is it possible to love both the spouse and the AP?

[Mimolicious]

Joey66, maybe the question to ask yourself is how does your AP make you feel?

 

Or, even better, HOW do YOU feel with your affair partner?

 

If your wife could make you feel the very same way, who would You choose???

 

Next set of questions:

 

How would you feel if your wife, who you say you love, was off having wild hot passionate sex with another man? One who made her feel oh-so-beautiful, sexy, funny, intelligent?

 

Im not being judgemental here....just really want to know your feelings on this. I think answering these questions may help you....

 

If you could choose one woman to see, to talk to, five minutes before you died, which one would it be???? And why?????

 

Very good post Sparks! Maybe he'll give 2.5 mins to each... tick-tock.

 

I guess anything is possible. Me personally, I don't think I can. I would hate to live this twisted just because I have to fill my love-tank to the max.

 

IMO- This is where I would rather invest my heart and soul- WWIU said it better:

 

Wife=Reliable, there for you, supportive, has your back no matter what, loving, your family, mother to your kids, nurturer, love that is growing and long lasting. She knows you, good and bad and accepts you for who you are. She's cleaned up after you, fought with you, cried with you, cleaned up puke possibly, and still loves you because you're her husband.

 

 

Because when I am 70 at my granchild's wedding thinking back, I can't relive this, and drop a tear cherishing and in celebration of the "love" we had.

 

OW-Passion, sex, hot, fun, exciting, wakes up a feeling in you that you haven't had in a long time, makes you feel good, sexy and special, thinks you're the king and can probably do no wrong because of the passion.

 

 

Ask yourself what is essential to you. Also like Sparks suggested. Turn the tables and think that this was your W and heck! even your OW deliberately feeling like this behind your back.

[IfWishesWereHorses]

I do hope I got my point across!

 

Really, I sincerely apologize for that, seems my mobile went haywire. Again, sorry.

[joey66]

One day you WILL get caught and maybe your wife will divorce you, then you can have all the hot sex and lust you want with intense feelings with your OW.

 

I think that many of you know anyway, but just to be sure we are all clear, MW and I are not together now. We are not having sex - hot, cold, or any other kind. Perhaps that's part of the reason I'm still sooooo in love with her.

 

And I know exactly what my W would say - "Make your choice. You are either with me or you are with her. I'm not sharing."

 

How would you feel if your wife, who you say you love, was off having wild hot passionate sex with another man? One who made her feel oh-so-beautiful, sexy, funny, intelligent?

 

If you could choose one woman to see, to talk to, five minutes before you died, which one would it be???? And why?????

 

I think the question about how I would feel if my W were having sex with someone else is one of those things that nobody can answer for sure until he/she is in that situation. My guess is that I would be able to deal with it, but who knows.

 

(Aside: My W spends most of her waking hours on Facebook. First thing when she gets out of bed - she gets on Facebook. I leave for work - she's on Facebook. I get home from work - she's on Facebook. When I go to bed - she's on Facebook. I HATE Facebook.)

 

As to the second question, I would choose my W.

 

I don't think you are a terrible person, on the contrary...my heart goes out to you as this is such a difficult situation to be in...you must be so torn inside, the back and forth, what to do, what not to do....(((((((((hugs Joey))))))))))...

 

Thank you, pih. As I have written before, you all help me very much during the bad times - even sometimes when you don't mean to or know that you are doing it. I love you guys.

 

IWWH - Could you repeat please? I don't think I got it. I'm kidding.

 

Thanks to all for taking the time to repsond.

[greengoddess]

If she is on facebook that much I'd start to wonder if she has a boyfriend.

[ladydesigner]

Yep agree with Greengoddess. Too much time on FB...hmmmm. I would keep tabs on that.

[TaraMaiden]

I think it is completely and entirely possible to love two people at the same time. Definitely, without question.

If you can be in love with one person, why should being in love with two people be impossible?

The love might be described as different. I would hope it is. They're different people. But that doesn't necessarily mean the intensity and quality are different.

 

Look at this thread

 

I have posted my opinion in there, and although the OP has withstood much criticism (curiously, it seems mainly from the men!) something seems to be working, although I would opine the situation is fragile, because as with most humans, Ego and feelings are bound to get in the way of cold logic and sound reasoning......

[Mimolicious]

Dayum! How much can one possibly do on FB?? Maybe she is addicted to Farmville and MafiaWars? LOL! (so sorry)

 

I mean, I know that it is a way to keep in touch and all but it gets boring to see so much nonsense people post. "Going to karate with the kids, then having brunch with my bff" day in and day out. STFU alread!!!!

(sorry mini t/j but FB gets on my nerves)

[silktricks]

because as with most humans, Ego and feelings are bound to get in the way of cold logic and sound reasoning......

 

God, I would certainly hope so... otherwise, we might as well just be computers.

