Infidelity causes intense emotional pain--anger, disbelief, fear, guilt and shame. But an affair doesn't have to mean the end of your marriage.Is A Marital Affair Really Love?
Before this experience I thought I had a pretty good idea about love. I thought love for the most part encompassed the words we said in our wedding vows: “to love, honor and protect for all the days of our lives.” I’ve always been a romantic at heart and really believed that our love would conquer all.
Why wouldn’t I believe this? Both of our parents and grandparents have been married way past the 50 year mark, and even though they certainly had rough patches, and maybe at times acted like they didn’t particularly care for each other, they are still together. That is how I thought my life would be until the day that Doug told me he wasn’t in love with anymore and had those “in love” feelings for someone else.
At that point I started questioning just what the true meaning of love was. Questions like: If we were truly in love, how could he find someone and have those feelings for so quickly? Was she his soul mate? Was he destined to be with her but instead met me? Are we as humans really incapable to live our lives with only one person, or are we designed to love many people throughout our lives? Should I give up and let him follow his heart?
My response was to do just as I had done throughout this emotional affair–I went hunting. I went hunting for knowledge and found several books about the various stages of love. Most of the books I found highlighted anywhere between 3 and 7 stages of love, with the first stage being infatuation. It is my firm belief that the infatuation stage is the stage that most marital affairs exist. The dynamics of an affair provide the opportunity for the affair partners to nurture and preserve the infatuation stage of love.
Because of the typical newness between partners in a marital affair, the secrecy and the mirroring of your perfect self in the eyes of the other person’s perfect self. In other words, one affair partner portrays themselves as the best person that they can be, and unconsciously neglects to show their “bad” side so as to not illicit negative reactions from the other affair partner.
Basically, the affair partners are always in courtship mode, but this courtship is different in that it is shrouded in secrecy and lies. Since nobody knows about the infidelity, they never get to experience the typical family commitments or the mundane day-to-day activities that can exist in a marriage. Basically they are both in their own perfect little world!
So is a marital affair love a true, lasting and real love? I guess in our situation, only Doug can really answer that question, but based on what I have read it is apparent that affair love is nothing more than infatuation.
Real, true love is love that evolves from commitment, honesty, being ones true self (not necessarily that perfect person you were infatuated with when you first met), and accepting the other person for who they are including their faults, their individual growth and their inconsistencies.
True love means living through miscarriages, infidelity, financial difficulties, raising children and dealing with reality every day, yet still looking at your spouse and realizing that there is no one and no other place that they would rather be than with them. Now that is true lasting love!
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WOW…your last paragraph was so powerful to read!!! Thank you. I recently went through a divorce (spouse cheated). ALL my friends and the professional help that was given to me said exactly the same thing. True love means living though……
Very powerful and great to read it and be reassured that the help that was given to me and my friends advice just wasn’t kind words to help me.
Thank you for the reassurance!
Thanks Eric for the kind words and for commenting. So sorry to hear that you were unable to save your marriage. Perhaps the rest of the readers could benefit from some of your experiences if you would care to share. Many that have commented are currently going through the surviving process and have not traveled down the divorce road yet. thanks again.
Thank you so much for this fantastic blog and for the honest sides from both of you. I am currently living this nightmare of infidelity. My husband was having a 12 month emotional/physical affair with my then best friend who I had only known for 3 weeks when it all began.. so very quick. The emotional side began very quickly with them texting and talking everyday sometimes 6 and 7 times a day.. I knew something was not right, allarm bells but I never once thought it was an affair. Hind sight is a wonderful thing isn’t it. I will never ignore my gut insticts ever again.
I found out 9 months into the affair by accident. They apparently broke it off the night beofre I found out because they both wanted to try and salvage there own marriages. Yes, OW is married and has 4 children just as we have 4 children all under 12 years. He told me that he is in love with OW and has found his soul mate with her. He loves me or cares about me, but is not in love with me.
He wants to work at our marriage and learn to love me again so we can have the ideal family again. He has since moved out, I am now on my own and have been for nearing 3 months. He comes over nearly every night for dinner and helps out with children etc.. stays sometimes late and talks, watches a movie etc… other times he leaves as soon as kids are in bed saying he needs his time to sit and think.
Yes, maybe I am stupid I don’t know, but we have still resumes an intimate relationship every now and then. At those times I feel so close to my husband, and he even seems almost like the old husband. Then something triggers like guilt in his head and he feels like he is betraying the OW as he loves her, not me.
