Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Can a husband be in love with his wife and have long term affair?

145 replies

Summerdaysandnights · 13/10/2024 16:44

I'm not taking him back but he keeps saying he always loved me and always will... If so why did he have an affair ? We had regular good sex ( before of course I found out he had a mistress) It's over now between them .I always thought if you loved your spouse/ partner you wouldn't even dream of cheating, am I wrong ?
.

OP posts:
Lovecheat · 13/10/2024 22:07

Calliopespa · 13/10/2024 21:48

Has it occurred to that maybe you didn’t really love either ?

At least not as deeply as those who believe you can’t love two at once have loved.,

Edited

No I know that I love my DH deeply and I know he deeply loves me . I didn’t love my affair partner, but I don’t regret him at all. It doesn’t really matter to me what other people think as I am really happy with my DH and our marriage and always was even when in the midst of an affair.

josuk · 13/10/2024 22:09

@Summerdaysandnights
For some people - most of women, I am guessing - love and sex are firmly connected.
Hence the OP’s question.
But many people don’t need to be in love to have sex. And many can be in long term loving relationships and still want to have physical experiences with others.
Sexual boredom in long term relationships is not new news. This happens a lot more than people are willing to accept.

Does not change anything for the OP, I am guessing. But yes - completely possible to be married for 30 years, love their partner, and have an affair.

I think most people would wonder what sex is like with others if they only had sex with one person for most of their adult life.

HazelPlayer · 13/10/2024 22:11

So why is romantic love different? It's not

It totally is.

Come on.

You're not sexually intimate and likely reproducing & raising offspring with the people in any of the other scenarios you mention.

Mahidevran · 13/10/2024 22:11

HazelPlayer · 13/10/2024 21:59

But love goes further than not doing eg hurtful things to your partner, just because they will find out.

If you were capable of actual love, you wouldn't do that to them, even if they didn't/never find out.

Part of love is treating someone equally to yourself.
Making your partner continue to stick to eg monogamy/sexual exclusivity - while you don't - is not treating them equally.
Not informing your partner, with whom you've agreed monogamy, that you're sexually active with another partner (with all the emotional and physical implications of that for them) is taking away their agency , depriving then of their informed choice in deciding whether to continue the relationship or intimacy with you. Again, you're not treating them equally. You are giving them less rights than you in the relationship.

That's not love.

Edited

Exactly, people often focus on true love like it is only a sacrificial thing, like you forfeit the desire to shag a load of other people out of some kind of dutiful obligation. The deepest love is more than dutiful obligation, you literally wouldn’t want to do anything like that, you are totally invested in the person you love, you want THEM. This is why it’s important to understand a partners definition of love. I was with a man who said he was so crazy about me, had never felt that way blah blah blah, and I felt all that for him. But, I only wanted him, I only had eyes for him and nothing would have compelled me to look outside of what we shared, in fact it would have sickened me. Not so for him, he considered commitment to mean he was essentially giving up his true desires which would have been to shag a load of other women. Some are happy to settle for someone that thinks that way, I’m not.

so your husband is likely one of those, and he has stumbled and fallen and given in to his true desires. Whether he “loved” her too or was just shagging her, we don’t know, perhaps you know more OP? But his definition of love is not a love worth having anyway, he’s better left to be with someone whose definition of love matches his own, both struggling with their desires for others and out of dutiful obligation trying not to give in to those desires. I don’t buy that definition of love, for me, anyone who feels that way, just hasn’t met that one person yet that would be all consuming for them.

If your husband was shagging her and shagging you, and likely saying he loves you and saying he loves her, then his definition of love likely doesn’t match yours, and so your question “could he still love me”, is essentially meaningless. The only thing that matters is this. Is his love worth having? Is it the highest form of love, does it define how you want to be thought of, desired and loved? If not, then no, he doesn’t love you with the definition of love that is meaningful to you.

was it love when he was shagging her, holding her and saying thing to her that implied he felt all for her? Was that loving you? As someone said, these men usually work off a script and he will have made your relationship out to be boring, not sexual, like you had separate lives and like you were just together for practical reasons, and the fact is, that most of that is the truth. But now he has lost the security of that, it means more to him, he likely has a lot to lose here, not your romantic love, but the practical things that are tied to that. While he was having his cake and eating it, I can guarantee that’s when he was at his most content, once you take him back, he will think of her and what could have been. If he’s just a player doing this with multiple women, he will miss the buzz of cheating and having his cake and eating it. The remorse these guys feel is because they lost their home life and the practical things that come with that, and wish things could be like they were pre discovery. That generally the case. If he generally is remorseful and only wants you- well who wants to be with a guy that had everything he ever wanted but still went and screwed someone else, that shows that he has compulsions he has no control over and it would happen again. Most of these guys lie to the affair partner and then lie to the wife when they are discovered. They are very good at lying which is why they could do this in the first place- a lack of conscience, integrity and moral values.

