Even though I think this article is meant to make the BS feel better about reconciliation ( I think) I think it kind of does the opposite. Most people get married because they at least feel like they are in love but when someone enters into an affair does it really matter how they feel or claim to feel about the BS? Absolutely everything they do is so contrary to love. Not to mention the insane amount of lying and deception. And how about the affairs that go on for months or years? Again I ask why does it matter how they feel about the BS during an affair?

Take this scenario and throw it into an abusive relationship. Abusive spouses often say they "love" the person they're beating on a fairly regular basis. I don't think that matters and I think many would agree. How they felt then doesn't mean anything- its how they feel now and what they're doing to help their BS heal and are they doing the right things knowing that in the end the BS might decide to leave anyway.

That should be the focus IMO.

Good point neverceases. I've really struggled with the "love" part of this whole situation. There are lots of definitions and varieties of love, "in love", unconditional love, etc.

Maybe it has more to do with respect than love. A CS may love their spouse, but they sure aren't respecting them, the marriage, the family or themselves when they choose to have an affair.

Read the original post again, but replace "love" with "respect". Interesting ...

Being guided solely by subjective emotions frequently leads to unhealthy decisions.

Fiber - you bring a side of prospective that is sometimes helpful but you have to realize that we as the BS are making generalizations and we also are "venting" - again we are not getting personal (perhaps mainly with our CS) our CS - not you - we are venting.

Please keep that in mind.

onyx, I want you to hear me saying this with respect for your position, because I do hear what you're saying.... but if I made a similar generalization about BS wouldn't you take it personally, at least enough to say, 'hey, fiber...ouch.'? or would you view that as venting?

I believe no one can be whole... alone. God created Adam and was in communion with him. You would think that that would be as whole as a man can get. But even God saw that that was not perfect. So God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. In order for Adam to be whole again he must be joined with Eve.

I believe people do have different capacities. Our capacity to love is greater than we know or have experienced. The problem is that there is an enemy out there who gives us confusing definitions of what real love is. We fall for the rush and the high. We fall for the lies and convince ourselves that it's real because of the high.

real love "... endures every circumstance" (including routine day to day.)

I only wish I'd remembered that BEFORE I ruined our lives. Now I'm a day late and a dollar short.

it's hard reading your posts impono and she
i feel a lot of sadness about where and how you find each other

Fiber - I gotta say, I 100% agree with you. Two half people doesn't make a whole one. The whole "you complete me" garbage is just that, garbage. I was a whole person before I married and I'm still a whole person after.

impono, well, alls I gots for you is, "Bless your little heart." I wasn't born out of a rib. I'm an inanimate object made "real" and into existence by the fact that a man chose me. I'm a complex organism with my own fully functioning respiratory, circulatory, nervous, immune, reproductive, and digestive systems. (And undoubtedly more that I've missed.) Yep. Alive. With or without "Adam".

I can buy into "not whole without God" thing (though my beliefs run strongly different) because what are we if not a part of the whole of the universe (read: God)? But, um, yeah. No MAN will ever complete me, thankyouverymuch.

Pantpantpantendrant.

I will never believe in "unconditional love" because that infers that one would put one's own well being before another. No. I just won't. Will I make compromises and willing sacrifices for my husband? Yep. And he does the same for me. It's not always an even-Steven exchange, but it's not unconditional and bottomless. If he endangers my health (physical, mental, emotional, financial, etc.) repeatedly, blatantly and knowingly, or asks me to endanger myself then no, I will not choose to love him. I will protect myself.

Because THAT is being responsible - not spitting in the face of love.

This is what my mother shared as a toast on our wedding day, my favorite writing regarding love and marriage.

On Marriage, Kahll Gibran
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

fiber - i'm sure if I ever did go over to the CS forum - I would not like or a agree with 90% of what I read.

And you might take some of it personally? Or be triggered into a negative response?

You do know that this is not the BS forum?

It is very easy to offend and be offended in type. We can't read inflection or sarcasm or anger. We often read into posts and fill in the blanks.

onyx, let me take a step back and try this again. My first past to you in this thread was my, however clumsy, attempt at setting a boundary. Not for the board or the room, just for myself. If I don't tell you how I feel then you won't know and then I can't hope to have those feeling considered.

Let me try again.

I feel hurt and defensive when you make statements that negatively generalize about CS. I wish that you would be more specific with your statements.

Thank you.

Fiber, thank you so much for making a simple point clear among other issues you raised; this is NOT, as you reasonably point out... the BS forum. Rather, it is an Infidelity forum.

The entire trajectory of my life was changed when my now ex husband of nearly two happy decades decided to rob me and leave me for a sexworker. Pretty sure that reality is "infidelity related" to anyone's mind.

Subsequent, years later, hoping to find another partner, I was subjected to married men pursuing me, with a great deal of dishonesty and misrepresentation. I was deeply traumatize both by the scope and deliberateness of the activity,and tried to vent and discuss, in INFIDELITY (oddly enough). I was trying to talk about a different side of the issue other than the one that brought me here initially. Being in full blown trauma mode from all the predation I had experienced, I did not make my points about the misery and confusion I was experiencing well at all, and was excoriated by very understandably sensitive and territorial BS, who seemed to fail to understand that I was being victimized by the behavior this room is named after, and the denizens within were giving free passes in many cases to the same people who were ruthlessly hunting me. This is about infidelity.

Coincidentally, this place is called INFIDELITY. And my point remains: this behavior HURTS all kinds of people, NOT just betrayed spouses and families (although I am in that group too and share that pain daily for more than five years) in all kinds of ways. Infidelity also hurts people who have monogamous values and who are shocked to be preyed upon by serial and methodical cheats, who are then given the benefit of the doubt by BS that prefer to ignore the seamy reality of some behaviors of their spouses, in favor of focusing their wroth on the AP. I had a right to raise those points then, and now. This is not a BS forum. So those who made me feel even worse about what has happened to me and the predatory trauma that followed.... you were out of place. I am sorry that my misery prevented me from communicating properly, but I had every right to raise my points.

Finally... in respect to the original question: does it matter how much cheats ever loved if they are willing to disregard and harm those they are sworn to? I adored my mad ex (before he became mad) and i wonder.... did he put on an amazing act for 20 years? I will never know, but his throwing me under a bus for an elder sexworker makes the point moot. Yet... I do wonder.
I don't think we can help but wonder.

I stand by my belief that no one can be whole alone. If that were true DS, a website designed to house SUPPORT groups so no one needs to be alone during their life's struggles, would not exist. A "whole" person doesn't need support. So I submit that everyone who frequents these pages... is not "whole".

To your point Onyx - In my case... yes I really love my W. I always have and still do. I loved the way she made me feel about myself and the way I made her feel. We truly did "complete each other".

But as life happened, like it does, I lost focus on that. I did not stop loving her - I just stopped showing it, and acting on it. She built a wall - one brick at a time. And with each brick I tried less and took steps away. Until ultimately I walked too far and committed the ultimate selfish sin. But after D-day, when I was forced to take a REAL look at myself and my life - It is very clear to me that I love my wife; always have, always will.

I have tried to imagine my life without her. I don't like the picture. No matter how "whole" I become on my own, if our marriage doesn't survive this... I will love her always and there will always be a hole in my "whole"