SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Doesn't matter. In marriages with domestic violence, the abuser can love their spouse. Doesn't mean anything if they're not caring for them.

<donning flame suit>

I think this is a very much "it depends" answer. But, knowing a few male cheats myself, the phrase "what's love got to do with it" is probably the most apt. Love has no place in the affairs I know about personally. They say it, of course, but do they feel it for the AP? Not even a little bit. Do they feel it for their wives? Some do, some don't, but the AP doesn't even factor into that discussion.

The more I read here, the more I'm convinced we get a different breed of WS here. The guys I know don't need SI to tell them why they cheated, they know. And they don't need SI to unf**k their lives, they know how to do it. I think that SI attracts more of the "relationship" A's and a lot less of the NSA/lie through your teeth A's that seem a lot more common in my personal circle (and was what my WW was involved in, an A with a skilled and practiced liar). Love doesn't even factor into those A's, they are much closer to a paid/professional encounter than they are to anything that resembles a relationship. Now, of course, to the AP, they "look like" a relationship, kind of the same way that a soy burger looks like a hamburger. But anyone putting even the slightest bit of scrutiny to it can see "that burger has no burger in it", just like putting the slightest bit to my WW's A revels, very quickly, that "love" was a complete figment of her imagination.

So, to the original question.. Can they love and cheat? I think the answer is yes, they can. I know men I'm sure would take a bullet for their wives who cheat, some frequently. I hate this analogy, but, I've heard it a few times so I'll repeat it, even if your wife is a 5 diamond chef, it's still fun to eat out from time to time. Doesn't mean you don't love your wife's cooking, or that her cooking isn't much better, just means that you enjoy dining out sometimes. But do you love the chef at the restaurant? Of course not, that's ridiculous and frankly, it would be a silly question if "I love you" wasn't standard male cheater mantra to get panties off.

I've seen one A that involved "love" in my days on this earth, my WW's and that was totally one sided "love" from her to him. Every other case of a cheat I know of (admittedly, all men), it doesn't even factor into the discussion. If you look at it logically, A's are a terrible place to find love and a great place to find sex. Is it at all surprising that a lot of the people in A's are there for sex? Not to me it's not.

Ride it Out thank you for confirming that WS usually know why they cheat, the whole search for whys is so tiring.

Also, I would take a bullet for a children I don't even know so the 'love' of the men you know doesn't mean anything. Their wives could die from the stds they give them so clearly they don't care about their lives. You should anonymously tip their wives off-it's disgusting and they're delusional.

The analogy is stupid offence or no offence because this is not about food. Eating out is not something people agree to do when they get married. There is no other analogy because any rational person know it's wrong to go back on an agreement and give your spouse an std, and doing so shows you clearly don't care about them as a human being but rather how they affect you.

Everything you write here is to excuse male infidelity. "Look the other way. Let the men handle it and it'll all be okay." The BW must feel so lucky that their husbands still loved them and would take a bullet for them while sleeping around. So many stories on this site itself of men who left their families to be with the OW or just left anyway.

Just sick of reading this minimization crap and tales about your cheating buddies. Get better friends.

The actions sure don't show it do they?

Words are meaningless.

Everything you write here is to excuse male infidelity. "Look the other way. Let the men handle it and it'll all be okay." The BW must feel so lucky that their husbands still loved them and would take a bullet for them while sleeping around. So many stories on this site itself of men who left their families to be with the OW or just left anyway.

You absolutely misinterpert me. If anything, I'm savage on WH's, I'll freely say that I think in most cases they are the "most at fault" party in an A, and should bear terrible repercussions. I do NOT excuse male A's, in fact, if anything, I hold back posting to WH's because I cannot find a an acceptable way to say what I'm thinking (you are full of sh** and you and I both know it being the most common thought).

There are certainly men who have exit affairs, I've never claimed otherwise. But I also claim that they are rarer than the "cake eater/more" affair for men (and the reverse true for women). And to the point of this post, I think that's germane to the conversation because "love" is simply not a part of at least some affairs, and, in my personal experience, most affairs. But the entire discussion is flawed because we all interpret love differently, is it a feeling (in which case, yes, I think the men I know who cheat do love their wives) or an action (in which case, no, they are not acting in a loving way). It's fraught with interpenetration, but, for the purposes of this post, I read the topic as "Could they feel love to me and cheat" to which I'd answer an emphatic "yes, they can" because I've seen it, often. If the question was "are they acting in a loving manner" the answer is clearly "no", and I didn't read that as the posters intent.

