Cole,

So funny this view on infidelity and the chruch.

Its a buffet of feelings and how to handle.

Its very good as always - my suggestion is to have something like this at the top of the article to draw people in - then get into the detail that back out in the conclusion - draw in with something like this that you have -

Question -

How did I wound up in a broken marriage riddeled with affairs - for starters - Like all marriages, jobs and children pulled us apart. Over the years, our time spent with each other shrunk to minutes a day instead of hours. And often those minutes weren't focused on each other, but on daily issues, taking care of this or that, or attending church. We rarely took time to make deposits into each others love banks. We had some of the other loves we'll be talking about, so we felt we loved each other, but this love became neglected over the years. It would get fed only on special occasions like Valentine's Day, or our anniversary. But nothing like we did during our dating time.


Read on to see the cycle of (whatever you want to add here)

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A real question for you - when did you get back on track? how long after the affair(s) did you both say - lets work this out? did you go through the divorice process?

What I really like is your examples of how you both spend quality time and that is one of the 7 languages of love - very good read (what you wrote) and very important in a realtionship - most people don't understand what that actually looks like (meaning what quality time realistically likes like) and means but you gave very good examples of how you both do that.

Not enough quality time I think also killed my marriage - I was off doing my things and my STBX was off running or going to the gym.

Cole, I have to say that I had never really known about the 4 types of love and you did a great job explaining them. For what it is worth, I can see now that the OM and I did a great job with the first 2, and I wanted to progress towards the last 2. The OM seemed to get stuck on the first 2 and kept looking for a new woman when the passion faded. We knew all about each other's families, etc. but he couldn't become involved so we were not developing any history. Also there were many times I reached out to him for help about personal things and he was not there for me because he couldn't be. So to say he would put me before himself wasn't happening. As far as I was concerned, he never really gave me the chance to prove this aspect of my love for him. So I guess I am saying in a round about way that in an affair, it is nearly impossible to have a love in the fullest extent of the word.

@onyx, you said, "A real question for you - when did you get back on track? how long after the affair(s) did you both say - lets work this out? did you go through the divorice process?"

We pretty much started working on things shortly after dday. Two weeks, our second marriage counseling session, our counselor pointed us to His Needs, Her Needs, which revolutionized our marriage, especially in the areas we'd been weak in, mentioned in the article. Divorce was always in the background if things went south, but Gabi was committed from day one to make rebuilding work, and we never had a serious lapse, though the "take off" was a little shaky. So I never went to a lawyer or followed that route. Never had a need to.

@redlegs, you said: "So I guess I am saying in a round about way that in an affair, it is nearly impossible to have a love in the fullest extent of the word."

Exactly. That is the problem with affair relationships, they can never be full love because there is no real self-sacrificial commitment to each other as their is in a real marriage. If there was, they'd go no contact and sacrifice their own good feelings for the sake of what is best for each other.

I enjoyed reading this and it did a good job of explaining the different aspects of love. I still ask myself if I really love my H anymore or am I still here out of fear of being alone and lonely. And not to mention the financial security and we have been together for 30 years next month.

There are many aspects of why a person stays after being cheated on. I always thought I would get a divorce if I was ever cheated on. Well, after being slapped in the face with it in real life, things changed.

Just like H actually having sex with someone else is just part of this whole awful thing. There are the lies he told and countless other things he did to hurt me during his A.

So why Im still with him, I can't honestly answer that. Maybe it is love after all.

These lines from the Daughtry song It's Not Over sum up my feelings perfectly.

It's not over. 'cause a part of me is dead and in the ground.
This love is killing me, but you're the only one.

@socrushed,

That is a hard place to be. And part of having sacrificial love is sometimes doing the things that are hard to do because it is best for the other person. In my case, if Gabi hadn't been repentant and 100% committed to rebuilding, it may have meant I would separate at some point, though that wouldn't be what I wanted to have happen. But sometimes people don't deal with their issues until they are forced to stare them in the face. And some people, even then, don't do it.

But enabling isn't a loving thing to do either. Thanks for reading it and commenting.

Cole,

Just wanted to be clear that my H is very remorseful and he is doing everything he can to help me through this. He regrets what he did.

I still feel the way I described in my post alot of the time though. If I could feel the way I felt about him before his A it would be a miracle. Never mind being MORE in love than pre A. I'm pretty sure thats not going to be my case.

Guess my point would be that sometimes even when the CS is doing everything right after their A, the BS may be too hurt to heal completely.

socrushed....that is just how I feel everyday....this is the deepest hurt anyone has ever inflicted...and if you care to read my other posts, you will see the depth that this affair carries for me....I too am still here and my CS is so remorsefull...but for him, his way of life has finally caught him and he has to now face himself at age 50, and what he has left behind, and what he has lost or thrown away for selfishness...today has been a very bad day for him, and I want to comfort him, but I struggle with it, and I often, not out of meanness but out of "no shit sherlockness" yup, sucks to be you....then I feel bad, but my pain is so deep I really don't know how to lesson his pain, because to do that I have to ignore my pain that he caused, vicious cycle :(

"Guess my point would be that sometimes even when the CS is doing everything right after their A, the BS may be too hurt to heal completely."

