In love with the A or the OW/OM?
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In love with the A or the OW/OM?
| Wed, 10-20-2004 - 3:23pm |
This board is quite therapeutic and has helped me a great deal. I do have a question for you wise ones, though. Often I read in posts how the people in the affair are supposedly, not really in love, but are really in love with the affair. This notion is usually accepted without question by the recipient. I'm not sure I buy it, though. I hated the lies, deceit, and sneaking around associated with the affair, but in my mind and heart I definitely did love the OW, and truth be known, I still do. Perhaps telling people they only "loved the affair" makes it easier for them to walk away without as much pain? Am I off in my thinking here?

Hey Goingnuts! You already know my feelings on the subject, ;-), but because I'd like to hear others' feedback, I'll repeat myself...
There is no way to discern whether it is the person or the affair you are in love with while you are involved in an affair. You don't know the "real" person, and you aren't being the "real" you while you're involved in an affair. You certainly *could* love this person, but unless and until your relationship becomes REAL, you won't know if this "love" has got what it takes to survive real, everyday life. Only you can decide if that is a risk worth taking at the expense of losing your wife, whom you say you love.
JMHO. :)
With what I just said you'd think I'd be better able to pull myself out of my current situation!!! =o
I don't think you are off in your thinking. I used to say "I don't even like OM all that much, but I feel neglected at home and OM gives me what I need". But two plus years of thinking about OM everyday, I know there was more to it than just physical needs. There was something deeper there that I can't shake. And I think I knew it from the beginning or I wouldn't have let things get so out of hand!!
Karry
Karry - - who is learning to embrace life on her own raising her miracle, Carley Paige
I was great friends with my XOM for nearly 2 years before we started the A. (Although in hindsight, that "friendship" was really an emotional affair.) I did and do love him as a person. HOWEVER, now I can truly see that that love would not translate well into real life, for a lot of reasons, including all the baggage that we would both bring into a real relationship.
I do not doubt that a lot of us do feel love for our OW/OM, but I guess the question you really need to ask yourself is, why is it so important for you to figure out if it is "real" love or not? Why does it really matter?
My point is, if you are planning to make major life changes based on whether you decide it was "real" love or not -- you are taking a real risk because you have not had to raise kids together, pay bills together, see each other puke, deal with each other's exes, share each other's friendships and families, pick up each other's dirty towels, squeezed the toothpaste the wrong way, make major life decisions together, etc.... You may imagine that all of that would be rosy and great, but you can't know for sure until you let your relationship see the light of day.
Hello Nuts! It's not that I think you're off in your thinking, but I do firmly believe that, at least for me, I was in love with the A. While I was in it, I believed with all my heart that I loved my OMM. The only reason I ended the A is that I started to feel renewed feelings for my H (I really thought my marriage was over) and I knew that I had to work thru those feelings before I could possibly make any promises about my future. My XMM wasn't happy with my decision, didn't agree with it, and felt certain that I'd be back. Although I say that my H and I accidentally reconciled, after 9 months of rebuilding we're doing wonderfully and I can say, with absolute clarity, that I adore my H - he is the love of my life - and I wonder what the heck I was doing with XMM. That's NOT to say that I don't still have feelings for XMM and, truth be told, I wouldn't mind spending one last night with him, but he's just not THE ONE. Your heart can't be in 2 places at the same time. I thought, for a long while, that my heart was only with the XMM. I was with the XMM for 2 years, we had a wonderful time together, we shared lots of interests and experiences. On some levels, I believed he was my soul mate. Amazing what some therapy can do. I finally understand the reason I was with my XMM, and it was 100% selfish. HE made me happy. He was like a drug. When I was upset, worried, unhappy, any negative emotion you can think of, I ran to him. Eventually, with alot of therapy, I've learned that true happiness can only come from inside of you. And once I put some spiritual principals into action in my life, I became capable of making myself emotionally happy. As a result, I had much less desire to USE XMM to make me happy. Then the decision boiled down to which of the 2 - XMM or DH - I could wanted to share my happiness with.
That's how I really knew XMM was my high, my escape - once I didn't NEED him to feel good anymore, I was able to let him go. I don't know whether this makes any sense to you or whether you can identify with what I'm talking about, but if any of this sounds familiar, examine your motives in staying in your A. Love isn't about using someone else to make you feel good, it's about sharing your good feelings with someone else.
JMHO. Love, Mo.
hi there Nuts--
Here is my opinion:
At one end of the spectrum are the people who were totally in love with the A itself; at the other end are the people who were really in love with their AP. Most of us probably fall somewhere in the middle (after spending several weeks on this board, it seems like many are closer to the end of loving the A, but truly everyone is different and I hate generalizing). But my point is that it isn't black and white--it's grey and it's a question we need to answer individually.
I agree that it's hard to tell if it's true love within the A because the A itself distorts our ability to be objective--the thrill and the attention cause us to be somewhat unrealistic about what we are REALLY feeling.
