SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all, we are 2+ years past DDay, and I just keep coming back to all the hurt which will never go away, I will never forget and will never forgive 100%. But every day gets better, mostly.

FYI, he is doing everything right, completely sorry and will do anything to keep our marriage together. I am happy 90% of the time.

But, I sometimes wonder if I am in love with him. I love him because he is my partner (together 34 years, married 27, 2 wonderful children).

Is there a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone? My MC suggested that I fell in love in the beginning of our relationship, so maybe just loving him is okay. What is love to you? I envision people coming home from work or whatever and jumping into each others arms, hugs, kisses, etc. I don’t do that, he probably would now, but not before. I question if I am in love with him or just love him because he is a generally good man, good father, and we’ve shared a lot of great memories together.

I hope this makes sense. I just wonder if I love him like a married couple should love each other. I understand to each their own, but curious of your thoughts on love.

Thank you!

Yeah, "in love".

I think a lot of BS's get the ILYBINILWY line, which makes this worse.

I didn't receive such a line, so I'm not quite as hard up on this.

I don't think I ever stopped loving my wife, though when I asked for a divorce, I don't think I was "in love" with my wife.

I am now.

To put shortly, it's maybe not "jumping into each other's arms" but when you are "in love" you look forward to your time together, especially one-on-one time. When you "love" someone it's more about wanting what is best for them and doing what you can to make that true.

I did get the ILYBNILWY line during my H’s affair.

Ouch!

His explanation was he’s not considering me hot or sexy but "loves me". But he definitely was infatuated with the OW b/c she was the new shiny toy.

So i get the "in love" vs "love" distinction.

In love is that passion you feel when he walks in the door and you realize "I miss him" or you can’t wait to share a funny story or something interesting.

It’s hard to be "in love" after infidelity IMO.

I think we get tripped up by some combination of Hollywood and our own heady experiences at the start of relationships and we think that's sustainable.

It's not. Your brain doesn't work that way. I mean that in a very literal way, the biochemistry of your brain simply won't do that. There are different hormones doing the majority of the work during the early phases of a relationship and everything afterwards.

That's one of the things a WS finds so enticing about the affair; returning to the phase where dopamine is the primary hormone in a romantic relationship feels powerfully good.

All that doesn't mean you're wrong about feeling like there's a difference. Trauma changes the way your brain perceives things. There's going to be stress hormones mixed with the others now.

Personally, I turn to the ancient Greek words for different lives like agape, eros, and philia. I think you can still love your WS but find that it's more of a familial love and less of the agape sort you used to have.

It’s a funny thing ‘love’ and how we all interpret it.

For example my WH never stopped loving me while he was fucking his AP, apparently. Yet I claim when you actually love someone you couldn’t do that with all the lying and deceiving that is involved. 🤦🏽‍♀️

For me though i definitely don’t love my husband the same now as I did before and I don’t think I ever will (but I have accepted that). I know I love him as it hurts to much to think of us not together, he gave me a beautiful son and we still share wonderful happy times. BUT I don’t respect him anymore, not even with him doing all the things he needs to change. He will always be that man that crushed my heart and I can’t truely love someone with all my being who has done that to me.

I do think though I can still be happy this way. I’ve never really been a believer in ‘soul’ mates . I think there are many people out there that we could suitable for and be happy with. But I chose this guy and will continue to do so until im not happy anymore. Or maybe when my sons grown. Only time will tell.

Thank you This0is0Fine. I never even got the ILYBINILWY line ever. I knew something was wrong during his year and a half affair, he had been acting different and "mean". I appreciate your response. It makes sense and is giving me hope and something to think about.

Thank you The1stWife. Yup, I think I was in the same boat: he had a shiny, new, 20 year younger toy that I was compared too. I do look forward to our time together and our talks after work, but is that because I’m in love with him, or he’s the man I’ve lived with for 34 years, the father to my children, and someone that knows more about me than anyone else…. I agree, very hard to be in love after infidelity.

