"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.