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A cheater doesn't love you, or doesn't understand what love is

33K views 243 replies 61 participants last post by  remorseful strayer 
#1 · (Edited)
I was talking with a few people about this. If you really, actually love your spouse, you would not betray them by committing adultery.

If you stab your spouse in the heart like that - you DO NOT love them. And if you think you do, you don't have a grasp of what love actually is.

My stbxww said to me in tears "I need to figure out how I could hurt someone I love so much so badly". It's not love. It can't be. She constantly still tells me how much she loves me, that she always did - she never stopped.

That is a lie.

No offence to anybody trying to R with their ws, but if your spouse cheats on you, they do not actually love you, and may be incapable of love. They may think they love you, but that is NOT love.

Love is many things. Respect, loyalty, honesty, protection both physically and emotionally, affection...when your ws f*cks someone else during your marriage, they have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not any of the things that make up love.

It's proof they do not in fact love you.
 
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#4 ·
I was talking with a few people about this. If you really, actually love your spouse, you would not betray them by committing adultery.

If you stab your spouse in the heart like that - you DO NOT love them. And if you think you do, you don't have a grasp of what love actually is.

My stbxww said to me in tears "I need to figure out how I could hurt some one I love so much so badly". It's not love. It can't be. She constantly still tells me how much she loves me, that she always did - she never stopped.

That is a lie.

No offence to anybody trying to R with their ws, but if your spouse cheats on you, they do not actually love you, and may be incapable of love. They may think they love you, but that is NOT love.

Love is many things. Respect, loyalty, honesty, protection both physically and emotionally, affection...when your ws f*cks someone else during your marriage, they have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not any of the things that make up love.

It's proof they do not in fact love you.

I think by their definition of love they "love" you. In their mind love is interchangeable and free-flowing; it's something that they can put aside when necessary and bring to the table at will.

Does this fit into a realistic idea of what love is? Not at all. The best quote I've read to describe what a relationship is this: "True intimacy isn’t a cluster **** or a psychodrama. It isn’t the “highest highs and lowest lows.” It isn’t John Donne whispered into your crotch followed by months of not-exactly-agreed-upon celibacy. It’s a tiny bit of those things on occasion with a whole lot of everything else in between. It’s communion and mellow compatibility. It’s friendship and mutual respect."

I think where many people become lost is in the "friendship" and the "mutual respect" aspect of a relationship. I don't think that it is fully understood that being in love or being in a relationship is not solely a passionate thing. There are tides to relationships -- as with all things -- and they ebb and flow. You don't always want to rip your partners clothes off and shag them 16 times a day; nor should you.

But to many people -- and often times these are people who are already insecure, ill, or of weak of constitution in some way -- that lack of passion equates to a lack of "love", so they turn a switch off inside of themselves somewhere and they hunt down someone else to get that physical/emotional need met. The entire time, though, they fail to realize that in their partner they could have those needs met if only they would communicate. After reading & reading & even from personal experience I have found, though, that these are people who are so caught up in the lying and the justifying that they don't even consider the simplest solution to be feasible (that being TALK to your partner.)

I'm sorry -- I think I went on a tangent here.

In essence I suppose I'm saying that I agree with you. I just find it really sad that so many people are ill and insecure and have no qualms in destroying their relationship, peace, or family. Sure -- your spouse may leave socks on the floor, or be irresponsible with finances, or the intimacy is lacking. Those things happen to EVERYONE and with a bit of elbow-grease and communication they can be worked through.

Love is not interchangeable with sex. Sex does not make a romance and a relationship has to be nurtured. "Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new. –Ursula Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven"

When people stop making their spouse a priority and stop exploring new things with them and setting aside time to be a couple, or when one spouse checks out of the relationship instead of communicating THAT is when the problems occur.


A huge part of me wishes I could shake all WS's by the shoulders and tell them to wake the f' up and see what they are doing to those who love them.
 
#21 ·
I think by their definition of love they "love" you. In their mind love is interchangeable and free-flowing; it's something that they can put aside when necessary and bring to the table at will.
"By their definition of love". Their definition of love is wrong. You can't put love aside. As soon as you do, it's not love any more.
 
#6 · (Edited)
UGH, I fought with myself on posting this but I dont believe this is necessarily true. I think it varies by case to be honest. I love my mother but she's negative and toxic so I stay away from her and havent talked to her in 2 years...doesnt mean that I dont love her because I dont talk to her. My daughter disobeyed me, I took away her computer, phone, ipod, everything electronic. I knew it was breaking her heart because at her age her lifeline to her friends is the most important thing to her. Just because I did that doesnt mean I dont love her.

I just cant say that Im 100% with you on this and Im not a WS.
 
#10 ·
I kinda get this, and yet I think I understand what TD means.

Define love. The kind your parent has for you is very different than the kind you have for a spouse.

Love from your mother is often manifested in the form of disciplne.

Does a spouse cheat to teach a point? Does a spouse cheat to make you a better person? Do they cheat to make themselves a better spouse?

Nope.

Cheating is a very loud manifestation that they don't love you.

