This Topic is Archived
crazyblindsided ( member #35215) posted at 8:55 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
I'm not sure that "love" keeps people faithful. I think my WH was not emotionally healthy enough to be faithful. It really had nothing to do with how much he loved me. Life is hard, he couldn't deal, he fell apart, he did stupid shit. No amount of love for me could overcome his FOO, his dysfunction and his buttheadedness.
I agree I am not sure love is enough to keep someone faithful. I am a fWS and current BS, my WH has decided to stay with me and and I him and we deal with our A's in different ways, but both of us feel our M is worth saving.
fBS/fWS(me):52 Mad-hattered after DD (2008)
XWS:55 Serial Cheater, Diagnosed NPD
DD(22) DS(19)
XWS cheated the entire M spanning 19 years
Discovered D-Days 2006,2008,2012, False R 2014
Separated 9/2019; Divorced 8/2024
shatteredheart7 ( member #39734) posted at 8:58 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
Stronger, I'm glad my signature gives you hope. It is a lot of work but if both people are Willing to put in 100% and want it to work it is so worth it. We still have a ways to go, however I now see how miserable things were in the past. I didn't realize it was possible to be this happy. Now if she would just go away so I didn't have to see her face all over town... ;-)
BTW, sorry for the t/j
Me~40
FWH~46
Married 8yrs
Together 11 1/2
Me~ 3 kids, 21,17,14
Him~no kids
A with a mutual "friend" for 2+yrs
He confessed 9/9/12
A was over 2/12
7/13~ Happier than we have been in yrs!
BW2639 ( member #34875) posted at 8:59 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
I would like to think so but you have brought a thought provoking scenario. I honestly don't know if she would have stayed had I been the one to live in the fog And have the affair....now gives me something else to "dwell" on. 
StillStanding1 ( member #40144) posted at 9:32 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
I wish I really knew the answer to this question. I worry that the answer might be no, although WH has said he would've stayed if I had cheated.
A question I'll never forget him asking me, though, is "Didn't you ever contemplate cheating when our M wasn't fulfilling? Really?" It was hard for him to believe I never considered it. I considered how long I would stay in the M, but not cheating. I guess this is the root of the self-analysis he needs to do. Why was cheating an acceptable, easy answer to our M problems for him? (Huge FOO issues in this regard - his mom was a WS, then an OW who married that WH, then a long-time OW to a third man.) But that doesn't excuse his own personal choices.
It just kills me. No, I loved you enough not to hurt you like this. Why couldn't you love me enough to work through our issues? Or at least try talking about them? Sometimes, I wonder if I know anything about love at all anymore.... 
Me: BS50s Him: WH50s
M 25 years - DD DS DS
LTA = 2+ yrs, Dday - 2/13, S for 1 year, now R
plainpain ( member #40139) posted at 9:56 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
I think my H might have 'forgiven' me, as in, not kicked me out and then set about having about 100 revenge affairs. I don't think he would have been able to process being on this end of things, because of his FOO and his obvious inability to tell the truth, be honest with his own emotions, act with integrity and problem solve in a healthy way.
By the same token, if I had had the A, I think I would have done a LOT of justifying, and I don't think I would have conducted myself post-A the way that he has. He has taken full and total responsibility and has done a complete 180 all on his own. I am quite sure I would have spent a lot of energy trying to explain how neglected and lonely and dying-inside-bored I was.
It is the way it is. I don't need to know if he would forgive me or not. It's my choice to forgive him. I don't have to choose that, but I do. It's his choice to live with the consequences daily, to stay and do the hard work of repairing the damage he did. He didn't have to choose that, but he did.
I don't think it's about 'love' either. 'Love' is a word I don't even know how to use anymore. I know that it takes you far, far past the point you thought you could go and still survive.
Me: Believer, 40s
Him: Liar, 40s
Married 19 years
1 year EA/2 month PA/incidental infidelities I can't begin to process
OC born 2014
OW:21
In successful R. It only hurts now when it rains.
Lonelygirl10 ( member #39850) posted at 10:55 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
WS gets very jealous and doesn't like other men at all. He hates all of my ex's, even ones from high school and whatnot, and gets really angry and jealous if I ever mention any reference to sexual activity before him. One time he found a picture of my prom date kissing me on the cheek and flipped out (this was while he was cyber cheating on me...). I don't think he would be able to handle it.
My WS was the same way. He made me delete all my pictures that had exes in them, even my prom pictures. He wouldn't allow any male friends. And then he had sex with two other women. So hypocritical
Undone1 ( member #37683) posted at 11:00 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
My WS has said he couldn't stay. It would be too much for him.
He did say that he had cognitive errors that he came to believe were true that allowed him to rationalize the A was OK. He thought I didn't love him. He thought I would cheat on him.
Undone1
Married 10+ years to my high school sweetheart
DDAY 10/27/12
Me 55
WH 55
Blended Family: 25, 21, and 20
Married 10 years
"The Universe Unfolds as it Should"
scarredforever ( member #23875) posted at 11:02 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."
Mark Twain
Me-BS 54
Him-WS 55
Together 35 years
6-5-06 Day of Reckoning
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Reality ( member #39077) posted at 12:52 AM on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013
Good question. I guess I have two answers, depending on when it would happen. If it happened now, my instinct is to say it would crush him and though he would be very hurt, I think he'd stay. I don't mean he'd stay because he loved me so much, I mean I think he'd stay because he needs me too much. Well, right now, as I support him as he goes through law school.
He'd be withdrawn, detach emotionally, but demand I give him more attention to alleviate the angst. Since I have serious doubts he is bonded to me like that, that in his deepest emotional response he thinks of me as "mate" versus "facilitator" I don't think he'd get territorial.
If this happened post law school and if/when he gets into Big Law? He'd flex his muscles financially, probably buy himself some high priced items for comfort, and revisit that guy he always is when he talks to other women during his affairs: arrogant, callous, egotistical, and predatory. I don't think he'd stay. I think he'd gather the harem the men in his family always seem to be on the hunt for.
Eek. Wow, me. That sounded, er, bitter.
TLDR: Ahem, no. If he didn't love me enough to not have affairs, he wouldn't stick around to clean up a mess I made.
[This message edited by Reality at 6:57 PM, August 21st (Wednesday)]
foundoutlater ( member #32900) posted at 1:10 AM on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013
Didn’t love enough to not have the Ar and not enough to R because I don’t think it is about the amount of love. She was messed up and had the A. She is tough and wants the M and I believe she would have stayed if it were me. Part of why she would have stayed though was she was messed up. I’m not saying you have to be messed up to stay, but who she was that would have been part of it. It would have been based in some bad reasons to R. I know my reasons the first time were bad and based in my problems, not just my love.
I think there has to be love to R, but IMO there are other things that are bigger. All the work we do on ourselves and our M have a foundation of many layers. Love is just one layer.
Your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your behavior does.
This Topic is Archived