HazelPlayer · 13/10/2024 22:21

josuk · 13/10/2024 22:09

@Summerdaysandnights
For some people - most of women, I am guessing - love and sex are firmly connected.
Hence the OP’s question.
But many people don’t need to be in love to have sex. And many can be in long term loving relationships and still want to have physical experiences with others.
Sexual boredom in long term relationships is not new news. This happens a lot more than people are willing to accept.

Does not change anything for the OP, I am guessing. But yes - completely possible to be married for 30 years, love their partner, and have an affair.

I think most people would wonder what sex is like with others if they only had sex with one person for most of their adult life.

This post is a bit mind boggling.

We can all want to shag someone other than our partner.

However our only two ethical options (ethical towards our partner, whom we're supposed to love) are a pre agreed open relationship. Or to end the relationship and then shag the other person/people

End of.

The op's h can claim he loves her but his "love" involved no ethical behaviour towards her. He chose deception, betrayal, lack of consent, removing her agency etc. He gave himself more rights than her.

(Oh and I bet he wouldn't be quite so "loving" and quite so keen on "only" her now if it was the op who had been on another man's dick. Men are terribly good at compartmentalising sex when it isn't "their" woman who's doing it with other men; then they're not quite so good at compartmentalising it. In fact they're often violent).

I also bet he fed the ow a crock of shit .... And denigrated the op and his marriage. There are very few women who'll do the horizontal tango with a married man without that script being rolled out.
That's the cherry on top of the shit cake that he already served up with his physical infidelity.

TornLimb · 13/10/2024 22:22

Human being are extremely complex and for love to exist, survive, or last certain requirements and abilities are essential.

Many of these requirements will be inate and many will be learnt from upbringing, enviroment and social background.
We can only vet someone upto a certain point, and there is no insurance policy of them not changing over time due to weakness in character, illness or oportunities.

If you meet that person who is steadfastly safe and reliable you are indeed blessed as marriage to some people is basically just like a check tick box, just like learning to ride a bike, swimming, driving, owning your own home, a job. Becoming married and having children to some is just something that can be expected, or something to do. As important as anything else and as disposable as anything else.

I've seen true love and seen how it has pushed all other priorities aside to be the main event. Through hard times and good, through old age and death, and the very real feeliings of no doubt, total respect and absolute certainty of being safe. This was not my relationship but there will be many who have experienced it or seen it.
It is a joy to see a family unit grow, expand and remain in tact till death, done right the respect and joy that can be taught by passing it on is immense.
Real love is an incredibly powerful emotion that can surpass any threat or intruder.

It does and can exist.

I do believe there are many who cannot understand love and what is required, many will not have the mental ability some will not understand the priorities of love or the pleasure of it as it changes through time and age, it certainly isn't something that is conducted in secrecy with unbeknowing people in the background.
That is not love, not even a fraction of it.

rockingbird · 13/10/2024 22:24

Summerdaysandnights · 13/10/2024 20:53

I feel I was robbed of all my youthful years .I'm 53 now and have to make all these decisions now about my future...It's worse than any grief I've been through.. He led me to believe he was happy..
I adored him but now I'll never see him as the man I thought he was ..

I totally get this, I feel the same. Some days I'm so angry that the man I married and loved so much robbed me of my life with his lies and deceit. He doesn't see it that way! In fact he's completely rewritten the whole story in his head and totally minimises it all. I'm with you, it's such a shock and unfortunately we just have to accept it somehow and move on with our lives.

GettingStuffed · 13/10/2024 22:25

In Welsh there's two words for live, cariad a serch. Cariad is the comfortable love like you have with your children, parents. Etc and in a long relationship, serch is a more physical live, not lust but heading in that direction.

I would say that it is possible but that cariad should overpower serch rather than the other way around

HazelPlayer · 13/10/2024 22:32

as marriage to some people is basically just like a check tick box, just like learning to ride a bike, swimming, driving, owning your own home, a job. Becoming married and having children to some is just something that can be expected, or something to do. As important as anything else and as disposable as anything else.

Totally

I've lost count of the number of men over the years I've met who - when I found out they were married - it shocked me shitless. Because they had been acting really interested and available in a way that I would never have expected an attached man to be acting. A lot of men just fall into a relationship and get hitched because it's the done thing. Don't want to be left out of the grab a partner parlour game. But in terms of loyalty, true commitment, emotion, integrity etc ... .. it's not there.