[TaraMaiden]

Not quite.

It's my opinion that human beings are not programmed to be monogamous.

We're taught in this society, through laws, through social conditioning, and through religious influence, that we 'should' be monogamous.

But I think monogamy is an imposition, but isn't natural.

 

Emotions and ego are all very well, providing we can rationalise jealousy, possessiveness, and dependency.

These qualities endanger a relationship, however it's run.

 

A person can love - be in love, and make love to - two people in simultaneous relationships.

This could be an open relationship (such as Polyamory) but it's dependent on all involved being able to rationalise destructive and potentially "damaging" emotions.

The alternative is cheating.

And I think if somebody is going to make the commitment of being faithful to another person, cheating is a completely unacceptable option.

[TinaniT]

Yes. But I don't believe you are in love with both. Maybe not in love with either if neither are worth your full commitment, even if there is a kind of love for both.

 

Different kinds of love.

[TaraMaiden]

I have said, different kinds of love, of course. Because they are different people, with different personalities, characters and circumstances. I would hope they ARE different.

It's the same as loving two partners, consecutively. The love you had for your ex, is different to the love you have for your current, but you love/d them both. Same as loving two people at the same time,. Different kinds of love, but probably the same intensity and passion....

[Silly_Girl]

I could not be in love with two people. I am deeply loyal and monogamous and find that those traits in me give me pleasure and enhance my own relationship experience.

 

To me, the very concept of being in an exclusive relationship matters very much. It (the original R) would no longer hold the allure and excitement for me if I were able to turn my attentions elsewhere.

 

But that's me, that doesn't mean others can't have just as intense and fulfilling relationships with 2 people at once. I just can't, and that suits me fine.

[wheelwright]

Likely this topic has come up before, so if I am thrashing a deceased equine, please forgive me.

 

Any married APs out there who love their spouse and the AP? I'll start. I think I do. My W is a fine woman and my relationship with the MW has nothing to do with her.

 

Also, I know this will fall on deaf ears ... er ... eyes, but if your only reply is to tell me how terrible I am, or how I am deceiving myself, or how I need to make a decision, etc., then please just don't. I am willing to stipulate in advance that I am a terrible person with no redeeming qualities. K? Thanks so much.

 

I think my xMOM felt like this. And he chose his W. As they do!

 

There are different kinds of love.

 

Of course, I am left feeling silly. After all, I gave it all, believing it was the one, special kind of love. But it does indeed seem there are many loves, and Rs. I know he loves his W now, and I am glad knowing that.

 

So yes, I believed he loved us both in different ways.

 

But I loved him like thay do when there is only one, like you think you have met your soulmate. Like after a year or more (who's counting) and I still look for his face, the feeling, the 'only one' feeling.

 

There is not only the possibility of many loves, but the possibility of different kinds.

 

In deciding which we choose, I believe we say who we are.

[bentnotbroken]

I could not agree more with this.

 

To the OP.... People can absolutely love more than one person at once. It's ridiculous to think that we can only love one person "romantically" (what does that MEAN???) at a time. Anyone who thinks that this is the way it was 'meant' to be needs to take a real hard look at the divorce and affair and unhappy marriage statistics. That says it all.

 

People here want to equate love with commitment. They are two completely different entities. Love is an emotion. Commitment is a conscious decision. You can only COMMIT to one person at a time.

 

 

NO we all don't equate love with commitment. But I CAN and only will love one person romantically at a time. I will feed the feelings of love for the person I chose to be with. There is absolutely no reason for me to feed any type of "in luv" feelings for someone other than my SO. It's called choice. All the divorce statistics say is people follow their emotions more than they should or they never should have married in the first place.

[TaraMaiden]

NO we all don't equate love with commitment. But I CAN and only will love one person romantically at a time. I will feed the feelings of love for the person I chose to be with. There is absolutely no reason for me to feed any type of "in luv" feelings for someone other than my SO. It's called choice. All the divorce statistics say is people follow their emotions more than they should or they never should have married in the first place.

 

Precisely my point.

This is the kind of conditioning I am talking about.

The conditioning by Law, Society and religion that has, over time, convinced us that a relationship consists of two people and two people only.

 

I'm not knocking or criticising you for this at all, by the way. But as you have so succinctly and clearly put it - this is a CHOICE. You say you can and only will love one person at any one time. This is all well and good, but this is still something you have decided and imposed upon yourself....

 

And people are not necessarily unfaithful because of their emotions, although time and time and time again, these are put forward as the fundamental reasons for why they cheat. Emotions, feelings and matters of the heart are put forward as the primary elements triggering this deceit. And whilst emotions play a huge part (because we are human beings after all, and apparently at the top of the natural order of things...) these actually serve to cloud and obscure the fundamental facts...

 

I always say that somebody basically cheated because they felt like it.

