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.