Is it really love?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-19-2004
Is it really love?
12
Fri, 01-23-2004 - 7:36am
I want to know how many of the married ladies who left their spouses to be with the other man (if he made himself available too) remained happily ever after? I have read that (in an affair) the other person is just fulfilling a "few" of the needs. So lets say that once you live on a full-time basis with them does one discover that they fulfil all needs or not? Does all that magic and passion (over the period of time) blow out of the relationship once the intrigue and chase is gone?

I have had an emotional affair with a MM and am very skeptical of the idea of whether a perfect ending exists. Personally I am against cheating and would rather leave my hubby and marry the other person if I really have strong validation or statistics that such relationships can indeed be successful.

Thanks for your input. Men who left Ws can answer it too.




Edited 1/23/2004 7:38:17 AM ET by phillygirl69

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-03-2003
Fri, 01-23-2004 - 8:22am
Statistics are just numbers. You can't base your life around them. This may be a bad example, but my MM met his wife as an affair. They started the same way we have and eventually started getting physical, then eventually they had to be together. I can honestly say that they had a really good ten-year run before he developed an interest in me and he's fighting that interest in me with everything in him. He doesn't want to cheat on her. He loves her. And I don't want him to cheat on her... Some days I just don't know what the heck the point of all this is! Anyway, I do think that if I hadn't been around, there would have been someone else. I think he just has this tendency to fall in love pretty quickly without thinking...

He doesn't like to talk bad about his W, but I do know that I can't pull much of anything over on him. I told him once I wouldn't care where we lived, as long as we were together and he said, yeah, that's what she used to say. He said she told him she'd be happy living with him in a cardboard box under a bridge. But then they got married and over time, that died away. It's really just like anything else -- the beginning stages of any relationship are exciting but after marriage, things get kind of humdrum. It always settles into more of a friendship but you hope you still have a physical attraction there. If you look at the statistics on divorce in general, they're pretty high, but the statistics I've heard on affair marriages are that 75% end in divorce. A lot of that is due to the fact that an affair is based on a dream -- on an illusion. If all you're doing is sleeping together and talking lovey-dovey, you do miss out on the mechanics of a marital relationship. But I think a lot of the reason MM's marriage is obviously going to fail is that he just has ISSUES, plain and simple. I personally believe he has an inborn fear of being alone and so he subconsciously chooses a back-up wife. I mentioned once that he would probably be better off as a bachelor, playing the field, but he said he likes being married. So why do his eyes wander? Anyway...point is, you have to figure out what issues you have and what issues your MM/OM has and INDIVIDUALLY decide if you're going to make it. You can't look at your odds and say, "Well, we have a one in seven chance of making it, so that's not very good." How do you know you aren't that one? How do you know that by the time you and your MM do get together, you're not both going to be in a better place in your life to where maybe you're settling down and not so interested in always chasing after someone else? Just points to ponder...

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2003
Fri, 01-23-2004 - 9:01am
HI Philly

The stats that can be found on the web indicated that the failure of A based relationships at over 85 percent or higher.

There are few happy endings and a lot of pain involved for most.

FREE

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-19-2004
Sat, 01-24-2004 - 2:27am
Thanks lilah and free. Thanks Lilah for telling me the history behind your MM's affairs. It gives me a great perspective in the sense that he had an affair and then fell out of love again. The thing that has bothered me the most is why do people fall out of love. In my case, it was an arranged marriage (I was born and raised abroad) and my husband was not exactly everything that I was looking for although eventually I did fall in love. So I could perhaps say that all my life I have been looking for some qualities that my hubby lacks cuz I have the excuse of an arranged marriage...LOL. But what about people who have dated for years, know each other well, fall in love, then fall out of it and then have an affair. How are they sure that what happened with the first person won't happen with the other one. If they are not sure about that why even bother with an affair. I guess I just think too much and over analyze things. I and MM met online. We haven't met in real life cuz he is as big a skeptic as me. I am heads over heels over him and have an intense desire to be with him. But we have both kind of relegated what happens with us to what future brings. I really want to believe that fate is somehow not involved in bringing us together and that he is not the man for me and that I should be in love with my husband. The funny thing is I can imagine myself growing old with MM and not with hubby. I wish I could convince myself that its some crisis and the attraction between us doesn't really exist and that we are not meant to be.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2003
Sat, 01-24-2004 - 3:33am
HI Philly

I was reading at a web site about the falling out of love thing you posted about, that it in fact happens in reverse of what most people believe, that people get involved with others then they fall out of love with there spouse not the other way around, nhow I am sure most people will refuse to accept it but that is what the research supports.

