K.K.

I don't understand it. How you you truly love someone and get into bed with someone else? Then not only once, but continue to get emotionally involved with this person. How do you meet someone at a restaurant, go back to your office, text them, go buy a condom, meet them at their hotel have oral sex and still love your spouse. How do you do this a second time and come home and get in bed and sleep next to me like nothing has happened.
I don't understand how this could happen if he truly loves me. Our marriage was in the toilet, but I didn't cheat. If he truly loved me could he cheat like this?
I was doing fairly well, then this realization came to me. This is crushing me beyond belief. Can a person truly love someone and have sex and an emotional relationship with a stranger? He told her he loved her after a few days. What the @$%^ is that? If you are a cheater, explain this to me. Help me understand.

jnj express

Compartmentalize---fallen out of love----in fantasyland---lots of reasons--

Question is---how can you be in love with the person, who treated you like sh*t, dissed you, and made you out to be less than nothing??

naperken

Of course they can! It's the old 'I oxytocin you, but I dopamine him/her' story. It exactly what ILYBINILWY means.

Shaggy

I don't think you can cheat while in love unless you suffer from a mental disorder. Normal people would choose not to cheat because they love the person they would be hurting and betraying. When in love you want to protect not hurt.

The cheater can later fall in love with their BS, but during the affair - no I don't believe there is any respect or love.
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AngryandUsed

OP, most of us here are BS. We all had same questions.
You can ask this for eternity.
Was there love in the first place at all?
Cheaters are liers. Have dual personalities. Show one face to the BS and another to AP.

Count of Monte Cristo

There are different kinds of love. There's the love that you feel for your parents. The love that you feel for your siblings and the love that you feel for your children. Heck there's even the love that you feel for your pets.

And of course, there's that special love that you feel for your spouse. During the affair, that love changes to something else, which as Naperken stated is the ILYBINILWY.

Also, keep in mind that love is a very subjective human construct and the meaning varies from person to person.

Pit-of-my-stomach

problem with your question is....

define love. people define it differently, it's very subjective.

He could believe he loves you and he could believe he loves her. but thats based on what he thinks love is. What he feels for you, and what he feels for her is NOT love. Problem is, your beating yourself up over what love means to other people... and that doesn't matter. You decide what it means to you.

Obviously by your definition he does not love you. People that love one another do not do what he has done to you.

Case closed.

Don't beat yourself up asking this question, he will never agree.

But, for the record, he is wrong.

*edit* just noticed after I replied...
I echo'ed part of what was being said by Count. But I was less concise. lol. Great minds? lol. well played.

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Never say Never- The Fog
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AngryandUsed

Hi Pit, are you and bandit.45 friends?

Pit-of-my-stomach

Why do you ask?

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sprman1

My answer is no he can't unless you change how you percieve love.

There was a show I watched where the person was captured.
In an effort to break him he was asked "how many lights do you see"?
There were 3 lights, but he was told to say there are only 2
He never broke.

There are many things wrong that people are forced to accept.
I will not bow, I will not break.
This world won't bring me down
when everything's made to be broken
Fight for what is right
There are 3 lights

naperken

K.K., most of us here are BS's and I think it's a fair guess we all got the ILYBINILWY speech at some time. What you need to understand is that the AP is not real, she's just an idealized fantasy, a cartoon character of a person who is not real. YOU'RE REAL and of course he can love his spouse and best friend. He can become infatuated and hooked on the dopamine (which btw affects the exact same pleasure receptors as opiates) because it's real easy to fall in love with a person that you don't have live a life with all it's struggles and complexities. As Dr. Glass said, it's very easy to climb over to the other side of the fence when you don't have to mow it.

While this feels very personal, and believe me I know, just a scant 2 months out from d-day, THE AFFAIR HAD NOTHING TO WITH YOU!

AngryandUsed

You both answer questions so directly. Ha!

Pit-of-my-stomach

I only know how to be direct, unrefined social skills I guess. lol. and no, I don't know him.

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LeslieH

Yes, I think your spouse can still love you and cheat on you. I have to agree with Naperken that is really does have nothing to do with you. The act itself is a very selfish and self-centered act.

I'm the WS and the hardest question my husband asks is why I was not thinking of him. In a way, I was not thinking at all I was only thinking of AP. I felt terrible throughout the whole ordeal but I couldn't stop thinking or fantasizing about meeting with AP. I wan't thinking about my husband, my work, my health (I lost 7 pounds in 3 days, a lot for my size)... I hate to think that I was victim to chemicals, but I really can't think of why at the time I could think of nothing else.

I realize now that there were early indications where I should have better steeled myself against AP's advances and my own feelings, but I didn't... and then I couldn't stop until I was completely removed from the situation.

I love my husband. I don't think it's fair to say that I was not in love with him when the A happened, but I do realize that I have a piss-poor way of showing it. I'm in IC now and we are trying to R. He is the most important and best part of me, and I can't lose him.

canttrustu

I think the answer is No. I think somewhere along the line the WS falls out of love with the bs and allows themselves to move forward. Otherwise, the A would never have BEGAN. It wouldnt have gotten far enough for the fog to begin. They would have walked away when that first pang happened. Yes they are human. Attraction happens. But IF my H was IN love w/me AT the time SHE would not have happened. JMO.

However, I do believe he can love you/me again if he learns who he is again.(if you/i are able to allow it)