Faced with the choice of cheating or not, they chose the former.

 

I will always condemn someone for breaking a vow and a promise they made, and always say that if they can't keep a promise - don't make it in the first place.

 

And as statistics show, an awful lot of people find it hard to put their money where their mouth is, and are in fact, succumbing to an instinct which proves my point.

Monogamy is an imposed and conditioned state.

If it wasn't, cheating would not be such a huge issue - or cause for separation.

[Spark1111]

If she is on facebook that much I'd start to wonder if she has a boyfriend.

 

 

Joey, if she is on fb every waking moment of the day....I will not say she has a boyfriend, but I will suggest she is bored and lonely and trying to CONNECT emotionally with someone, anyone.

 

Because she should be investing in YOU and the marriage and YOU should be investing in her.

 

You guys are not in a good place. And I will not say it's you and the affair or the emotional investment in the MOW you still see at work and obsess about....

 

But you both have to change things!

[bentnotbroken]

Precisely my point.

This is the kind of conditioning I am talking about.

The conditioning by Law, Society and religion that has, over time, convinced us that a relationship consists of two people and two people only.

 

I'm not knocking or criticising you for this at all, by the way. But as you have so succinctly and clearly put it - this is a CHOICE. You say you can and only will love one person at any one time. This is all well and good, but this is still something you have decided and imposed upon yourself....

 

And people are not necessarily unfaithful because of their emotions, although time and time and time again, these are put forward as the fundamental reasons for why they cheat. Emotions, feelings and matters of the heart are put forward as the primary elements triggering this deceit. And whilst emotions play a huge part (because we are human beings after all, and apparently at the top of the natural order of things...) these actually serve to cloud and obscure the fundamental facts...

 

I always say that somebody basically cheated because they felt like it.

Faced with the choice of cheating or not, they chose the former.

 

I will always condemn someone for breaking a vow and a promise they made, and always say that if they can't keep a promise - don't make it in the first place.

 

And as statistics show, an awful lot of people find it hard to put their money where their mouth is, and are in fact, succumbing to an instinct which proves my point.

Monogamy is an imposed and conditioned state.

If it wasn't, cheating would not be such a huge issue - or cause for separation.

 

 

I understand your point.

[TaraMaiden]

Thank you.

[White Flower]

I don't believe you can be in love with two people at the same time, but I do believe you can love two people for different reasons. Maybe he loves me because there is passion for the same interests, my intelligence, and my other passionate qualities. Maybe he loves her for the stability, the reliability, her commitment and the fact that she's proven to love him no matter what (what she knows anyway) for 40 years. My love of 5 years just can't compete with that, not in his mind I assume. So while I know he must love us for different reasons, I do not believe he is in love with both of us.

 

I absoltely adore my friends and want to spend a lot of time with them. But if I had a choice to be with the one I'm in love with, or the ones I love, I will choose to spend time with the one I'm in love with.

 

Joey, did you find both to be as sexually arousing as each other? Was the intimacy equal?

 

 

As I have written before, you all help me very much during the bad times - even sometimes when you don't mean to or know that you are doing it. I love you guys.

 

Thanks to all for taking the time to repsond.

Joey, you didn't answer my question. I feel left out.

[joey66]

Joey, you didn't answer my question. I feel left out.

 

WF - The very last thing I want to do is to leave you out. Please forgive me.

 

As I wrote earlier in this thread, MW and I are not together. We are not having sex of any kind. Unless you count when I'm alone in my roo ... never mind that!

 

But I think you mean, in general. Do I find one or the other of them to be more sexually arousing? And that's hard to answer.

 

I've been married for 20+ years. As I'm sure you realize, the gloss wears off, so to speak. OTOH, MW and I have know each other for a total of three years.

 

Put these things together (not being with MW right now & 20+ years of M) and it's easy to say that I find MW to be more arousing. But I'm not sure that's a fair comparison.

 

Did I answer the question?

[White Flower]

WF - The very last thing I want to do is to leave you out. Please forgive me.

 

As I wrote earlier in this thread, MW and I are not together. We are not having sex of any kind. Unless you count when I'm alone in my roo ... never mind that!

 

But I think you mean, in general. Do I find one or the other of them to be more sexually arousing? And that's hard to answer.

 

I've been married for 20+ years. As I'm sure you realize, the gloss wears off, so to speak. OTOH, MW and I have know each other for a total of three years.

 

Put these things together (not being with MW right now & 20+ years of M) and it's easy to say that I find MW to be more arousing. But I'm not sure that's a fair comparison.

 

Did I answer the question?

Ah Joey, how can I not forgive you when you replied so quickly...on a Saturday no less!

 

I suppose it would help to know whether you ever slept with MOW, then we could have a real comparison of true intimacy, arrousal, and love.