As I said, I found out 9 months into affair, naively thinking that he really had ended it with her. Found out 3 and half weeks ago that he had FINALLY ended it again with OW telling her that he was going to really work on his marriage etc… left her with a hug, kiss an I love you and a sexual experience.. 1 hour after telling me that we were going to be okay and left me with a intimate experience with my husband. I feel so sad.. have been STD tested as has he and all is clear thank goodness.
He is nearing 4 weeks of complete no contact with other woman and is having withdrawals like he is on drugs. He shakes, he has anxiety attacks, he cries.. real gut wrenching sobs. It is just awful. I have only seen this happen 2 times and it kills me to see him devestated over an other woman who he has known for a year and me for 15 years.
Through all this, I am still determined to work at my marriage. I have been awful and although justified been angry, but it was a real ugly side of met hat presented itself and I was really nasty and spiteful. I am over that thank goodness but come out occassionally with why the hell did you screw me and then go and screw her.. I feel so hurt by it. He is more concerned for OW than me right now, although I know he does care and is sorry that he has hurt me like this.
I know he is sorry, I just have not seen is real sorrow yet for me as he is too wrapped up in his own sorrow of not having her. I have even told him he can go to her as he said sheis his soul mate and she makes him happy and she is what is good for him and she is what is best for him and I guess really I am just not what he needs any more.
I feel as though I am not funny enough or pretty enough or have an attractive body like her or am not fun enough and exciting enough or a great conversationalist. I actually feel like a complete failure in comparison to this other woman.
I am struggling as to why he would give up the love of his life for someone who he struggles everyday to come home to each night. I am trying to find the joy each day in my life and have a laugh as I struggle with my own twisted emotions and try to be the best mum to my children. Some days I feel like I only just make it through each day.
I am a person who craves physical touch and some days I feel so desperate for him to touch me, but I daren’t ask him too or try to touch him. I crave words of affermation and I don’t get that a lot of the time. I have been losing weight, not for him, but for me this time and I look fantastic and he has not not once said so. I feel so ugly and like a monster in his eyes even though he has not actually said this.
I am struggling with losts of things, but at the same time I have become stronger than I ever thought possible. In some ways I am grateful for this trial as I have become a better person for it and have learn’t much about me. I just wish I was what my husband wants.
Life is very unsure at the moment, as I said, he is withdrawing from her and he seems in another world at the moment and I don’t know if I need to just give him space and let him have time away from me and the children. Please, any advice or tips would be so appreciated at this time.
Donna, Thanks for sharing your story. Though you might feel helpless at times and things seem desperate, I can see good things happening in your relationship as well. The fact that he want to stay with you and try to work on your marriage for starters. Remember that an affair relationship is like a drug and as you mentioned, your husband is currently going through withdrawal. The longer he goes without contact with the other woman, and the longer the two of you do the things necessary to kick start your relationship, the easier it will be for him to open up and return all the way back to you. Continue to build your inner and physical strength and let him know that you will be OK on your own. I bet he will soon return completely and then the feelings of hurt and failure will diminish with time. Good luck and thank you again for sharing.
I really appreciated the last paragraph. That is what I thought we had. I knew he had been under a lot of stress and I understood and just stayed away, as that is what he seemed to want… and let him run, take care of his sports car, work, etc. After I found out about the emotional affair, I even forgave and decided to work on the marriage for a year. I tried everything and listen to his complaints and changed everything I could. The problem was, he did not and now I now never really did love me. After 24 years together…he continued the relationship and lied to me over and over again about seeing her and talking to her. I believed him. He even made me feel guilty for doubting him, etc. They had been in love for 30 year (HS girlfriend) and come to find out we had had problems for years…. I just did not know it… ever since the start. So, here I am now, almost 2 yrs. from the first D day and soon to be 1 yr. from finding out more lies and betrayal… divorced since April, just the ring on her finger tonight. Guess he was way over me a long time ago. Sometimes us spouses are slow. I never got a chance to actually work on the marriage, he was already gone in mind and spirit. I wish all of you good luck who at least have that opportunity. I tried but never had a chance. May be you can make it. Good luck. As for me, I believe in marriage and see it as a lifetime commitment, but it is lonely when you are the only one in it .
anotheronein AZ,
Very sorry for how your H treated you. You deserve better.
Don’t believe the lies he has been telling you the past couple of years. It was his way of rationalizing what a lying, deceptive person he had become during the affair. I don’t believe they have been in love for 30 years, and the times you spent together was loveless. I’m sure you felt love during that time and so did he. Those are just more lies that he is telling you to make himself feel justified for treating you so badly, and committing adultery. He doesn’t want to be the bad guy, so he blames you. Don’t accept it. They are more of his lies to cover his bad behavior.
