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When I was at the intensive, Dr. Weiss said that he is frequently asked by women, “Does he really love me?” And his response is always, “Look at the behavior, always believe the behavior.” He said sometimes he hears about behavior from an SA husband and it just isn’t loving in any context. And then the spouse just has to admit that he doesn’t love her and move on, no matter what he says.
I didn’t ask him that question, but I think it’s an important question for all of us to ask ourselves.
Does your husband really love you? I think mine does because every time I have raised the bar, he has resisted, but raised his when he saw that my bar wasn’t coming back down. That’s the behavior I choose to look at to answer the question and I am sure the behavior is different for each one of us.
I also think that if the answer is yes, I think he does love me….it doesn’t mean we have any obligation to stay with them or work with them. That’s a separate choice, that’s ours.
MarieHi Marie,
What a great post. I wished I would have done that years ago, just looked at his behavior. He was hot, cold, mad, happy, loving ,mean, present, gone overall his behavior was irratic and not consistent. I really did not know one day to the next who he was going to be and how he was going to treat me. Would he remember me on my birthday or forget me like he did last year. Will he ruin this vacation like the last one or will he have a good time. When we go out to eat at a nice restaurant, will he find some young attractive brunette to fixate on and ignore me in the process. When I look back over all my 25 years of marriage it SCREAMS no love. That’s not love. Not the love I want anyway. It’s plain and simple abuse from a very sick man. Of course this was all before I knew he was a SA (found out 7 months ago).
All I can say is after 25 years of marriage, I don’t know who my husband is. I dont think he knows either.Marie,
I think this is a good question. I struggle with a “canned” answer that I have received from friends and family. Some will say that he loves me as much as he is capable of. I just don’t get what that means. Intellectually I understand the definition of it. But what does that really mean? If I were someone else he might have the capacity to love me more?
This is a huge struggle for me. Underneath that blank stare, I think he does love me. So what makes me think that? Is it that I want to believe that he does so in my mind I make it so? Do I feel sorry for him and his lack of ability to show love or feel love so I find it difficult to let go because if he does not have me, he has nothing? And than in that way of thinking, doesn’t sound like I am so full of myself that I think that if he doesn’t have me he doesn’t have anyone?I am a crazy person about this.
I know that he has trouble showing love. That is nothing new in our relationship. It was something that I learned about him and learned to live with years after I married him. I just believed that deep down when I was really hurting, he would be there for me. With the kind of pain that D-day brings, emotional nurture is something that is needed. He can’t seem to find it in his being to provide that kind of compassion.
Finding the heart of your husband is one thing when you believe that you have a faithful marriage. You can overlook someone who is moody or stiff because you believe in your heart that deep down he loves you. Knowing that he has used massage parlors and prostitutes for sex, suddenly does not make his lack of being able to express love acceptable.I ask myself however, if he could not express love (by nurturing) before d-day, what makes me think he can do it after d-day? So I feel like I am the crazy one to believe that something will all of a sudden start. I know that I just thought that if something this painful would happen to me, that he would be there to support me. Is that so unreasonable? Is it unreasonable to believe that your husband would be there for you when you are at the lowest you have ever been in your life? I have people who tell me that he can’t be there because he is the one who inflicted the pain. They believe that he would be there if he was not the one who hurt me. In my mind, it is because he IS the one that hurt me that he is the one that should be there for me.
So he is not there for me, does he really love me? Did he ever love me? Does he love me as long as he can have things his way? Is that love? Obviously there was a lonely woman out there looking for any crumbs of love she could find. She believed in someone and loved him and wanted to believe that he loved her too.
So what is love?
I like this post also. Love is behavior, for sure. . My therapist says this — when looking for love, look for this one thing. Consistent loving behavior. I think it is a good measure to live by and make decisions.
How easy these SA’s forget — how unloved we have been by their behavior. their choices to forget us, their marriage, themselves, and run with their addiction. Recovery or not, they need to sit with that. For quite some time. And take total accountability. They chose it, 100% them.