Food for thought. :D
 
#7 ·
I do not agree with you at all. I just posted this in another thread:

There are some who wake up after D day and think "OH ****!!" and realize what they're about to lose and really DO do everything in their power to fix it. They never really stopped caring, they put that care and their spouse into a box and segregated them in their brain in order to cheat. They live a double life. I am trying to think of an analogy here. It's kind of like having something you don't want to get wet so you stick it into a watertight box so that when you jump into the ocean, it's still in there, dry, but you are soaking wet along with the rest of your world. Every once in a while you climb out of the ocean with your watertight box, dry off, open up the box and let your spouse out, thinking that you are NEVER going to jump into that ocean EVER again because wtf are you doing. Till the next time you hear that siren call and off you go again with your watertight box in tow.

Anyway my point is that there really are WS's who DON'T stop caring. Maybe those are the ones who do end up as a TRWS
 
#24 ·
Thank you. Yes, you can only speak for yourself and your stbxw (who I totally agree is definitely a severe case of delusionality - is that even a word??)

You know what they say about never say never though! I would like to say I would never cheat either, but if I got into an accident and got brain damage and got hooked on pain killers and was living most of my life in a drugged up alternate world of psychedelics where reality was but a faint memory............ ;)
 
#22 ·
I am sure there are waywards that still "love" the spouses that they are betraying. And compartmentalization is just one of the possible ways they can betray and "love" at the same time. They can also rationalize (For example "He really doesn't love or care for me, but I love him, so I will screw another man to get the love I need. This will allow me to stay married.) Heck, there are all kinds of stories people tell themselves to do horrible things to others and feel justified in it.

But to address this notion that real love can be compartmentalized - I have two things to say. First, if you can put "real" love in a box and shove it out of sight to carry on a deceitful relationship with another, then either it is a seriously diminished love to fit in that box or it is a defective love that your spouse, if healthy, probably would not accept.

So can a wayward "love" the spouse they are currently betraying? I guess it depends on your definition of love, but apparently some think the answer is yes. What I have learned about myself over the years and through the tortuous path of infidelity is simply this - It is not a love I want, nor deserve, not will I accept it. Healthy love it is NOT.
 
#30 ·
Well, I am just glad that I am living my lie. I'm pretty happy in it :) I have lots of fun, I feel loved (even though that's apparently only a delusion), I'm growing old with the person *I* love (although, again, I'm deluding myself), and I don't want to be with anyone else.

I think I'll stay where i am, rather than in the REAL world where everything is black and white.
 
#40 ·
The-Deceived,
I believe you are 100% correct in your assessment of marital love. There is no "disconnect" and there is no "paradox" to your reasoning. You are correct and it is time to accept your new found knowledge. A spouse who commits adultery does NOT love their spouse.

In my personal experience with my WW and other adulterers, I have never met a single cheater whom I thought in the end, "Ya, they loved their spouse even though they cheated on them."

I thought many long hours about my WW's affair and what it meant in terms of "love". It eventually lead me down a path where I no longer believe even in the concept of "love". I would much prefer now to be "respected" than "loved". My $0.02
 
#42 ·
I totally get you - totally. I used to believe the same.

Now, with time and a lot of reading - around 50 plus books that I have available and ready at all times to re-read and look at various parts, I now find that my assumption was incorrect.

But, that doesn't mean that we all who have been cheated upon can just dismiss the brutal betrayal - and that is what cheating is.

It is brutal - it is not hate or loathing. It is not that the cheater did not love us - (some maybe hate or loathe the spouse,) but in reality, cheating is really all about what the WS thinks and can get away with. It is simple selfishness at its core. It is childishness. My parents - both of them - were extremely selfish people. They are divorced. My mother still is very selfish and she betrayed me, not cheated of course, but betrayed me throughout my childhood and is actually even more selfish in her old age. My father is much less selfish in his old age. Selfish, bad parents in many ways, no understanding of their various betrayals to me, unable to see their own brokenness, unready to be parents - BUT they still loved me in their own ways.

My WS - selfish, destructive to me, cheater, unbelievable betrayals, dismissive, demeaning, disrespectful - but did love me in his own way. Not the kind of love I needed. He loved himself first and most. He made me believe he loved me first and most. Very very deceptive. This is all true. But with the truth is understanding, that broken people can and do love - they just don't love the way we want or expect them to.

At least you are getting out. Good luck with the next one..........

the one you know may be better than the one you don't...but let's be positive or at least single...
 
#48 ·
Every person and relationship are different so I don't think generalizing is possible. However, I can see how it could prove MANY WS's do not love their BS's, or are otherwise incapable of love.

What I do think cheating proves, in many cases, that WS's don't love themselves and have no idea in hell how to communicate, solve problems, or think of anyone besides themselves.

I asked him many times why he didn't just leave. Then I have to remind myself that my logic and his, especially during his A, are not one of the same. As many others have said, it's a real **** sandwich we're handed in this situation. It sucks.
 
#59 ·
That's a nice, simple explanation.:rolleyes:

But, you know, the trouble with nice simple explanations is that they are often so very, very wrong.

My wife cheated on me. But she loved me. I cheated on my wife, yet I still loved her. Incidentally, the fact that I loved my wife, yet cheated on her was what left me feeling so broken by my betrayal of her.

There are many other examples on TAM of people who cheated on the spouse, yet who still really loved their wife or husband.

But I suppose by pretending that your WS never loved you might work in that it insulates you from any further problems. I mean, if you 'kick them to the kerb' you never have to give them a chance to make things up to you, to reconcile.
 
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