Thank you BobTheBuilder. I totally agree about the dopamine and that feeling. I’m sure he had the best time with his new relationship. Honestly, after I decided to R and he moved back home from being gone for 2+ months, I felt that again as well. It has faded however. I find your signature part: Wondering if "mostly good" is good enough... interesting. I feel like that is where I am at too.

Thank you Webbit. Omg, totally! How do you do that to someone you love?? I don’t get it. The first thing I asked him after D Day was "do you love her", he said "I love you more" He has since said he didn’t mean it, it just came out. I’m sure he loved his affair, no matter who it was. Thank you for your thoughts.

I don't see love as a yes/no or in/out state. It ebbs and flows. It starts with the idealistic intoxicating head over heals state and transitions to the more realistic, stable in-depth love. Even in that state there are good moments when you both are leaning in hard and others where you need some breathing room. It's no wonder that your love is in an ebb state after. At 1-2 years out it's not unusual for BS to be in the state of questioning. You're out of the immediate trauma response and any hyper bonding phase that came after. It may or may not get better going forward as some can move past and others can't.

Hi all, we are 2+ years past DDay, and I just keep coming back to all the hurt which will never go away, I will never forget and will never forgive 100%. But every day gets better, mostly.

The hurt is like the death of a loved one. It never fully goes away, but it becomes more bearable over time. You'll never view him the same as you did before and always have more mistrust. Your image of him is forever diminished. That's ok, because that is the reality of it. He threw that out the door 2 years ago by proving he was able to betray you and your family. As long as it keeps getting better, there's a chance that some of that deeper level of love you're so uncertain about now will return. Or it may not. If you are still in this state at 5 years, I'd say that this truly was a dealbreaker for you. Right now, your id & heart is still in protection mode. There just hasn't been enough time for your trust in him to rebuild.

[This message edited by grubs at 3:28 PM, Thursday, November 7th]

It’s been 28 years since Dday and I am still trying to make sense of the scant evidence I have. My current theory is that she never was whole-heartedly into me and was keeping her options open with her old college boyfrIend, who I believe was waiting in the wings pretty much our entire time together. I put myself in her position and I don’t think a person can whole-heartedly be in love with a spouse and take the risk of losing them just to get some attention from an old flame. If someone had shot me full of truth serum the day before Dday, and asked me if I loved my wife more, less, or the same as the day I proposed 22 years earlier, I would have said, "More." I am positive about this because I used to think this every night as my head hit the pillow. Like everybody, I’d been dealt some disappointments in life but the one decision that I had zero regrets about, was marrying my wife. It took me years before I could accept that she never felt the same for me as I did for her. I still hold out hope that I am wrong, but don’t think so. I love her, but not like I used to. I can’t.

For the people who said they can’t love their cheating spouse in the same way now…do you tell your spouse that?

Possumlover - Just coming here to say I'm wondering the same thing! How did you feel before DDay?

I am definitely in the ILYBINILWY line. It's been 15 months since DDay and for me, I had been feeling this way for a few years leading up to DDay but was more angry and resentful before DDay. Now WH is doing the things I had been wanting him to do for so long and I feel much less anger and resentment, even more love for him but not romantic "in love". Looking back I think it's probably been 10 years of ILYBINLWY.

When I'm away for a bit I am excited at seeing him and yearn for the feeling to translate to in-person as well. So far it hasn't..

This0is0fine - I agree with

To put shortly, it's maybe not "jumping into each other's arms" but when you are "in love" you look forward to your time together, especially one-on-one time. When you "love" someone it's more about wanting what is best for them and doing what you can to make that true.

As of now, I look forward to our time together but only when we have been apart for a couple of days or more and then when we are reunited it seems to immediately go away and I just feel so sad about that.

