Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

If your DP cheated, would you automatically stop loving them?

81 replies

GnTx3 · 14/09/2023 20:40

Hi,

This came from a conversation I had with a friend last week. She said that not only would she not forgive her DP if they cheated, but she wouldn't love them anymore. As in, immediately. All love, gone from that point.

I said I definitely couldn't forgive and am pretty sure that would be it, in terms of the relationship, but I can't imagine that the love would just stop. Yes, I would feel differently about them. I suspect I would hate them actually and the love certainly wouldn't be the same, but it wouldn't be gone entirely....I don't think, anyway.

Am I unusual for feeling like this? I've never really thought about it before this conversation.

YABU - Yes, the love would stop

YANBU - No, I would still love them as well as hating their guts

OP posts:
SchoolQuestionnaire · 15/09/2023 07:40

I would still love my dh. After so many years and a wonderful life together it would be difficult to stop. But it would be over for me because my opinion of him would have changed. He’d have become a cliche like the other middle aged men who have a midlife crisis.

TheGrimSqueakersFlea · 15/09/2023 07:42

It's happened to me and yes, it's amazing how fast you can stop loving someone. You suddenly realise that your relationship was a lie and they have no respect for you

User98866 · 15/09/2023 07:44

You can’t turn true feelings of love on and off can you? If you could human existence have been an awfully lot less complicated! I do wonder what sort of feelings some marriages are based on. Many I read about on here do seem very transactional. I would love and desire my DH forever.

WandaWonder · 15/09/2023 07:47

I would lose instant respect for them, can't comment on love but if my child did something terrible I would still love them and although the love for my husband is different it could not vanish overnight

jeaux90 · 15/09/2023 07:52

I agree with your friend because I love me and my self respect more. I don't need my partner, I chose to be with him, why would I be with someone that cheated.

AdoraBell · 15/09/2023 07:52

Not necessarily stop loving immediately but I think the emotions would be taken over by anger and betrayal. With that I would not trust someone who cheats.

Lobelia123 · 15/09/2023 07:55

This is a really complex question and one of those that people who have never experienced it, have strong opinions about, but may find that when it happens to them, their own feelings and stance are very different from what they always stated they would and could feel, say and do. My own experience has been, love for the person was what made me initially stay with them, despite the affair, but I did find that that love had changed, because it gradually dawned on me that the person I had loved would not have acted like that. I still loved him, but it changed my perception of who he was, and long term that affected the viability of the relationship.

Toomanysquishmallows · 15/09/2023 07:56

My ex and I split due to his infidelity, he started another relationship, when we had a three month old baby . I utterly detest him now .

Foxblue · 15/09/2023 07:56

Honestly, I agree with the comments saying there's worse things to happen in a marriage.
I find the threads on here where a husband treats the wife as default childcare and cleaner worse than a cheating - a misogynist has treated you like you exist to serve him, and your children as optional extras in his life, I find that far more disrespectful and unforgiveable than a cheat.

Eleganz · 15/09/2023 07:57

When you are dealing in hypotheticals they are just that and it is easy to say you would immediately "switch off" the love when you find out. The reality is far messier and unpredictable.

I reckon I would have said the same as your friend, but when it actually happened to me I spent almost 2 years trying to patch up a broken marriage after my ex cheated on me. I was scared and hurt and just wanted things to be the way I thought they were before. The love did not leave immediately, what left was the trust and security in the marriage and it took me far too long to realise that it wasn't ever coming back.

Thepeopleversuswork · 15/09/2023 07:58

User98866 · 15/09/2023 07:44

You can’t turn true feelings of love on and off can you? If you could human existence have been an awfully lot less complicated! I do wonder what sort of feelings some marriages are based on. Many I read about on here do seem very transactional. I would love and desire my DH forever.

I think you can if you train yourself to.

Marriage is a transaction. It’s a contract. Part of the reason why women are traditionally furious about being cheated on is because it’s bound up with other public signifiers of their “worth”.

ie; someone has cheated on you, it must be because she is more attractive than you etc. A lot of women have been socialised to believe it’s their “job” to keep the marriage going (through the use of various womanly arts). So women beat themselves up after affairs for not being “enough”, leading to a desperate “pick me” cycle.