 

And my question with regard to arrousal may have been typed out too quickly to save time. I was really talking about intimacy.

 

I get that with time feelings wear off, but I think if you have or at least had at one time real intimacy it can be re-established. MM's IC told him if the M never had intimacy after xx amount of years (a very long time in his case), intimacy can never be established; it has proven itself never to have been possible. But if you've had that with your W, and hope to have it again, even believing you'll have it again, then maybe it IS possible to re-establish it.

 

I hope for your sake and the sake of your M it does.

 

Thanks again Joey.

[Fieldsofgold]

Not quite.

It's my opinion that human beings are not programmed to be monogamous.

We're taught in this society, through laws, through social conditioning, and through religious influence, that we 'should' be monogamous.

But I think monogamy is an imposition, but isn't natural.

 

Emotions and ego are all very well, providing we can rationalise jealousy, possessiveness, and dependency.

These qualities endanger a relationship, however it's run.

 

A person can love - be in love, and make love to - two people in simultaneous relationships.

This could be an open relationship (such as Polyamory) but it's dependent on all involved being able to rationalise destructive and potentially "damaging" emotions.

The alternative is cheating.

And I think if somebody is going to make the commitment of being faithful to another person, cheating is a completely unacceptable option.

 

We're taught in this society, through laws, through social conditioning, and through religious influence, to not steal things that we desperately want, to not harm children, to not kill people we hate, or beat people who desperately deserve it. There are many restrictions that have come to be "imposed" for very, very good reasons, because often, human nature/inclination/impulse is not necessarily a very good thing at all.

[Fieldsofgold]

No, I don't think you can love both. Love is a commitment, a choice. It leads to a state of companionship and, ideally, stays that way, combined with loyalty, respect and passion (passion being the factor that is likely to disappear fast).

 

The AP gives you something different, new and exciting, and since you are "in love" with them, it can be easily confused with the love thing. However, as time goes by and if you choose the AP over your spouse, the same void will creep up making you look for the excited "in love" feeling elsewhere.

 

If you keep both, M and A, you will always feel that longing for the AP, because they are less available due to the secrecy factor. This pining and longing may be confused with love, but IMO it's just a hormonal, chemical state of your body. If someone has an affair, they are prone to having affairs in the first place, which means that they are probably a little bit addicted to the thrill.

 

I totally understand, though, that the thrill is addictive. But is it love? Not very likely, IMO.

 

I think there is a lot of truth in this.

[TaraMaiden]

We're taught in this society, through laws, through social conditioning, and through religious influence, to not steal things that we desperately want, to not harm children, to not kill people we hate, or beat people who desperately deserve it. There are many restrictions that have come to be "imposed" for very, very good reasons, because often, human nature/inclination/impulse is not necessarily a very good thing at all.

 

That's a smoke and mirrors argument. It's pointless, because what you cite is actually physically damaging to the very fabric of society you live in.

It's completely "Anti Social". And it's against the Law - rightly so.

 

Remaining monogamous, and loving only one person, actually goes against Nature. And it's not illegal.

 

If every human being actually followed through with what we have been conditioned to accept about monogamy, in society -through laws, through social conditioning, and through religious influence, - then you'd still be with the first BF/GF you'd ever met.

At the time, they were the love of your life, your soulmate, the person you were going to grow old with and have for ever....You had every intention of staying with them, because of the intensity of feelings.

 

Feelings, desires and tastes, change. People change. Our view of 'love' changes. Priorities change.

Nothing stands still, ever.

So expecting a relationship to remain unchanged, is actually sheer lunacy, and unnatural.

[TaraMaiden]

No, I don't think you can love both. Love is a commitment, a choice. It leads to a state of companionship and, ideally, stays that way, combined with loyalty, respect and passion (passion being the factor that is likely to disappear fast).

 

It's got very little to do with Love, in the beginning.

The first thing to smack people between the eyes is 'Mutual attraction'.

You even say that 'It leads'....Feelings develop. We permit, allow or choose to develop strongly intense feelings for the other person. To begin with though, there's a different spark.

 

"And ideally stays that way"....?

Not a chance.

A relationship develops, transforms and is created by two people, to feed and nourish them both as individuals and as a couple.

But it never, but never runs along precisely the same lines.

 

People - within the same relationship - want different things. They hope for the kind of input from their partner that will keep them happy.

And the input they receive is almost never precisely what they envisioned.

And this is when disappointment, frustration and failure begin to manifest.

This is when the cracks start to show.

When the relationship they are in - monogamous, faithful, dedicated - begins to go stale, and when the minds of those involved begin to grow unsettled, this is when the fissures appear.

 

This forum is complete testimony to the above.

 

If people were able to deal logically with their emotions, and face the fact that one person in their whole life is not going to be everything they have ever wished for, hoped for and desired, there would be fewer broken hearts.