Understanding my MM

[HisSweetThing]

Because as soon as you've had those feelings for someone else you're screwed

 

Some of the most important things in life can't be intellectualized.

 

This is so true! I understood every word you wrote.

[HisSweetThing]

No one's feelings here are "a different reality".

 

Again...you're "in true love" now...talk to me five years into your marriage to your "true love", and show me how I'm wrong.

 

 

Okay, if cheatingheart isn't allowed to assume how you feel about your wife, I don't think it's fair of you to assume how he feels about anyone either. Reread his previous post. Is that how you felt about your wife at one time? I'm not saying you don't have "true love", I'm just saying your true love may not equate cheatingheart's true love. I don't think he's trying to take anything away from your life or your marriage.

 

I know the studies you have been talking about - about how love changes over time and I've heard about "mature" love, blah, blah, blah....I think this is the kind of life most people live. I think this is the kind of love most people have for their spouse. There have also been studies done - brain images have been taken of people who claim to be as much in love as they were when they were first together. Their love remained this intense throughout their relationship. These studies showed the same areas of the brain were active for them as for people who had just fallen in love. So, I don't think it's fair to lump everyone's feelings together. If everyone's reality of feelings was the same, we probably wouldn't need this forum.

[Owl]

Fair enough.

 

I've posted enough on the subject, and there's no other advice I can offer to Delirious at this point.

 

Good luck to you, and everyone involved in your situation.

[Heather1]

I'd sign papers, and it has nothing to do w/ the OM. The OM just brought up that I've been alone for a REALLY long time. I want to be w/ someone who wants to be w/ me, even if that turns out to not be either H or OM.

 

I'm sure my H knows this too...which is why he's being so accommodating. He's more obsessed w/ money & work & has been stashing money for years & would lose a lot. He won't force the D issue because he loves his $$$ more than me.

 

A aren't all about the A, in my case it's the result of YEARS of neglect & no support. That's all documented to in books.

[NoIDidn't]

Again...how in the heck would anyone here KNOW that I've not felt that way, or don't feel that way about my wife?!?!?!

 

It's a repeated ASSUMPTION.

 

And...I'd challenge you, or Delirious...please...hook up with your "true love", spend 22 years married to them, and then come back and talk to me about what your feelings are and have been for the entire duration of your relationship.

 

Until then, I'd challenge that none of you could possibly know what the differences are between an "in-love morphing into long-term love" and "just settling". I can absolutely say that I've not "settled" for my wife...after 22 years of marriage. The love we share is amazing.

 

No one's feelings here are "a different reality".

 

We're all humans. We all share the same basic psychological makeup, unless something has traumatized a person so greatly that they no longer work like the rest of humanity.

 

I think the only reason that you can't "intellectualize" something like this is because it's impossible to explain something to someone who unequivocally wants to deny what they're being told. To sit here and scream that I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, that the people who have researched and studied this (and may have even experienced the same feelings you describe), to claim that "no one else can understand" is simple denial, and nothing more.

 

Again...you're "in true love" now...talk to me five years into your marriage to your "true love", and show me how I'm wrong.

 

I'm 22 years into marriage with my "true love".

 

You don't need to defend yourself. The people assuming that you have never felt that way because you are exhibiting self-control - something that everyone (OP, and non-OP alike) lack when they are under the influence of "falling in love".

 

It really IS like being insane. LOL.

[delirious]

Cheating Heart, i was going to respond, but you did it for me in a way that said everything I needed to say.

Heather and HST, thanks for your input too, very interesting.

 

Owl please do not take your bat home, it is healthy debate. I do understand what you are saying, but you are too Mr Spock 'logical' for us sometimes.

 

I would add that not everyone gets to feel that incredible emotion but with that goes incredible pain, assuming you don't get together for good, and i doubt my H ever felt that with me, and in a lot of ways it is like talking to him talking to Owl.