I have a freind who is chemical dependency rehab counsler. When my H was complaining about things in our marriage– he said stop right there– it does not matter what your wife’s issues are–sure she has some. YOU chose this. Until you face that, you won’t fully recover. YOU are the addict. YOU have gone outside your marriage. And IF you felt unhappy sexually or otherwise, it is YOUR job as an ADULT to talk to your partner about it. And work the stuff out. NOt just act out and do what you want, risking everyone’s health.
This was a good dose for him. And had some effect. He has days of guilt ridden remorse and humility and greatfullness for another chance. He has days — when I see very little remorse at all. But I know who I am all the time, and what my values are. I stay true to that. He can just work his sh*t out. Because, it is, HIS S*it. there. that feels good.
Lately, I have come to realization that yes, we are married. But we are seperate people, each solely responsible for our choices and behavior. I feel good about myself and choices lately. As for him?? Recovery is his choice and responsibility. I feel healthy and seperate. thanks all– loveHere is how I have come to view love:
Love IS loving behavior consistently.
Love is NOT words, although they can be extra credit if added to the behavior.
Love is NOT us “thinking they love us” or feeling like they must”…..that is about us wanting to be loved by them.Great question, Cindy…..we have to sort out what we are projecting as regards love from these men as opposed to what our husband’s behavior is actually telling us.
Always believe behavior, theirs and our own. Love your post, NAP
Your friend,
MarieThis is a hard one.
Up until d-day i thought my h was the most kind and loving. I accepted his faults to a point and was slowly working on getting him to a place where he could contibute. But I thought it was/is attributable to ADD or passive aggreisve behaviors or personality. But it was hard work. He never wanted to do anything, but I figured he loves me right. He is kind, loves me and the kids, good dad; really felt a strong emotional connections. So I was willing to help him get through what I thought were more like social anxiety/ working phobias.When d-day came about and i discovered that he had been lying to me, to my face, for years; I had been greatly deceived. Then to find that who I thought was a loving father, was viewing porn while staying home during the day taking care of our daughter…that just blew the top off.
My H told me he loved me every day, that i was pretty, and that he wanted to stay married forever. So imagine my surpise with his hidden world of lies. Granted we had been married five years in part was the reason he was able to get by as long as he did, because i was on the path of trying to figure out what was going on.
So if we are focusing in on actions, i would have to look to lack of effort and work; as men typically do not help out around the house. But otherwise he was still there for me….
So i think that being said, just because they say they love you, just because you feel they love (because maybe they truely do)…what is enough?? If you are in a crap relationship, but you both supposedly “love” each other, what does that mean? It means nothing. Many people love each other, we love our fiends, we love our pets, we love our family…This world is huge, there are millions and millions of people. I do not feel that there is “one” love for one person. Just like on an exam there may be four answers, all of them right, and there may be one that is most right; but still the others are right too.
I think there is too much weight placed on “he’s the one” think we get caught in a trap looking for and having the feeling of our one and only love and prince charming. We think that because this guy came along, and we fall into sink so well, that it just me…i found the “one”. I am so lucky one in a million chance to true love, and it hit me???
As JoAnn has said in the past, and i think this is 100% true, if you do not trust someone you cannot love them. (I hope I quoted this correctly) or maybe it was Because without trust their cannot be love. (this statment may be more correct).
Because without trust you are always on edge, never 100% giving, as you are always waiting for the axe to drop, the next storm to come and blow your world apart.
But anyway rambleing. Love is an action verb, it is not just a word. If you do not know and feel you are loved; then you are not. And just because someone is “incapable” of loving does not make it right either. Us women in this site are some of the most caring, smart compassionate women the world. I hate to see us all waste our heart and soul on h;s who do not give a crap. I would rather help the needy and the poor; who would actually appreciate my time and efforts.
