"I Love You, but I'm Not IN LOVE With You" is a Cop-Out

In my travels, I came across a very interesting blog about relationships. An article with the above title caught my eye, but for likely very different reasons than the blogger, searchingwithin, intended. I have heard this phrase several times from woman outside our marriage.

I am currently in a marriage marred by deception and infidelity. I thought we were soulmates and had a relationship built on mutual respect, so was trusting of all my husband's female "buddies." Even when things got a little too chummy, when so much time was being invested in the outside relationships, I still trusted him. He said there was "nothing" going on between them, there was nothing for me to be concerned about.

With several of these so-called "friends," I had chances to talk with them, to find out more about the nature of their relationship with my husband, and actually asked them about it.

Some were really just friends. However, there were several women whose explanations had a very different tone, who acknowledged explicitly that they loved my husband. Although they all had a unique story to tell about him, each and every one ended up saying the same phrase: "Oh, oh, I love him, but I am not IN LOVE with him." In retrospect, I do feel this was a cop-out.

I am aware that at least one of these women was having a full-blown relationship with my husband, with his planning to leave me and be with her. He spent a great deal of time with her. And this is what I could confirm.

Who knows about the rest who also "love him, but are not in love with him?" Ah, but this is where this story ends, because I have reached a point where it does not matter. I am not concerned about the others any more, and whatever I say or do or feel has never mattered to any of them--even my husband.

Nothing matters now except moving forward, in peace without pain, without doubt, with my Self intact. That is for the spring to bring...

A Valentine Message for My Spouse

As you privately share with your secret Valentines, I wish you your life and inspiration, hoping that you finally find True Love within your Self.

I am very truly sorry that I could never be for you what you needed or wanted, but I cannot be any one else any more. A fatigue within my Being has been setting in that I must awake from to save my Self. I am tired of the emotional distance between us, the deception, the cold indifference, lack of compassion and warmth. Most of all, I am tired of being criticized and blamed as if I was the only person in this relationship, as if you never make mistakes.

But I also do not want you to be any one else. This is who you are, who you have chosen to be, and I must honor that.

There is a strange peace in knowing there is no other place for us to go, except where we are right now. It is not a place I want to be, but such is Life with lovelessness.

I wish only that Angels watch over each of us as we walk our separate paths into the future.

A New Year

Wow! I did not realize that it had been so long since my last post. I have been really trying to move on, to adjust my thinking, to be more trustful. My husband appears to be faithful and more present in our marriage, but I truly don't know if I can get past the doubts. I say "appears" because I will never know. He "appeared" to be faithful and honest and invested in our marriage, but I was wrong. He appeared to love me and respect me, and I was wrong. To be honest, I feel he is just being more careful and more selective of the maturity level of his "outside interests." I only knew of his transgressions because his woman felt the uncontrollable urge to tell the world about the intimate details of their relationship.

I wish that he and I could talk about what happened and bring real closure to those events. If we could have constructive dialogue about what happened, and what he felt that lead him to make the choices he did, I would be much more willing to move on, and I would know better how not to repeat the same mistakes as a couple. But this will never be because he wants to just forget everything. He wants me to forget everything, but I cannot forget what all of this really meant: that he does not love me. Even more than one year later, he cannot calmly discuss the events and the deception that lead us to where we are today...to where I am every day because I grow very weary of the emotional famine that I have to live with.

There is no affection--no tender touch, no arms around me, no holding of hands (in public or in private). There are no hugs nor closeness in the darkness as we prepare to sleep. There is no compassion when he sees that I am in pain. Only an irritated "What now?" He does not tell me he loves me, or that he cares about me, or that he is glad or happy or whatever that I have been so tolerant about what happened.

I do not know whether he is being honest with me or continuing the deception with others. Where does any relationship go when truth has gone? Everything is questioned and nothing is authentic. How does one live like that with integrity? How CAN one live with integrity with such doubt?

I realized that she was not probably not the only one. The signs were there, but I wanted to trust him and believe in him. He likely still communicates with them, and/or they with him, though more secretly. I do not want to live like that. I know too many married couples who have lived entire loveless lives together and it is a sham. I will not live with that deception, pretending that everything is alright. But I do not know what to do about it. I pray for the strength to know what is best to do for the both of us, and then do it with conviction and inner strength.

At times, I remain so busy that I do not think about it. But at other times, the sadness and soulful fatigue is unbearable, and I feel nothing but the heaviness of my being so wrong, my own stupidity for not going with my gut feelings. When I thought he was being unfaithful before, he told me that there was nothing to be concerned about, that there was no one else. So when he says the same things now, what does it mean?

I grow more doubtful of my Self and I cannot let this happen. I have only my strength of spirit to carry me through this.

There are so many things I wish could happen, but they won't. I believe in this Free Will Universe, and he has chosen to be this way with me. I don't want to love him. I don't want to pretend any more. I don't want him to have to pretend. And so it goes on until what happens? This is another story that is yet to be told.