If you refuse to play this game the “love” disappears pretty quickly. Someone has cheated on you they have dishonoured you and broken the contract. Simple as that. Love” in that context is just martyrdom.

Of course most people are going to have residual feelings about it. But that’s just a normal trauma response. It’s not love.

Watchkeys · 15/09/2023 07:58

I think it would be a fatal blow for the love, but it might spend quite a lot of time limping along in intensive care, trying to survive.

I'd lose trust and respect, but would find it hard not to find my partner lovable on a day to day basis, so the love would necessarily get more and more superficial until it had no depth at all.

Janieforever · 15/09/2023 07:59

If I knew my husband was lying to me, secretly getting naked, intimate with another woman, inside her, yes I’d end it, and my feelings would change immediately, the sense of betrayal, disgust and humiliation would out shadow any previous feelings of love. I would mourn I got it wrong, that he could treat me like that, do that. That he wasn’t who I thought he was. But no, that intimacy would kill it for me.

AlrightThen · 15/09/2023 10:36

Stop loving them? No, I would be happy they had a great time.

CharSiu · 15/09/2023 10:41

Loving him would be irrelevant I know myself and would be full of anger and vitriol. It would be over 100%.

KimberleyClark · 15/09/2023 10:43

No but I would no longer be able to trust him and probably would not be able to forgive.

Sauvblanctime · 15/09/2023 10:44

It took me 17 years to stop loving my ex, he was still repeatedly cheating, it took a further 4 years to leave him.

Janieforever · 15/09/2023 10:45

User98866 · 15/09/2023 07:44

You can’t turn true feelings of love on and off can you? If you could human existence have been an awfully lot less complicated! I do wonder what sort of feelings some marriages are based on. Many I read about on here do seem very transactional. I would love and desire my DH forever.

There is nothing transactional about not loving someone who treats you badly.

you would love and desire your husband for ever, even if he was shagging around, hit you, abused a child, committed insect, left you, he can do anything and you’d still be sitting there loving and desiring him?

your statement is one of the most disturbing things I’ve read on here.

KimberleyClark · 15/09/2023 10:48

User98866 · 15/09/2023 07:44

You can’t turn true feelings of love on and off can you? If you could human existence have been an awfully lot less complicated! I do wonder what sort of feelings some marriages are based on. Many I read about on here do seem very transactional. I would love and desire my DH forever.

Even if he, say, raped and murdered someone?

Watchkeys · 15/09/2023 10:54

User98866 · 15/09/2023 07:44

You can’t turn true feelings of love on and off can you? If you could human existence have been an awfully lot less complicated! I do wonder what sort of feelings some marriages are based on. Many I read about on here do seem very transactional. I would love and desire my DH forever.

No, you can't turn them on and off, any more than you can turn the rain or sunshine on and off. That doesn't mean they don't naturally change though. We can't promise to feel something forever any more than we can promise that it will always be sunny.

PerfectMatch · 15/09/2023 11:11

I've loved him for 26 years, it's hard to imagine suddenly stopping. I think it would depend on whether it was a one night stand or v brief fling which would be different to a betrayal lasting for months.

booksandbrews · 15/09/2023 11:36

There’s really no way to know how you’ll feel/react until you experience it. That’s why taking advice from people on ‘what they would do’ is pointless. Only people who’ve experienced it can provide any real insight, and even then, every affair/relationship/aftermath is different.

booksandbrews · 15/09/2023 11:37

And every adult relationship is conditional. What those conditions are differs for everyone.

Fridaysgirl17 · 15/09/2023 11:45

Having been there I didn't stop loving him immediately,oh I hated him with a fury, he'd lied,cheated,broken our family & once I was out of the fog I realised that our relationship really wasn't what I thought it was & truly the love disappeared, I heard more & more about how he'd been messing around while I was at home with our kids & was disgusted. Now 2 years on he's with the OW still (toxic relationship) sees our boys maybe once a week, & I can honestly say I'm indifferent to him,he's not the man I thought he was,he never was that man.

OneTC · 15/09/2023 11:58

My OH cheated on me and I considered ending it but I couldn't really imagine life with anyone else