Bobthebuilder - Agree with your statement too, familial love

Grubs - 5 years? ugh I know not to rush but 5 years feels so long for "is this good enough"

Stillconfused - ugh I have the same question

For the people who said they can’t love their cheating spouse in the same way now…do you tell your spouse that?

I have not. What good would that do? I have no desire to hurt her and since she tells me to "get over it", I am pretty sure that she already knows that I am not in the same place pre-Dday. Plus, I still have hopes that she will be able to get past her guilt enough to let herself experience and show remorse. If she were to show me sincere remorse I’d be able to turn down the power on almost all of the force field I put up around my heart. Never again will I let myself be completely vulnerable. Been there, done that.

For the people who said they can’t love their cheating spouse in the same way now…do you tell your spouse that?

Yes. But only because he asked.

In my opinion, there is a difference between loving and being in love with someone and the main difference is the perspective, the focus.

When you are in love with someone you are blinded and don’t even see their flaws, so you don’t need to accept them because you simply don’t know they have them.

When you are in love with someone, it is all about you, about the emotions such as the adrenaline, the butterflies in the stomach that this person moves into you.

You don’t even know that person, but you projecting in them the ideal image of a person. Of course there is also a lot of physical attraction.

When you love someone, you see their flaws and you accept them as you recognise it is how they are and you help them be a better human bei g eacb day. When you love, it is not only about the feelings you have for this person but the kind of actions that you are prepared to take so that the person is happy and they are happiness bounces back on you and makes you content and gives you peace. You are ready to make sacrifices for this person and their happiness makes you happy. Of course you are still attracted by this person from the sexual point of view but it doesn’t give you the butterflies anymore to see them or to think of them or if they touch you but it is a nice feeling that keeps your heart warm.

I strongly believe that many people who are immature emotionally confuse being in love with proper love and spend their lives chasing those emotions that are even physical of adrenaline and of the forbidden that keeps the levels of adrenaline high.

On another site, I read the story of a woman who had an affair for six years with a married man.

During their relationship, he was able to interrupt suddenly many vacations with his family to run to his mistress. Instead of seeing a red flag, she thought she was more precious than his family and benefitted from a lot of time they spent together until she witnessed how he ghosted his own son not answering many phone calls in the time that he was with her. Again, she felt like a winner.

Suddenly the same behaviour she had witnessed for many years was addressed to her and she was furious and outraged that he had disrespected her. She felt that it was his duty to communicate with her openly if he was not interested in their relationship anymore and she found his ghosting appalling. She had witnessed for six years how he treated his family to give priority to himself and she was happy with it. She never advocated for his family’s respect or sense of duty towards them.

She only saw how unfair and disrespectful it was to be ghosted when it happened to her. For me reading that a person who benefitted for years of unfair treatment to other human beings and now talks about "values" such as fairness, honesty, duty to be treated as human beings made me see how ridiculous her statements were.

If she talks about "values" why did she accept that their relationship was based on many unfair behaviours towards another human beings. She had six years of witnessing such appalling behaviours and she was then a happy spectator. Before expecting people to treat you with fairness, raise the bar and be respectful of others yourself. She admitted that she was in constant search of adrenaline that she experienced when she met with him and believed she was in love. NOPE! She was in love with him, infatuated, blinded and the focus was HERSELF, feeling important and in competition with his family, she wanted to be a winner.

That woman may be 50 but she hasn’t got a clue what love is.

[This message edited by Fantastic at 8:23 PM, Thursday, November 7th]

For the people who said they can’t love their cheating spouse in the same way now…do you tell your spouse that?

Sure did, many times actually. I told him what he chose to do has change my perception of the man I thought I knew. He took away my safety, my rock. He knows I still love him and I I tell him I do but he also knows that we are now both settling to a degree by staying with each other.

‘Limerence’ is a term coined by Dorothy Tannov for her 1979 book Love and Limerence. According to Wikipedia, Tannov says, "to be in a state of limerence is to feel what is usually termed 'being in love.'" (I read the book; I quote Wikipedia because it’s convenient.)