[ednadean]

I also "fell in love for the first time" at the age of 39, and until it happens, you have no idea what you've never felt before. I've had typical silly crushes and have definitely even been in love before, more than once, and I'd been in a happy marriage for over 14 years when I met the "love of my life," and nothing prepares you for it and no rationalization matters and any risk is worth it. If you've never felt it, like Owl, you can't imagine it exists, it sounds stupid and ridiculous and immature - it sounds like a giddy 13 yr old. Until it happened to me I'd spent my whole life being the one rolling my eyes at crap like that. That wasn't real love, that was some kind of cotton candy fantasy world. But once you feel it? Nothing else matters. And for me, after four years it hasn't faded at all. But because of the way my life had already been built up before then, there is no good solution. There are other people to consider, and there's nothing that can make everything fine for everyone. Because as soon as you've had those feelings for someone else you're screwed - even if you don't act on them and you stay put and follow all the rules, your heart is somewhere else so you're already giving someone else less than they 'deserve'. Betrayed spouses accuse the cheater of being selfish, but I think in cases when it's this kind of ridiculous thunderbolt true love, if the cheater were being selfish he or she would be gone immediately. If they're not it's probably because they're considering other people's feelings. From reading the comments of betrayed spouses on here, it seems like they look at it as "unfair" for the OW/M to take away something that's theirs, or unfair for the WS to to be giving someone else what's theirs. But in some cases they're demanding to have something back that they never had in the first place. I've never felt this way before, about anyone. I've never 'belonged' to anyone the way I 'belong' to my AP, and Owl can cite as many scientific or psychological or sociological facts and studies as he wants to but they won't matter to anyone whose feelings are a different reality. His wife may never have felt this way about her OM, and if she didn't that's good news for Owl, because maybe that way she can swap out partners no problem. She can 'choose' who to love. I realize that some people who have affairs are just in it for the excitement, and some are indiscriminate, and some are getting revenge, and some are just looking for an ego boost... but some of us are really, truly, head-over-heels, crazy in love with one very specific special person who also happens to be very inconvenient. And that's really hard. And not just for the betrayed spouse.

 

And sometimes, like in this case, yeah, maybe the other person doesn't even have the same reciprocal feelings, maybe it's not as intense, maybe he doesn't call as often as he should or have the amount of empathy that he should, but that doesn't necessarily change the feelings of the person in love or make the choice feel very much clearer or less confusing. Sometimes it makes it even more confusing. Some of the most important things in life can't be intellectualized.

 

cheatingheart loved the different perspective on things -- especially the part about being selfish. you're right...the person who sticks around in the marriage is often no selfish -- as they're considering the feelings of others. the other perspective is that they're not really thinking about the feelings of the OW. Good to get the different POV though.

[torranceshipman]

This guy really is not the love of your life, because he treats you like crap. You have mega infatuation, and we've all been there, we all feel like we are the one special one who has experienced a special love that the rest of the world will never experience....thats the incredible beauty of romance - but probably 90% of posters on this forum have actually felt like that about someone before! A's are SO highly charged,emotional, not real life and perfect 'love of my life' romance stories.

 

Problem is, they are so removed from reality that the married people involved never have to make good on their 'you're my soulmate' type of statements - not for a while anyway - then when the completely lovestruck partner starts asking for them to D or be with them, that's when the truth really comes out...i.e. the married person doesn't really think the A partner is the love of their life and they stay wth the H or W.

 

You have to look at actions - the love of your life would at the VERY least show you common courtesy, email or phone or do whatever to stay in touch, make you feel good, find a lot of time for you - I mean, cmon, these are incredibly basic things! Save the love of your life status for someone that TRULY deserves it. You'll meet that persn in the future, I'm sure (as long as you don't let this idiot get in the way and cloud your path, and stop you meeting him because you're staying in crying over a bottle of wine and hoping for a phone call that never comes!!).

 

Good luck...