I was somewhere in the middle, but more perhaps a little bit more toward the end of loving the XMM. I don't think it would make it easier to tell myself that I only loved the affair, and if people do that, and they really did love the AP, then they can't heal as effectively because they are fooling themselves into believing something that isn't COMPLETELY true. Healing is all about being honest with yourself about your true feelings, then dealing with the "whys" of those feelings. Everyone copes differently, but for me it has been important to deal with the feelings head on and not hide behind a reason for my behavior that wasn't entirely accurate (I can't say I didn't like the thrill and the attention while in the A...).
Bottom line is that we all probably had some feelings for our XAPs, but since we are trying to move on, the feelings are irrelevant--it's our OWN feelings that we need to deal with, not the other guy's/girl's.
I have a slightly different opinion about the pain being less if we tell ourselves we only loved the A. While I certainly miss my XMM and feel hurt and confused at times, the feeling I have or had for him have made it EASIER to walk away. I was friends with this guy before the A and the strong feelings I have for him have helped because I know that ending the A is the best thing for him. He has kids, his wife isn't too terrible, and the best thing for him is to rebuild his relationship with her. So if I really care for him, the best thing I can do for him is to walk away because it's in his best interest (and mine of course too, since I have a great H and as well :-) I don't think it wouldn't ease my pain a bit to tell myself that I was only in love with the A.
Just a different way of looking at it I guess ;-)
Your thoughts??
Meg
These snippets are from Psychology Today in a discussion with "experts" & quotes from all kinds of people (poets, writers, celebs, etc) on the topic of "Whether Love Exists.
So, is it "Love" or is it just the temporary insanity of the "In-Love" state? Your future could depend on getting this distinction right, ladies & gents.
___________________________
"To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god or an ordinary young woman for a goddess."
-H.L. Mencken
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"Of course love exists, even if it's only in our minds. I think romantic love as we know it is a sort of obsession and state in which you're obsessed with an object. But that goes away and slowly becomes a composite of friendship, a lasting commitment between adults, when you say I've got to put up with the person.
I think you should never marry the person you're romantically in love with. There should be a fantasy that stays with you but it's generally not a good basis for a lasting relationship, though in this culture we often think it is."
-Olga Silverstein, M.S.W., Family therapist
New York, NY
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"*****Romantic love very definitely exists - in the eye of the beholder. It is a projection we make onto another person - a projection of our own fantasies and wishes. This projection that we call "love" is triggered by some trait, characteristic, or manner of the other person's that is psychologically important to us, e.g., someone who reminds us in some way of mom or dad, or seems to be the opposite of mom or dad.*****"
"Only when the honeymoon phase is over, when you are less "in love," do you stand at the crossroads. Now there are several choices: you may like the highs and lows of being "in love" so much that you look for a repeat of that phase with another person (and another, and another). Or you may now take a more realistic view of who the other person is and go on to the next phase - toward "real" love (which is friendship and partnership) by getting to know the other person's actual thoughts and feelings, sharing your own, and offering emotional support, much as friends do. Or,if facing difference and conflict is too scary, you may settle for familiarity and emotional dependency, and call it "love."
"The marriages I see in my office break up because of unrealistic expectations of the other. Women see men's failings before marriage but think they can change their husband's traits (they can't); men think their wives will always remain the sweet, complaint girls they marry (they won't)."
"My advice is to find out what kind of relationship your significant other has (or had) with his or her mother - that is the blueprint for most subsequent intimate relationships."
"Another useful exercise is to make a list of your complaints and then ask yourself why your expectations in those areas were so far from your lover's actual behavior. In the final analysis, that is all you can change - your own expectations."
-Elizabeth A. Carter, M.S.W.
Director, Family Institute of Westchester
Mt. Vernon, NY
_______________________
"Everyone has a mental love map in which is represented the ideal lover, love affair, and way of making love. Punishment and neglect of healthy love map development in childhood allows the love map to become distorted and unhealthy, resulting in widespread love map disorder and sexual malfunction in adulthood."
-John Money, Ph.D., Medical Sexologist
_______________________
"Love, of course, has little to do with the "in-love" state of temporary romantic insanity. Falling in love is an alternative to suicide for people who can't keep living the life they are in, but are not quite ready to die yet. Falling in love is a way of leaving your real life, and all the real people in it, to pursue the fantasy of a life without depth or the constraint of gravity. The in-love state is akin to acute mania, and it is fueled not by loving emotions, but by anger, defiance, and hatred. The destination of the in-love state is a liebestod of ecstatic suicidal consumption at the point of orgasm-anything to avoid coming back down into a mundane and messy reality. Falling in love is cruel, greedy, and selfish.
Isn't it bizarre that we consider the high romance of the in-love state to be the most sacred form of insanity? Even psychotherapists have been known to respect it. Are we that afraid of the hard work and frequently boring business of loving the other people in our lives?
The wisest thing anyone has ever said about the state of being in love was the line John Patrick Shanley wrote for Nicholas Cage to say to Cher in the 1987 movie Moonstruck: "We're not here to be happy," he said. "We're here to ruin ourselves, to break our hearts, to love the wrong people, and to die."
-Frank Pittman, M.D., Psychiatrist and
Family Therapist, Atlanta, GA
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"When you're in love, you put up with things that, when you're out of love, you cite."
-Miss Manners (Judith Martin)
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Heard on Oprah Winfrey show:- "He's not that into you if he's married!"
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Wishing you strength & peace,
Posie