Also an update on the stats as per DR Phill fewer then 5 percent of relationships of AP that get together after leaveing ther spouses last more then 1 year, the thing being that you do not have a real picture of the person tell you spend time with them 24/7, and with online A you really have far less reliable info on the person and who they are is more your imagination of them then reality.

FREE

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sat, 01-24-2004 - 11:33am
The concept behind what Free is saying in her second paragraph is very true. In my long term A which is mostly online, we've gone through those changes to arrive at where we are now. I know now that, even though I thought I knew him better than anyone in the world during those first couple of years, what I *really* knew were the parts of him that were available to me in an online and otherwise part-time relationship that did not involve day-to-day real issues, as well as what my mind created to fill in the gaps.

And trust me, I NEVER thought I would ever say that. For so long, I swore up and down it was exactly the opposite. It took me years to understand.

As far as falling 'out of love', I think that people mistake the intense, emotional feelings that exist during the first year or so of a relationship, with 'love'. I laugh when people try to make the distinction between being 'in love' and 'loving' someone. The first one is easy - if I had left my marriage when I felt 'in love with' my MM (thank God I didn't), reality would have hit pretty quickly -- and I would have been left with some of the same kinds of issues to deal with, albeit different details. Same problems, different day. Not that we didn't care about each other deeply at that time (we did, or we wouldn't have been able to build something strong enough to last the 7 years to the here and now) -- just that those strong emotions I felt for him were interfering with my ability to see reality.

The 'in love with' feeling fades pretty quickly and you're left to make a life together with what remains. It can be done, but it takes a lot of work, and I do not think people whose A's end up in marriage ever expect to be in quite the position they end up in. I think they expect the same kind of emotions that exist during the A, to perservere throughout the entire marriage. Which is fantasy.

So what's left, hopefully, is something that takes a whole lot more work, and involves the head even more so than the emotions of the heart. It's a conscious decision to love someone, to live with their faults, to accept the good and the bad, and to realize that even after the intense emotions of the relationship fade, something stronger exists. Everyone has to make that decision and do that work, or the relationship will fail... I think the stats are worse for Affair marriages because those relationships tend to be more based on fantasy from the get-go.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-31-2003
Sat, 01-24-2004 - 2:07pm
I agree mommy - the other person in an affair just fulfills the fantasy part of the marriage that was lost when faliing out of love with your spouse. The initial intese feelings of love and passion that are lost in the daily routine of a married life is what most affairs fulfill. If you would compare say my MM to my husband - they are not too different people really - just happened to be there at different times in my life. MM has the intimacy problesm that H has and sometimes I think I better stick to the devil I know instead of the unknown one. Sometimes it is better to judge with the head than wrestle with the affairs of heart.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-31-2003
Sat, 01-24-2004 - 2:20pm
phillygirl69, arranged marriage or not there is the intese flush of emotions when you meet the person whom you know is the one you are ready to tie the knot. Believe me I know this feeling all too well coming from Cameroon where such marriages are very common to this day. Also arranged marriages are also legally binding marriages and you break your do vows when you are in an affair. It doesn't give any excuse to be in an affair if yours was arranged marriage. Imagine the notion of arranged marriage is as old as the institution of marriage itself and if people didn't have respect for it - it wouldn't have survived thus far into the twenty first century. JMHO
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-19-2004
Sun, 01-25-2004 - 2:20am
Opal,

I didn't intend to say that having an arranged marriage gives a person the right to cheat....nothing does.....what I meant to say was that atleast I can say that I had not clicked with my hubby when I got married to him (not implying that I have a license to cheat).....but if its a love marriage (and everything has clicked) and one falls out of love then doesn't one become skeptical of subsequent relationships where you feel you have fallen in love again? I hope you get my point.

Philly Girl

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-19-2004
Sun, 01-25-2004 - 2:34am
Free,

I agree with the fact that one doesn't get a complete picture of a person whom one corresponds with only online. But isn't this also true that concentrating on conversations only and not having the physical part present kind of strengthens the mental connection so that lets say if the physical ever happens, there is a stronger bonding present already. In my case, I have been communicating with the MM for about 5 months. We have had discussions about our ideals, jobs, politics etc. We talk, argue, fight, don't talk for days, resume correspondence, flirt, etc. We remain skeptics not eager to cheat so don't know if we will ever meet and we always want (and not want) to get over each other but are not able to. I guess the point I was wanting to convey was that the online thing could go both ways. Not having the complete true picture could destroy it or having the solid mental connection (without having the physical part short-circuiting it) could make the complete relationship solid too.

Philly Girl

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-31-2003
Sun, 01-25-2004 - 12:18pm
OK, that made more sense phillygirl. I don't know much about love for i learned to love the man i married. I am very loyal to him for that reason - but sadly not faithful. Its is hard to be in an affair - regardless of falling in or out of love.

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