not love himself at all. That's why he sucked up the external validation he got from the MOW. It was the only way he could feel good about himself.

IMO, the definition of love is seeing an improvement of self through an other. People lacking integrity are not capable of understanding the rewards of maintaining honesty and loyalty through a spouse. Their love is shallow and immature. My wife's love was nothing more than a black hole, consuming and consuming, until I was tired of feeding it. Then she went elsewhere to collect more, but she still "loved" me (and what I provided).

I think, most of the time, they probably love themselves the least.

My ex-WW hates herself, so I have this experience too. She sucks up the external validation like it's candy.

And anything that makes her feel bad, poof, she's gone. Ask that woman to clean up after herself it's a reminder that she's lazy and doesn't contribute to any household chores.

She's been dealing with chronic depression for years, before she even met me, and whenever I'd ask about seeing a therapist she'd just say she wants to see a MC first (which we did). I feel really bad for her and just want to make things better, and I think that's part of why I stayed so long...I felt like a lot of it was the depression talking.

I agree that there are narcissists out there who really do just love themselves more too lol. But I think there are more people who cheat that deal with self-esteem/depression issues...we can't have that many narcissists in our midst...right?

Love is a lifestyle. It's the state of mind in an individual where unconsciously they filter every choice and make sure it doesn't negatively affect their loved ones. If drinking a beer might have the remote possibility of promoting alcohol to their child, they abstain for their entire life. Real love is deeply ingrained in an individual.

There are such things as drunken one-night-stands where an individual's cognition is impaired to the point of not knowing what they're doing. But even in these cases, one must wonder why they didn't see their drinking to the point of unconsciousness as harming their loved ones or themselves. Does someone who will harm their own self in this way really have the ability to truly love anyone else? I don't think so.

Because of the harm they're juggling, cheaters can't claim to love their betrayed spouses, their families, or anyone else they say they love. Their choices bring harm to their cheating partners too. Can they claim love for them? I don't think so. And cheaters are ultimately harming themselves so they can't even claim self love. Cheaters have a form of what they think is love but their actions prove differently.

Some wedding vows state something like, "the two shall become one". This is referencing the love that's supposed to bond two hearts and lives together. It's saying, treat your partner like you'd treat yourself. Don't make any choice without first thinking about the two and don't do anything that would even have the remote potential to harm the two. People who don't love and respect themselves will treat their partner and everyone they claim to love the same as they treat themselves. Broken people make choices that break the people closest to them all the while claiming love for those same people.

Did he love you the whole time? Love doesn't pointlessly impose destruction. He didn't love himself, he didn't love his affair partner, and he wasn't loving you.

Yeah this was something that used to really stoke the fires of my "anger stage" during R.

My W eventually learned that this was a statement would never end well. No matter which direction it took it never made me feel better. It usually made me feel worse and pointed out to me that she "did not get it." She wasn't cheating, but she was still wayward. It had the opposite impact of the intent. A WS shouldn't make statements like this to their BS. Ever.

This is usually something a WS tells themselves to make themselves feel better about what they did or are currently doing. Me,me,me all over again.

Causing someone than kind of emotional pain and then telling them that you love/d them mirrors what abusers will tell the abused to convince them that they deserved it. You might just as well say, " I am going to remove the agency you have to feel and define YOUR feelings for a minute. I want to tell you some good news ! When I was/am hurting you worse than anyone else on this planet ever has or ever will I still loved you. You see ? You should hurt less now because I still loved you. Don't worry about feeling bad anymore. I never stopped using you as a source for my good about myself feelings. I just needed more than you could provide."

It may sound extreme to some of you, but that is very close to what I hear everytime my W wanted to treat "She still," or, "Never stopped," loved/ing me.

Let's call this what it is. Minimizing actions during the A which can't exists with full remorse and 100% ownership of the choices involved in an A.

Three things stand out for me:

1. Love to me is verb. Having an A is certainly not a loving action.

2. One of the most common early "whys" offered. " I wasn't thinking." Easily construed as " I wasn't thinking about you." What is the opposite of love ? Yep, you guessed it. Indifference. My W was indifferent to me while she had her A thus she did not love me during her A. She may have pretended at times, but it was fake just like an A is.

3. If her loving me means that she can cheat on me while loving me then . . .well let's just say I don't want that kind of love and it made me question if trying to R was even worth it. If she can do horrible things like this to the one person she cared about more than anyone (except herself) then what kind of person is that ? Certainly not someone I want to give another chance to. Her views on the topic are so dysfunctional that being with her is asking for a lifetime of more hurt.

This gets rehashed on SI every month or so. Everyone has their own opinions.

Personally, no fucking way. And maybe the LTA makes a difference.

A cheater has no respect or love for themselves, so how on earth can they love or respect ANYONE?

And if this is how a cheater loves, it's a TOXIC love. A HARMFUL love. A love that HURTS other people. A love I want no part of. Last I checked, that was not "love" or "loving" or loving "action". He'd have been more loving if he's just punched me in the face - honesty IS loving.

ETA: Numb+Dumb posted while I was writing mine. NAILED IT.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 12:10 PM, November 7th, 2019 (Thursday)]

It may sound extreme to some of you, but that is very close to what I hear everytime

It doesn't sound extreme at all, but very much on point. I felt the same whenever my WW would say those sorts of things.