That is unfortunately true. Each person is a unique individual. I even said as much in my "Should I Tell" article, that there is the possibility they can't deal with it and walk...but that should be their choice. Not the CSs.

But it is also true that some simply take longer to go through the healing/grieving process, and who knows. A few years down the road, you'll be able to move past it, despite how it looks now. One has to go through depression, when everything feels hopeless, to reach acceptance, when you can really move forward. Everyone has a different time table.

I was considered "fast" in comparison with most, and it took me almost a full year to really get to a point of acceptance. Went through some depression around 9 months past dday, lamenting over what I'd lost in the affairs.

But at least for me, I felt like, I either realize it is in the past and I can't change it, it happened, I either accept it and work to make it better, or let it ruin the rest of our marriage that could have been better.

Cole this was a very insightful look at Love. I have zero doubt that my wife and I had/have Philio and Storage love at all times. Even during my affair. For me, in the beginning, our Eros was better than any relationship in my past. I think we both lost/forgot/let slip away the Eros love. I can pin point ways in which I let go of it and (not blaming her) I can also point to how she did. Slowly, I think we are regaining that. But because that passion is normally associated with the "new and exciting" part of a budding romance it is very difficult. Especially with the hurt and pain of betrayal caused by the affair.

Now I don't think either of us has experienced full, 100% Agape love.

We both had behaviors that were self serving/protecting that took away from our marriage. And when we recognized those actions in the other we failed to recognize it in ourselves. I think the lack of true agape, in conjunction with the waining passion (eros)is what led to my failure to resist the temptation of the passion of the affair.

I did not lose my passion for my H,, what happened is he hurt me with his selfish behaviors and actions and I felt threatened and insecure in our marriage so I thought I was going to have to take care of myself again....I pull into myself when I feel threatened, I was afraid to be in my 50's alone, with no sourse of income, no place to go, nothing to look forward to, I was lonely and sad, he spent a lot of time away from home for work and his own interests...in fact he would say to me "leave your life and join mine, I'm having fun" really how is that ok, to tell your wife to leave her life and join his, because it was a separate life, he doesn't see that is what he did, we did not go together, he went. I know this is going to cause trouble with us, but I need some input....and I need him and you all to know, my passion was not gone, he took my breath away, still does, "my heart leapt" he has crushed me with this affair and his casual way of telling me how much enjoyed her and the time they spent together....it kills me to hear his voice when he says the words, when I see his body language when he describes it...he contradicts himself in what he says now from when I first caught him, to when he sees it hurts me, to when it affects him, but
his compartments can not hold all of my hurt and disappointment, or his telling me that he will always be attracted to other women, really, what do I do with that....he doesn't see how much he continues to hurt me

My wife established a fairly strong phileo and eros love with the second man she had an affair with. I discovered it six or seven weeks after it had been going. On dday, I made her chose, me or him. She unreservedly chose me. However, that didn't turn off her feelings of love for him, and those first weeks were murder. I couldn't understand why if she knew it was hurting me, why she would respond to his texts instead of ignoring them. "Just don't text back!" She couldn't do it. It only stopped when I blocked his number.

But still, it was well over a year before she no longer felt she cared about him. And that was with her actively forcing herself to not dwell on him, cutting out remembrances of him. Finally, one day she said, "You know, I don't love him anymore." But it took more than a year for her to come to that spot.

Did I hate knowing she had feelings like that for another man? You bet. But I knew she couldn't easily turn off a feeling, even if it is one that should have never have happened. I accepted it was there, knowing she was maintaining no contact and actively killing off desire for him.

For your husband, it may be different issues. I'm not sure what "attraction" to other women means in his case. For me, I can acknowledge some women attract my attention with the right curves. But I don't think to myself, "Boy, would I like to get her into bed." It passes by and I forget about it. If, by attraction he means the latter, then he is dealing with ingrained habitual feelings that he may not be able to immediately turn off. It may have little to do with you as a person, not being attractive enough to him to make him ignore everyone else, but a corruption of his decision making process being influenced too heavily by his passions.

He has to learn to control those, that he doesn't need to go there, to fix that character flaw so that he doesn't make irrational decisions that even he doesn't agree with. The question is, is he doing enough to get there, and how long can you wait for him to be healed so that he no longer feels that pull, that craving to give in?

The other thing that jumped out at me is that you say you have eros love for him, but apparently he's not sensing it (or didn't). Sounds like a case of what you think is saying, "I love you" to him isn't saying that, to *him*. Likewise, he to you. Keeping the passion in a marriage burning requires effort. A new relationship, it feels "natural and automatic." So it is easier, even if more destructive, to get it where you don't have to work for it.

That's why His Needs, Her Needs was so helpful for us. My wife was feeling lonely too. She feared once the kids left the house, it would just be me and her in our separate worlds, and she would be lonely. Unlike you, for her, that created a vulnerability to being addicted to other men's attention, and into an affair. Who knows if I had showed her more attention myself back then, if it would have prevented the affairs, but even though we both felt we loved one another, neither of us was *feeling* that love because we weren't communicating "I love you" to each other in our actions.

What exactly is going on in either of your cases, I probably don't know the whole story, not being there. But those are some things to consider.