Look for "Stages of Love", on the internet. Very helpful

marriagebuilders.com

"Romantic Love"

Romantic love, in the full sense of the term, is an emotion possible only to the man (or woman) of unbreached self-esteem: it is his response to his own highest values in the person of anotheran integrated response of mind and body, of love and sexual desire. Such a man (or woman) is incapable of experiencing a sexual desire divorced from spiritual values.


Man is an end in himself. Romantic lovethe profound, exalted, lifelong passion that unites his mind and body in the sexual actis the living testimony to that principle.

To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of lovebecause he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.

"To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I.'"

I have no idea what "Mature Love" is. Is that some comparison to "Immature Love"? As far as I know Immature love is not a concept. Romantic love and just regular love are valid concepts. Simply put "To Love is to Value". People say it all the time... I Love my I-Pod, I Love my car, I love my dog, I love music. Why do they say that because they all hold some level of value to them. Some people(men mostly lol) Love their cars more than their wives and children. They actually "value" it more as insane as that may seem. I love my daughters more than anything. It is not romantic love just love. Why because they are my highest "value". I value my own life above all except my daughters. I would give my life for them. I would give my life for no one else at this time. Now if and when I ever meet a woman. A woman that views the world as I do. A woman whose virtues and values are the same as mine. A woman that loves herself and does not "need' me. A woman that when I look into her eyes I see the way she seems me. If there is a physical attraction there, we may fall romantically in love. If and when we do I will value her above all (except my children) Unless she was the mother of them and then they would be equally valued. A man will die for his true romantic love... it's a masculine thing. Our feminine counterparts would and should not.

Hope this Helps

To me romantic love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
Mature love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

A good book for him and you is After the Affair by Janis Spring. I bet you already have it! It explains the 'addiction' and 'insanity' of affair fog....which he still has btw.

big hug

Fig, I just read your profile after I sent message above...so now I change my book recommendation.

There's a book called Language of Letting Go by Melody Beatty that will help guide you in re-gaining respect for yourself, learning how to detach from him and all he did with your good friend (which is the ultimate knife).
While he spends precious time pining away for her, YOU must get strength and emotional detaching from him in any way you can. Read up on the 180 and starting that if you can. It will wake him up to really losing you and he will react.

I SEND YOU HUGS

(1) attraction, (2) romance, (3) passion, (4) intimacy, & (5) commitment.

This is just a little nutshell description of what is, undoubtedly, one of man's enduring mysteries. Why do we fall in love? What is love? How do we know we're in love?

For the sex and love addict, he is never able to get past the passion stage and move into intimacy. So, it is impossible to every move into commitment. The cycle ends for the addict when the initial "drug" of attraction/romance/passion wears off.

Over the lifetime of a committed relationship, I truly believe that the cycle perpetuates itself, as you have children together and raise them, as you start to see your bodies wear down and need to care for one another, as you find you are the only two on the planet who share one memory. This is what intimacy and commitment is - and with it attraction/romance/passion ebb and flow.

This is the nature of human love. I suppose there are those miracle relationships where they really are "as hot for each other as when they met", but what does that really mean? Does it feel like the first time they've kissed ever again? I doubt it. What really comes to play is the intimacy and commitment, and some people are too afraid and/or damaged to wait around for that with a partner. Or else, once they're there, they find themselves too exposed and vulnerable. So, they leave.

The affair partner doesn't come with the intimacy or the commitment. The affair partner is all drug, all the time.

Really examine what YOU want out of this relationship. Not what you want your husband to want out of this relationship.

I wish you all the best. Don't settle. If you really want to make this relationship work, then I think you would be wise to see outside help - therapists, clergy, support groups like S-Anon.

There is such a stigma to infidelity, and yet it is so pervasive, so sometimes it feels like you're fighting an invisible enemy, but you're not.

The Ability to Love by Alan Fromme is a great one, as well as C.S. Lewis's Four Stages of Love. Both are very intellectual on this very subject, and are small and slim paperbacks.