I hope that someday we can all find a rewarding relationship, wether it be with someone new, just on our own, or with the current h. I hate to see our brilliance and kind hearts wasted. Love to All,
FloraDear Flora,
Glad you mentioned “the one” syndrome. It is in so many romantic comedies, dating sites — “oh I found the one.” HOw can out of the millions of people in the world – just one person be right for us? Now we choose one person to marry, no doubt. But it could have been among many choices.
On the trust front — I see it like this. I can love someone I do not trust. If my daughter were an addict, would I still love her? yes. but she would not be able to be trusted. Sad, but true. But my love is not conditional on her behavior. I love her regardless of her actions. Not the enabling way, I would not give her money, insist on rehab etc. But I would love her anyway.
My situation SA H is the same to me. Will I have deep rewarding relationship with him? even in recovery? probably not, not after all he has done. He can never ever be trusted fully. But, my love for him is not conditional on his actions. Now that doesn’t mean I stay forever with him, tolerate addictive bheavior, etc. I can love him (unconditionally) and leave him because of his behavior, as well. I just don’t think men are trustworthy, in the same way women are, SA’s or not. I think I must always live without trust, as long as I am hetero! Just a different perspective I wanted to share. thanks FloraHi PamC,
Fascinating discussion…… my love for my husband is conditional. My love for my children is unconditional.
MarieFlora – You make a really good point. If I was to judge Steve by the way he treats me, I would think he was the most wonderful man in the world. Always considerate, always willing to help when needed, never forgets birthdays, anniversiaries, etc.
Then I unpeel the layers. Underneath that is a sex addict who lies and deceives.
Somewhere in the middle is a man who professes to want to change, works on recovery somewhat consistently, and on the surface appears to be changing.
The bottom layer is up for grabs. Too many inconsistencies for me to feel comfortable in the marriage and trust that this man has the integrity to be trustworthy.
I think we can judge the SA’s love by consistencies, and when there isn’t constant love shown on all levels of the relationship, it is out of balance. I believe there is Friendship, sex, and intimacy – if just one of them is out of balance, the marriage will not survive. We have a good friendship, but the other two are just not there.What a great topic, and really helpful answers.
Cindy, I was really relating to your post in particular. That “he loves you as much as he capable of loving you” crap is just of no help whatsoever to me. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go with that. I mean, I’m not a friggin’ charity here, I a human being. Don’t I get to be loved more than he is capable of, if he’s not capable of very much at all? I don’t think it’s love at all. Love isn’t a quantity, it’s a quality. There is a definition and it doesn’t include the guidelines of “what someone is capable of”. It’s not that he doesn’t love me “enough”. It’s that he actually doesn’t love me–period. Maybe he’d like to. But he doesn’t have it.
And yes, the behaviour is the proof. Because when someone loves you and mistreats you, they apologize, and make amends, and don’t do it again. My husband behaves as if he’s guilty every time he shits all over me, but that doesn’t stop him from doing it again.
D.
Dear Diane,
I agree with you –I mean our vows did not say — love as much as you can or are capable of, did it?. It did say love, honor cherish, — these are boundless limitless words we said before friends and God, (if you believe in that). yet somehow, they get off the hook? why, because “he’s a man” . It enrages me to no end. I think as men they have an even Greater responsiblility to set an example of what love is, — they fail so miserably, and so many women on this site are far supieror, worthy examples. The SA’s love is greatly limited by their own selfish addictive behavior and choices– that’s all it is. Their love for us becomes inactive, void even, given the behavior thay have displayed.
