when or if your love changed

I love my H. “Not” loving someone is a gradual process in my experience. I’ve been in love before this and that was my experience.

As for when my love changed towards my spouse, I can say without a doubt the INSTANT the first secret got out. It took a dramatic shift with each and every one too.

The same thing applies to questioning whether or not I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I haven’t been sure for a single moment since d-day. I struggle constantly with wondering if I will ever feel that way again. I can’t perceive it.

After being together for almost 9 years we still never sat down anywhere not aside one another. If there wasn’t two empty seats either I sat on my husbands lap, we shared the chair or he stood next to my chair. You know how a cat comes running at the sound of a can opener? That was me when I heard the garage door open. I was so happy he was home. He did the same thing. The sight of him still made me smile. If he touched my arm I still melted. (looking back it seems pathetic. It didn’t at the time.) My friend told me to stop worshiping him like a god. Our mutual friends said we were so sweet we gave everyone around us a toothache. One of his single friends told me that all he wanted in life was to find a woman that could make him talk about her the way my H talked about me. I could go on and on. But I am sure you get the gist.

All of that new love giddy stuff you get when you first fall in love never went away. It was there 100% on Tuesday September 14th, 2010 at 7:30 AM when I got the cute little love note on my desk. It was there at 11:00 AM when he texted me asking when I’d be home because he missed me (which was code for wanting to know what time he should put the porn away). It was there at 11:30 AM when I got home. It fell into some abyss in a heartbeat about thirty minutes later when nice as can be he asked if we could talk. And followed it up with telling me he wanted a divorce because he wanted to fuck other woman without having to worry about sneaking around, was tired of having sex with me and had decided he wasn’t the monogamous marrying type. POOF… it was all gone. Like magic. It’s been missing ever since and I don’t hold out hope of that ever being my life again.

I know that all sounds dramatic and depressing. But it’s true, not exaggerated even a teeny bit and yes… very depressing.

Everyone is different. I think depending how far up on the pedestal you started at, how hard and sudden you got pushed off, how far you fell, how badly you were hurt and how strong you are, how much blind faith you had, what your past is.. they are just a smidgeon of the factors that play a role.

Monday my H told me, “I know you have a strong faith in God. Have faith that he will see us through this.” I told him I did have faith in God.. I just didn’t have faith in HIM.

I’m sorry your missing that “Thing” Katt. I know how you feel and I know how it hurts. Big Hugs, Kim

The day I found the emails on my husband’s DROID to other women, and followed the links and saw they were hookers, ended my love relationship with my husband. I honesty felt like he had just died. His piecemeal disclosures and botched cover ups since then have just chipped away at any respect I could ever hope to have for him as a person trying to salvage their dignity and integrity through recovery.

The love was already gone. I tried to treat him as a humanely as possible through a haze of rage from that time to now. I can’t believe I’ll ever feel anything for him again. I know the beginning was shock. But it hasn’t changed or softened. I don’t feel any love for him. I feel like he’s a stranger and a cruel one who trapped me with lies and now won’t let me go unless I’m willing to drop my children off a cliff of poverty and trauma again.

We were never “that couple.” But I still thought what we had was “forever.” I’ve pictured our old age, future holidays with our kids and grandkids, etc. However, I now know that the moment I saw my h on video, doing the most intimate things with other women, part of me died. It’s taken a long time for the shock to wear off, and I’ve been fighting the current ever since, wanting so much to keep our family together. I’m just so resentful; it’s not fair. But little by little, I’m coming out of the fog. I’m sure I’ll have setbacks of wishful thinking, and moments (as long as we’re in the same house together), where I’ll think “just maybe…” I don’t know if I can equate all of this with falling out of love; I think that process is actually happening much more gradually. I guess that’s what makes it so painful. But I’m really starting to feel like the pain outweighs the love. And life is too short for that. Anyway, that’s my feeling for tonight, until I waffle again. 😉

I have a friend who has been living in complete paranoia ever since I told her what was going on. She feels if my husband did this, anyone will. So now she suspects her husband of everything. She figures my husband has more integrity than hers so she’s screwed. I have only told one other friend because after that first friend I feel like Satan coming to deliver gloom and doom upon all the happily married couples of the world.

