Is It Lust, or Love?

I wonder why he wanted her so much. Did he actually love the other woman? Or could it have been that he lusted after her and felt like he wanted a good chase? This raised a question in my mind as to whether he kept on having the affair for so long. If it was only lust, than wouldn't he have been with her only a couple of times and then been "done" with her? What kept him chasing after her for such a long time? Did he fall in love with her? That answer was never answered for me. He just refused to answer my questions, only telling me that he loved me. I feel like I never got all the answers that I wanted to know answered. He was hushed-mouthed over the whole affair. I believe that being in love with someone is giving that person everything that you are, giving your whole heart and having trust with them. Love is wanting to please your partner and doing what you can to make them happy. Lust is so different. Lust is about going after something that you can only have for a short while. I don't know if it ever turns into love or not. So many questions, and so few answers.

Thinking About The "Other Woman"

After all, I am a person too. I hurt so much but I still have to keep on with life. Things seem to be at a stand-still sometimes when you are trying to find out if you are really being cheated on. I went through countless incoming phone calls on his cell. I worried myself over each and every single time that he told me that he was on his way home, but was more than the average time for getting home. I spent way too much time thinking about who it was and why they were better than me. I spent too much grief in my life wondering if she was skinnier than me, had prettier hair or perhaps wore more makeup than me. Why did it matter? To me, it was because he married ME, not her. And I wanted to know what made him want her over me. I felt inferior to her, but I shouldn't have. You see, it's not you !!! It's the one who is cheating that has the problem. It's him/her who doesn't see you the way they should see you anymore. They are the ones with the problem. If you have problems in your marriage or relationship, they are supposed to come to you to try and figure out a solution to what-ever it is bothering them. Together as a couple, working things out between you. Not with an outsider. I had to try my best not to let the "other woman" matter to me. It wasn't me after all.

Feeling a Loss

Losing your partner to infidelity is devistating, to say the least. You often feel like you have been abandoned, and you look for answers to why this awful thing has happened to you. Why did you get married in the first place? Only to get hurt like this? Why get married if you are going to have to go through this kind of pain, and a feeling of loss? We get married to have a partner for life, and to have the dream of a home, and family. Those things are so important in life. I think that some cases of infidelity can be forgiven, but the feeling of loss can stick with you for awhile. I think that time has to heal alot of those feelings.

He Hurt Me So Bad And Doesn't Even Care

He doesn't seem to care that he has hurt my feelings, or broken my trust. He wants to just get on with life again and go back to the way things used to be. Yeah, that's right, he wants to just let me go on cooking him dinner, washing his clothes and virtually being his maid while he goes out with the "other woman". Who does he think he is? And Why is he being so ugly to me about all of this? I am NOT the one who hurt him. I didn't cheat on him, not ever. Why does he feel that he can apologize and then get on with life? Does he not have the brains in his head to think about how much I am hurting? Am I not allowed to feel hurt over his infidelity? I sometimes believe that he thinks that I will just get over it and things will eventually settle down and we will go back to the way things were. Well, it's not going to happen here. I have a right to hurt. I have the right to be with someone who really wants to be with me, and who wants to work things out. How about you?

How Can I Hate Him and Love Him At the Same Time?

Oh those emotions of love and hate ! I loved him so much, so much that I loved him with everything and all I had within me. He cheated on me, treated me like dirt and I learned to hate him and what he had become. Why are all of these mixed emotions flowing within me ? Why can't I just get over what he's done? I believe that when we love someone, we love with our whole heart. We give all we have to them. When we get hurt through infidelity, it leaves us very confused. We want to know why or how they can love us, like they say they do, yet still go behind our backs and be with another person. I have a hard time grasping that one, to be honest. My mother always said that actions speak louder than words. Is it true in the case of adultery? What does this say to me?

A Bird in A Cage

Youv'e all heard the saying that you can't keep a bird in a cage if he doesn't want to stay? Well, this also can be the case in a marriage where one partner doesn't want to be there. With infidelity, sometimes your partner begs forgiveness and wants to stay with you. That is one side of things, however, what if he/she wants to be free? What if they don't want things to work out? Honestly, if they do not want to work things out, you cannot try to keep them, because if you do, you are most likely going to put yourself through alot of heartache and worry. Keeping someone only because you want it to work will not do any good. Both people in the relationship must want to be together for it to truly work out well.

Can I Forgive Him?

Can I forgive my partner when he/she cheats on me? I have heard others in the past say that if that happened to them, they would never forgive their partner, only to find later, it happened and they forgave them after all. I believe that when something so hurtful happens in your relationship, you are the only one able to make this final decision. How do you know? I know, because I have lived through this and know that no other person can make this decision for you. Sometimes we stay for our children. This works sometimes and other times not. It all depends on the circumstances of what happened and if your partner is willing to work things out. Are they remorseful enough to help you both together to work this out? Counseling, if needed? The two of you together must decide if you want things to work out. You also need time to heal. A marriage can still succeed if both can work things out successfully, but getting back the trust takes time.

Where Did His Feelings Go?

Where did his feelings go for me? Why did they just suddenly dissapear, or did they? He claimed that he loved me, but I couldn't see how, if he was gallyvanting around with this "other woman". Did he lose sight of the fact that we were supposed to be married til death do us part? That is a question I think alot of us ask when we find ourselves in this situation. I think that perhaps he was looking for a little "excitement" and thought he could find it in someone on the outside of our marriage. If he had only talked to me, maybe we could have worked out a "date" night or perhaps a different routine. He should have talked to me, his partner in marriage before going ouside the marriage to find the answers.