Just sick of reading this minimization crap and tales about your cheating buddies. Get better friends.

Is it minimizing or reality? There are many BW's here who suffer every day over the issue of "did my WH love her, or love her more than me? Or was she just a piece of a** to him"? And they hope for the 2nd answer (some of them) because the concept of their H in love with someone else is very painful for them. I often post on those threads because, statistics and my personal experience both point to "no, he probably didn't love her". Much like WW's often pop into the threads where a BH is beating themselves up about the sexual details to add "It probably wasn't about the sex". Is that minimizing the WW's culpability, or is it just a likely statement of fact? I see it as the 2nd; don't "borrow pain" that's yours to bear. IMHO, there's a good chance that "yes, your WH loved you and cheated" just like there's a good chance that "no, RIO, the sex in your W's A wasn't the best of her life and no, she doesn't think about him during sex". Always true? No, some men have A's to leave a M and some women have A's just to have more/better sex. But both varieties aren't "the norm", at least not in my personal experience and time on this site.

Each situation is different, I'm sure. However, one important aspect of love is whether the partner actually feels loved. A lot of BS's do not feel that we were loved while our WS was betraying us. In my case, my WGF was distant, hypercritical, etc. She picked fights. Stayed out late. All of the hallmarks.

We see many threads here where the BS gets some version of the "ILYBINILWY" speech from the WS. I think that sentiment describes the dynamic in many A's.

It's fraught with interpenetration

Sometimes, you have to wonder if autocorrect is just deliberately messing with all of us.

lol SirRobin

BraveSirRobin- i’m dying.

The actions sure don't show it do they?

Words are meaningless.

Agreed. Actions and demonstrations are much more powerful than any rhetoric that one can spew. There are no offensive words, no possibility of misinterpretation. No one can argue with demonstrated proof. As Baltasar Gracian remarked, “The truth is generally seen, rarely heard."

[This message edited by ramius at 2:16 AM, May 30th (Thursday)]

This is hard to answer. My wife is a serial cheater and has cheated on me our entire relationship on and off. A lot of her actions weren't signs of love. But I do believe she did love me, certainly, there were times she wasn't in love with me. Take away the infidelity, she was a caring wife. She did a lot of little things for me, which add up at least to me that she did love me. It's complicated.

The one big piece of cheating is the lying. How can one reconcile the notion that a cheater loves his/her BS, while lying to the BS at such a profound level?

I think it goes to the hermeneutics around the concept of different kinds of love. In the end, the WS loves him/herself more than anybody, hence the lying, which is a manifestation of selfishness.

It's interesting.

I have said before that I don't agree with Rideitout about why men cheat. Because we often confuse motivation for the whys. Everyone is motivated by something different in an affair, and whether that's more sex, validation, attention or whatever - a waywards underlying whys are often all the same regardless of gender. Selfishness, being conflict avoidant, being entitled because of x (whatever imbalance of the relationship - I make all the money, I do all the work, I deserve X, blah blah blah) So for that reason I believe both WH and WW need to find their whys. I agree we don't have as many WH on this site, and I tend to think men in general are just not conditioned to examine their feelings and be introspective. The ones who are here are just the group who are maybe more willing to do that.

So, with that differentiation, I will say there could be something more to do with the type of cheater than the gender of the cheater. RIO mentions he knows a lot of cake-eaters. I do think that's a lot different than an exit affair person. And, I can agree that if you looked at stats (if there were any that were reliable) That in general you probably have a higher percentage of cake-eaters who are male verses having a higher number of exit affairs among the females. It makes sense as far as that is concerned.

But, I will contend that no matter what the motivation, what the type of affair haver the cheating spouse is - They do not love their spouse while they are having an affair. 100% of all waywards need to examine their definition of love after cheating.

Fond feelings? Yeah, I believe we can have those. Feel like we love someone or believe we love someone while we are cheating. But, love is not just a feeling. Feelings are changeable and unreliable. I came out thinking I always loved my husband, because I didn't lose my fond feelings for him. But, my actions were clearly not love so I know I didn't love him the way I should have, or the way he loved me.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:14 AM, May 30th (Thursday)]

My relationship with my H was better during his A. We were more communicative. We seemed to enjoy each other more. We even talked about that. It's really hard for me now to know that the reason he seemed so much happier is because he was cheating. Idk what that says about his love for me.