It is just amazing, as well as scary, how people who are infatuated, “in love”, in an affair, fantasy, can justify what they are doing by rationalizing that their lives were just a sham, until they found “the one”. Who are they really kidding but themselves. No different than being addicted to alcohol, except he married his bottle.
The clues are he was under a lot of stress…then the affair happened. Same as all of us. Lot of stress, the affair, then the lies, shame and blame. It is a typical pattern of most of the affairs on this website. The CS gets so addicted to the feel good feeling of the fantasy affair, that they will do anything to keep feeling good. That includes destroying a perfectly good marriage and devastating their spouse and kids. They will do anything for their fix, including marrying the OP.
But what happens when the high wears off, and you have to look at what you have done? How could you betray the person you promised to protect and love the most? Who are you really? Where is your integrity? These questions will come back and haunt you eventually, especially when the effects of the “in love” feeling wear off (which they do usually after 2 to 4 years), and you have to look at whom you are really with. No more feel good chemical in the brain…reality sets in again.
Don’t beat yourself any more. It isn’t you. You are not “slow” or dense. It is him. He cheated, betrayed the one he supposedly promise to love and honor, blamed you, and ran away. Maybe some day he will grow up. And maybe he never will.
You have a whole life to look forward to. Don’t let his problems become your problems. Find things you love to do, and do them!
Thank you Linda for your most recent post – I agree completely with this. I want you and Doug to know how much help you have provided. Thank you for putting yourselves out there to help others.
I found out in January that my H was having an EA with someone with whom he supervises. My story may seem pretty typical other than, I was diagnosed with breast cancer over a year ago and just finished my last round of chemo just 3 months ago. I found out about the affair from the spouse of the OW. I was devastated as you can imagine. We are back together trying to make it work, but struggling! I am having a difficult time with all we have gone through, and there are a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot to understand! How could he do something like this when I needed him the most? How could this OW do something like this to another woman under these types of circumstances? I could go on and on with questions that I don’t understand.
Trust is a major issue, as many may understand. He still works with the OW, and even though his actions are that of a man who is very much committed and very remorseful of his actions, I know very well that this is a precarious situation. You see, and the OW is now divorced and unremorseful for her actions. Yes, I know this indeed, I spoke with her, and she was unwilling to agree to meet with me, and did not apologize for her actions. I wanted so much for her to face me, to see my suffering, to look me in the eyes and see the pain she has caused.
I have a lot to overcome aside from the EA. I have my health to attend to, and strength and self confidence to regain!
I’m curious why when a marriage is involved, it is given priority in regards to what is right? Marriage is a social (religious) establishment, and you could argue the points of humans being really committed for life (look at a married couple after 40 years at dinner, they hardly talk) is realistic. The companionship grows, but the ‘new’ factor dies…but who’s to say which one should have precedent? If a marriage fails, and there just a need for wanting something new, what is wrong with that? In other words, the affair may be reflective of a need of a primal desire that is in fact lost, yet the affair is always given the negative stigma as if the need for the cheater to want to start again isn’t plausible or sane. Without the legal costs, religious implications, or social stigmas, one could argue marriage in itself is a fantasy.
I recently discovered and confronted my wife on a 10 month emotional affair she was having with an old high school boyfriend whom she met on facebook. She has been completely honest (from what I can tell) and remorseful. She also wants our marriage to stay together even though she lied repeatedly and erased some facebook chats/text messages. We live 6 hours apart from the OM and she only talked on the phone with him twice but each time for several hours. Is it possible after 10 months that her relationship with him didn’t get past stage two of an affair ( still just talking). I read several texts and emails/chats of him asking to meet up with her throughout the 10 month ordeal. Is it statistically realistic that they didn’t meet up? Or am I just being overly optimistic?
my husband and I had our problems and through it all we have made it work he came to me one day and told me he is confused he dont know if he wants to be with me any more we have been together for 6 years and have 2 kids every since he has starting this new job he has became another person he is very cold hearded towards his family and i finaly did some detective work he w having an emoitinal affair with a co worker he is telling her all about our problems and she is convincing him that she is the one for him and he can never be happy with me im so sad we have a baby born with spina bifida and i also have some health issues my husband cannot be thinking rationaly i know but it seems as if his heart has left me i am hurt by this and he thinks its cool for people to leave there family and go start another one and mind you that she has a boyfriend and child already i am thinking about telling the boyfriend about this what should i do