Lynn – My exact words have been, “I feel like I’m living with a monster under my bed.”

Julie – I waffle so many times a day I feel like I should carry around a jug of syrup. In spite of this crap I think I still love him too much for my own good.

Katt – Please do not beat your self up for even a second. Look at how many of us had “that” marriage. Our judgment is not messed up. It’s not us. It’s them. These guys are THAT good. While we were off living life before we met them, they were busy finely tuning this to perfection. Probably leaving a trail of woman that were experiments gone bad in their wake.

Like you, my past taught me to keep myself guarded at all times. I let it go. I took the leap of faith and embraced blind trust. Boy have I learned not to do THAT again.

Katt… our husbands have taken a shovel and piled grief, hurt, anger, fear and betrayal onto us. And there wasn’t a damn thing we could do to stop it. So now we are left trying to wash ourselves of this huge pile of shit they put in our laps. One of the things we CAN control is to refuse to allow blame on that pile. The blame and the shame are all theirs to bear. Not yours. Not even one teeny morsel of it.

for me it just ended. 13 mo after dday, he started to seem like maybe I could trust him again, so sincere and I wanted to be hopeful and I pulled out his ipad and found eharmony app on it. And that was just it. He still says that was no big deal he was just looking. I say, kiddo it was everything.

kim how true, this betrayal has rocked so many people. He hurt so many people. He sees that now, and it surprises him.

katt, kim is right, it was him not you. We should all repeat that 10 times a day.

diane I think our sa’s are really similar. I have been thinking about some of your posts. And we always had to do what his rude mother made us do. She would even show up uninvited at our vacations and offer to sleep on the floor. to the point where I would tell the kids not to tell grandma we are going anywhere. And she would still find us. And h would not tell her to get her own room. rude. And my h hangs on every word the therapist (or anyone else) tells him, most of what I told him already, but he believes everyone but me.

Heidi,
with your remarks about his mother, I’m wondering if your SA was like mine in that he had an emotionally incestuous relationship with his mother. That’s when the adult begins to use the child as his/her emotional spouse. It is called a covert form of sexual abuse, because it sexualizes the relationship in ways the child cannot possibly recognize or understand.
My SA’s mother wanted to sleep in our room if we were away somewhere too. I said “when pigs fly” (as only I could say it) And she believed that our vacations belonged to her and should be planned around her. I told him if that’s how he wanted to spend his vacation he could go right ahead, but I was going to my best friend’s cottage. He didn’t want to spend it with her at all, but he would paddle over to the public phone booth at the provinicial park to phone her so she could cry and beg and plead for him to come.
Sex addiction is a classic consequence of emotional incest.

Kim,
Your last sentence sums it all up and is really what keeps us going round and round on the not-so-merry-go-round. (Hmmm, there’s another ride metaphor to add to the “emotional roller coaster.” Anyone want to open an SA theme park with me? We could cash in big and live happily ever after…)

I agree with Lynn. On the initial d-day, most of the love I felt for him just..stopped. Why? Because I realized that the man I loved didn’t really exist. The tiny bit of feeling I had left for him was slowly killed as time went on, with uncovering more betrayals that he hadn’t confessed to, continuing to act out, NOT making any effort at all to change and/or make up for what he had done, and feeling no remorse over how his actions not only impacted me, but impacted my little girl as well {how could a real good man and father NOT feel guilty about using his daughters money to pay for hookers??} He won’t leave because he has no place to go, and he put me and my almost 3 year old in dire straights financially. He doesn’t give a shit. He’s a dead man walking; there’s nothing there. I have no love for this person at all; plus, I don’t LIKE this person or respect him. So I would say 90% of the love just disappeared after the initial d-day and the remaining 10% has been squashed since then {June 2010}. The man I loved didn’t exist. Bottom line.

Yeah, the thing with the crying is that it was a gut-wrenching sort like I’ve never had before. And I didn’t have that experience of “feeling better after a good cry.” Mostly, I just feel exhausted after it.