MorethanbrokenI agree. If a wayward says they loved their BS while they cheated..it is object love. It is loving that person as an object for what they give you. The ws doesn't even love themselves, they certainly can't give healthy love to anyone else because self preservation and selfishness come first. I am not a Christian though I still think love is what is in Corinthians 13. I would have to wonder if the podcaster really focused on what love is to them. Everyone has different definitions of love. Many abused stay with their abusers and insist that their abuser loves them after they get the shit beaten out of them.

RIO, these dudes you work with who "love" their wives probably don't actually love their wives. They might have an attachment to their wives, but it ain't love. Making a fool out of someone, risking their health/life, lying, and doing something that likely would result in losing that person is not love. They might have fondness and familiarity. They likely treat their spouses like a mother figure and get off on getting away with stuff behind their backs.

My WH would fly all the way back across the country to my house to take a bullet for me because he'd find that to be an excellent way to die and a grand gesture that would look seriously romantic at his funeral. Does that mean he loves me?

"did my WH love her, or love her more than me? Or was she just a piece of a** to him"?

No, I didn't love the AP. Began to think I did. Till I realized that I loved her like I love ice cream. I didn't love her for her. Couldn't even tell you what she liked and and the color of her eyes. She was a candy machine dispensing what I wanted to make myself feel good. When I was with my wife. There was a time of true love. I loved who she was. I was friends with her for years before we started to date. I was unhealthy but I was happy and immature/carefree in my 20's. No real responsibilities. Yeah, looking back I got a lot from her. I was always more of a taker. The love changed or probably more stayed the same as the years went on and we married then had kids. She grew as a person. She grew in the levels of a committed relationship. Look those up the levels of a committed relationship. I stayed the Peter Pan and close to my 40s everything that made me me came to a head into the perfect storm of infidelity.

I will say there could be something more to do with the type of cheater than the gender of the cheater.

Absolutely. The "cake eater" is different than the "exit A" cheater no matter the gender. It's just that those affair types are more common for one gender than the other, but, it's not the gender that matters, it's the type of affair. And even then, with some of the (correct, IMHO) definitions of love given here, it's easy to say "no, they did not love you" no matter the type of A. I think the distinction I'm trying to draw is one that can be best illustrated with example. If I were to ask the cheating men I know "Do you love your wife" they would all say "yes". They all do, in their f**ked up ways, love their wives. They will talk about sex with the AP and then, 10 minutes later, talk about the elaborate surprise anniversary trip they've planned for them to enjoy with their wives (actual conversation I've had, the wonders of oral sex from the AP, followed with a day by day itinerary of the trip they have planned to take their wife to Tuscany). But my W's A was different. She was not "in love" with me by her own words (to friends and family). I was an abuser and a bad person keeping her from her dreams. The A was just a step to "get out" of the awful life that I'd trapped her in. She denigrated me to lots of people, all in the effort to build the "reason" she needed to D me. She was clearly not "In love" with me by her own words; she was "in love" with the OM.

And yes, those are stereotypes, there are plenty of women having A's just to get a little more sex in their lives and plenty of men having A's to "exit" a M. But, overall, both types are less common in the opposite gender. How many times do we need to hear women say "it wasn't about the sex" (even if that comprises 95% of the time with the AP) before we believe it? I think that applies equally to someone saying "I was always in love with my W, it was just about the sex". And no argument from me at all, no matter the motivation, it's CLEAR that they are not acting in a loving way by having an A. But I think it's a mistake to assume that all cheats "don't feel love" for their BS anymore. I think they do, they just act in ways that are counter to those feelings because they want "more".. Cake eating at it's finest.

Till I realized that I loved her like I love ice cream. I didn't love her for her. Couldn't even tell you what she liked and and the color of her eyes. She was a candy machine dispensing what I wanted to make myself feel good. When I was with my wife. There was a time of true love. I loved who she was.

Edited to add this quote, because it's so close to things I've heard from others in my personal life. They would have been harsher, "I didn't give a s**t what she liked" is more likely the delivery I would have gotten over a beer, but the content of the message is the same. This is the mindset that's espoused to me IRL by male cheats.

[This message edited by Rideitout at 8:40 AM, May 30th (Thursday)]

RIO, if the next guy I have a relationship with is anything like these guys you work with, I am going to prison for a very gruesome and calculated murder.