Tannov goes on to say, further, that she thought some people are limerent, and others are not. In her view, non-limerents may not be able to understand limerence.

Since Tennov published, scientific research seems to show that the 'feeling' of being in love is accompanied by changes in brain chemistry. It may be all in the brain, but it's not all in the mnd.

If you search the web, however, you’re likely to come across site after site comparing 'limerence' to 'love' (or 'mature love') and explaining that limerence is likely to be unhealthy. Even Tannov emphasizes the negative aspects of limerence with story after story of limerence or love gone wrong.

To put shortly, it's maybe not "jumping into each other's arms" but when you are "in love" you look forward to your time together, especially one-on-one time. When you "love" someone it's more about wanting what is best for them and doing what you can to make that true.

I make a similar distinction, but desiring my W sexually - wanting to jump into each other's arms - has always been a large part of my desire to be with her.

I fell for my W out of limerence, and that bothered me tremendously because of the bias against the ‘in love’ feeling. Somehow, though – perhaps because I really didn’t want to be in love with anyone at that time and place – I switched pretty quickly to spending time getting to know W2b. I looked deeply for disqualifiers but found the opposite.

The desire that was most important to me at that time was sexual. Hers was not, perhaps because of CSA; she wanted the emotional bond and the bond of similar values. Per Tannov, W may be non-limerent.

****

I didn’t want to R unless W was ‘in love’ with me, and by that I meant ‘desired sex with me’. (That wasn’t my only requirement.) I know people say the IL feeling is temporary, but it hasn’t stopped for me, and I still don't want to be in an M in which my partner doesn't desire me about as much as I desire her in her way of expressing desire.

From the descriptions I’ve read, W & I developed a ‘mature’ love pretty quickly. I think I can say honestly we married because of both limerence and 'mature love'.

I may be in a small minority in this. OTOH, the large number of people who rate ‘physical touch’ as a very important love language my just be another way of saying that limerence lasts longer than non-limerent ‘experts’ recognize.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 9:22 PM, Thursday, November 7th]

For the people who said they can’t love their cheating spouse in the same way now…do you tell your spouse that?

He kept telling me he loved me and was wondering why I wouldn't say it back. I told him I had him on a pedestal our whole marriage and the infidelity destroyed me and will forever change how I feel about him. I will be a good wife, but I won't ever love him the way I once did. He was hurt but I wasn't going to lie.

Thank you grubs. You're right about death of a loved, time does heal and things are better every day. I think I am having a bit of low on my roller coaster right now. Yes, my image of him is forever diminished, also. I will never feel the same about him. Thank you for your thoughts.

Thank you for your response, Notsogreatexpectations. I’m sorry for your situation too. Sometimes I want to go back to DDay and do things differently. My love for him is not the same, yet trying to picture my life without him is hard too.
Thank you!

Stillconfused2022

For the people who said they can’t love their cheating spouse in the same way now…do you tell your spouse that?

Great question. For me, I have shared that I’m not ready to say ILY yet. I tell him, "know that I love you, but I’m not prepared to say it yet".

I have always been a person that shoves my emotions down a hole and sits quiet. I am trying not to do that as it doesn’t help, obviously. So I will be telling him, and already do, about how I feel about love, anniversaries, gifts, etc.

lessthinking, before DDay, for the year and half the affair was going on, I knew something was up and was feeling very upset by his behavior, lack of household support, being messy. He retired and I thought he’d pick up the slack, but spent his days doing nothing so I became very resentful. But before that, I loved him and loved being around him. I do think we were in a rut of just surviving life, raising 2 kids, work, he had craziness in his job as a police office, so I always picked up the slack and I think he took it for granted.

I completely agree with your other statements. I feel my love waning when we around each other. He’s always here now, so I never get that time alone.