What Does Adultery Show Your Children?

Adultery is something that's supposed to be forbidden in marriage but it's been happening since possibly since the beginning of time. Most of the time, we try and keep that kind of thing hidden from the children, but what happens when they find out? How can we deal with explaining it to them? First of all, it's really an adult matter and in my opinion, children should not have to deal with it. But, if they are older children, teenagers perhaps, and they find out about it, we do need to offer them an explanation so they can kind of try to understand. In my situation, my daughter was way too young to know what happened but my son was a teen, almost an adult and he knew already what was going on. I had to explain to him that even though "dad" was a good hard working man, dedicated to his work, he was not very good at being a "faithful" husband. He must have felt that he needed to be with someone else, even though I was trying my best to make everything right. I had to explain that dad's behavior was not supposed to be how a man treats his wife or a committed relationship. A true healthy relationship is supposed to be a trusted relationship with just the husband and wife. I knew that he understood me some, but in some ways, I felt that he was going to have to grow up a bit more to really grasp what was going on. I felt like I needed to let him know that this was not good because I didn't want him to think it was ok for him to do it since he saw his dad act this way. But no means was this an easy task. I think that talking to children about an adult's infidelity has to be extremely one of the hardest things to talk about.

This Man Left Me Clueless

I wanted my marriage to last. I didn't want to give up. How could I give up a man who had been so kind to me for a very long time? What changed in his temperment, to start showing me his bad side? Perhaps it's because he brought an "outsider" into our marriage. He didn't have any right to do this to me. I didn't do it to him, so why did he see fit to think it was okay? I didn't want to acknowledge that my husband, the man whom I loved so dearly could ever think of hurting me this way. I must have been in a "zombie" state to have let it continue on and not do more about it. Yes, I argued with him, but this was obviously not enough. What else could I have done, without walking out? I was just clueless about the whole situation. I didn't want to face the truth.

Can Your Marriage Be Saved?

Marriage is supposed to last forever, you know, til death do you part. When we marry, we are very optimistic that our future with that special love will last forever. We don't always see that there will be rocky roads ahead because we are so excited about the wedding, the new life it will bring us that we don't always see past that. We don't anticipate a break-up. But what can you do if your marriage is "on the rocks"? What can you do about deep problems that seem like they cannot be resolved? Can your marriage be saved? Well, the answer to that question is between you and your partner. You and your partner both must want the marriage to survive for it to happen. You both must work at identifying the problem and working on a solution together. Seeking counseling or speaking to a member of clergy can often be what's needed to be back on the road to repairing the marriage. Remember, a marriage is built of two people and both must want to stay married for it to work.

Going Through Infidelity and Facing Your Feelings

Going through infidelity with this man sure took it's toll on me. Not only did it make me unsure of myself, but unsure of how I was feeling, thinking and so forth. How could just one person in your life affect you so much? Well, I suppose that truly being in love with this person really made the difference for me. I was brought up to look for the best in everyone and I didn't want to face his cheating. I didn't want to admit that something had gone wrong in our marriage. Nobody wants to feel this way. How can we overcome feeling this way? Well, for me, the first step was admitting to myself that we DID have a problem. There WAS something wrong. I had to admit that to myself and believe it, before I could move on to any kind of healing.

Looking Through The Mirror

Taking a look through the mirror and seeing that "hey, I 'm not so bad!" was something that I always felt about myself. So now, why were things different? Was I not pretty to him anymore? Did he see me in a different light now that he had another woman? I didn't see any changes in myself, other than the fact that I looked more worn down, tired and just downright sad. The mirror pointed out to me all the worrying I had done over this man and his dirty affair. How could this have happened to me so quickly? I was still young. I felt that I was still pretty. Why didn't he feel that way anymore? I needed to do something about it, but what?

I Can't Understand Why He Treated Me Like Nothing

One thing that I could not understand was that once he began his affair, he started treating me like I was nothing. I almost didn't exist in his eyes, except to cater to his every whim. There were times that he didn't show me ANY courtesy when coming home late by giving me a call. He went on about his business as though I wasn't even in the picture. That makes me wonder what he was actually thinking.......actually, he wasn't thinking at all, except about that "other woman". I am sure that when he was late going to see HER, that he called her and was courtesous about it. What makes him think that just because he had her, that he didn't owe me any respect at all? Why wasn't I important anymore? I had such a hard time trying to get past all of this. Not only did it hurt my feelings, but I started feeling like I was just becoming a "nobody".

What If "The Other Woman" Had Something ICKY?

Once I found out the he was cheating on me, I didn't want to face the truth. I was scared, scared alright, right out of my wits. I didn't know what I was going to do about it. I thought about the fact that he was cheating with who knows WHO !!! What kind of person was this "other woman"? Did she have good health, or did he even use protection? That was something major for me to think about. I knew that I was ok as I had gotten a clean bill of health not long before I found out, but now that I knew about his infidelity, thoughts kept racing through my mind. I was fearing that I would have to go back to the Dr. but in reality, I turned out to be fine. But what about the ones who pass other nasty things on ? Keeping a good check on your body and how you feel is super important. Going to the Dr just to make sure all is alright is also very important