Diane, I am truly sorry that your H did not make amends that you needed, give you the love and show sorrow necessary to make things anywhere near “right” or at least “better” for you. It is a horrible thing to endure, I share your disappontment and pain there. I am glad that you chose “you” even if he could not. This is love too. I realize that — and it may one day, be me too. love to you
In one of our many conversations that SA and I have had, he mentioned that he’s not really even sure if he was ever “in love” with his first wife. As addicts, it’s important to them to show the outside world that they are a normal man, and by getting married and having kids, it appears on the outside looking in that they are normal people. On the other hand, if he doesn’t think he was ever “in love” with his ex-wife, how would he know if he was ever “in love” with me. He says our relationship is very different and that he truly is “in love” with me and it kills him to think that he damn near destroyed this marriage with this behavior. Every time he talks about the possibility of us splitting up, he cries and can’t bear the thought of living without me. I think he truly does love me but I think it took getting caught for him to realize it. For me; I loved the man I thought I was married to. Now, I see someone familiar, but until I can trust him again the words “I love you” will have to wait.
Hi Sharron,
that is still such a maddening aspect of all of this. I forgot to mention that he was also very affectionate, always gave good x-mas presents, hugs, holding hands; shall I go on?? I thought that I had it right. It still boggles my mind how someone can be one way, and then lie to your face time after time and year after year. I realize i will never be able to comprehend. And that i have made my decision based on just what I want and that what I have, even though somewaht close to what I want, its still not… it is very hard.With kids your love is unconditional, for us anyway. some people however this is not a true statement. But they are our kids. H’s and BF’s they come and go. Unconditional love is not about us changing who we are, but about accepting someone else for who they are. In the case of the h’s if we have to change who we are to somehow make it work; its not a good situation. With our h’s they are our life partner for life. A lifetime is a long time to live, with someone who does not respect you and cherish you. Someone who respects you and cherishes you will not lie and do these things. And that is the difference between the h’s and the kids. They are ours, we brought them into this life, and we are here for them. Our h’s sometimes attach themselves to our lives, but we are not responsible for them. They are not our children and love is conditional.
Actually second thought. Its that living my life with my h is conditional. Its not that the love has changed, my sharing my life with him IS conditional.
Hi Flora – I certainly agree with everything you say. It is mind boggling to try and understand why they do what they do over and over!
I guess I have been so busy lately, and not keeping up with posts. Am I understanding you are staying with your SA. That is how I am reading it. If so, ya gotta do what ya gotta do for whatever reason makes sense to you.
I am just not consumed with Steve’s addiction anymore, and as I said on the SA site -I could give a rat’s ass what he does.
I have decided to file for a Legal Separation rather than Divorce, because my change of attitude towards him seems to have impacted him in a positive way. And as I said, I don’t think he is desparately trying to save “us,” because we are stll seeing eachother and the LS is simply sending him a messiage, “Get your shit together” or I will never reconcile with you, and I will be happy living in my very small-very plain Condo. So, in effect, my living my life with Steve is conditional, as well. I am in control, and I can decide if and when I want to see him.
I know some of the Sister’s think I am co-dependent. I really don’t feel that way, because our relationship is on my terms, and I am still living by myself – It will be a year August 1st.
Sorry I have not been more supportive of your situation – too busy working on resolving mine. Love to You.Hi Sharron,
No not staying with mine. Divorce should be final in a month or so. No i was saying our relationship was close to what I want, but yet so far away, and just not it. But as a married couple before I kitcked the h out, this is what our life and marriage was like. Never sustepcted he was lying and still do not comprehend it,…never will. I am not willing to accept this as my life, with a sex addict. I have chose the divorce route. I just closed a loan on my house two weeks ago, and he has quitclaimed his share to me. So overall the divorce process is going very well. So my love is not conditional, its me choosing to not share my life and love with him anymore, and him being it it. It now comes down to not wether he or she loves each other more; it comes about doing what is right for me and my life; based on what I feel is right for me. Love to you as well.Flora
Good for you Flora, and I am glad things are starting to turn around for you. The scars will remain for ahwile, but you are definitely on the right track. I do remember, now, that you closed on your loan, and I am so happy for you – a whole new start for you.
I hope you stay with us, as you are so insightful and your posts very helpful to us all.
Much love to you and your new life.cbs-Do our SA’s know eachother. My husband told me exactly the same thing – was never in love with his first two wives, and has felt more love for me than anyone in his life.
Not saying much, is it?
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