IcedPurple · 13/10/2024 22:38

Squirrel01 · 13/10/2024 21:28

because when having an affair usually the presumption is they can keep it covert and secret

Right. So they're keeping it 'covert and secret' precisely because they know they are doing something wrong.

And sooner or later, despite all the cloak and dagger stuff, the affair is usually discovered and someone ends up getting very hurt. That's not how you treat someone you love.

Firstlemonaid · 13/10/2024 22:39

IcedPurple · 13/10/2024 22:38

Right. So they're keeping it 'covert and secret' precisely because they know they are doing something wrong.

And sooner or later, despite all the cloak and dagger stuff, the affair is usually discovered and someone ends up getting very hurt. That's not how you treat someone you love.

Sometimes it's not because they care about doing wrong. It's because they dont want to have to stop doing it. Slightly more nuanced.

Squirrel01 · 13/10/2024 22:39

IcedPurple · 13/10/2024 22:38

Right. So they're keeping it 'covert and secret' precisely because they know they are doing something wrong.

And sooner or later, despite all the cloak and dagger stuff, the affair is usually discovered and someone ends up getting very hurt. That's not how you treat someone you love.

usally it is, but some can go on for years etc

but yes it is not good behaviour

Viviennemary · 13/10/2024 22:40

Yes. I would say some people can. Or so it would seem.

HamSandwic · 13/10/2024 22:44

No you can't love someone and have an affair. The lie alone is unforgivable and spits on that persons trust.

Squirrel01 · 13/10/2024 22:48

the question of whether someone can love their partner and still have an affair is a complex one, and the answer largely depends on how love is defined. While it is possible for someone to claim they love their partner while engaging in infidelity, the deception, betrayal, and emotional fallout of an affair fundamentally undermine the core elements of love, particularly trust and loyalty. The rationalization and emotional compartmentalization required to sustain both love and an affair create cognitive dissonance, which ultimately damages the relationship.

True love, in its most authentic form, demands transparency, trust, and emotional integrity—qualities that are incompatible with the deception involved in an affair. While it may be possible for someone to believe they love their partner while being unfaithful, the long-term consequences of infidelity usually reveal that love, in its truest sense, cannot coexist with betrayal. Therefore, while someone may convince themselves that love and infidelity can coexist in the short term, the erosion of trust and emotional connection over time suggests that these two states are fundamentally at odds with one another.

HazelPlayer · 13/10/2024 22:49

Can he "love" (his definition & practice of love) you and shag someone else - yes

(I'm presuming he's not saying he loves/loved her too, so we're not debating whether he can love two women at the same time).

The real issue is - is his definition and practice of "love" acceptable to you?
The answer is apparently no.

I think you are far from alone in that.

His "love" ain't worth much.

DoYouReally · 13/10/2024 22:49

Personally love includes trust and respect.

To have an affair, you are breaking both of this so no, not my definition.

He may very well have a different understanding of love. He might even believe it when he says it. But I think he's just talking nonsense.

SquirrelSoShiny · 13/10/2024 22:53

Elasticatedtrousers · 13/10/2024 16:53

Yes. But it’s their view of what love looks like that’s the problem.

I personally believe many affairs are addictive in nature and often used as a self soothing tool. They have very little to do with the person being betrayed and a lot more to do with the flaw in character of the cheat.

The betrayed is collateral damage.

I know people will disagree and shout about lack of respect but I’ve known cheats who genuinely believed they loved their partners.

Whether their love is worth anything is another matter.

I agree.

I also think some people are instinctively more polyamorous and have the capacity to love two people BUT there's often a thread of selfishness or narcissism. The partners are reduced to 'people who meet the cheater's needs.'

Duckingella · 13/10/2024 22:53

I think men want to their wives to forgive them or just not find out as divorce is expensive,they have to then pay maintenance,manage a household alone physically and financially and parent solo on their contact time plus it's embarrassing for them when their friends/family/work colleagues find out what they've done,they lose people's respect and trust.

Staying married is just so much more convenient and sex with the OW probably isn't anywhere near as thrilling when your whole life goes tits up and everyone knows you're a lying cheat.

So yes they tend to profess undying love for the wife once they've been caught.

Good for you for standing your ground,here's wishing you the very for your future.

CaroHart · 13/10/2024 22:53

Having an affair has nothing to do with whether you love your spouse. Cheaters cheat, because they're weak, cowardly and dishonest. He has no moral framework, and no matter how much he "loves" you, that means that you can't trust him.

EliflurtleAndTheInfiniteMadness · 13/10/2024 23:04

I think you can love someone, be in love with someone and still hurt them, but it's a very selfish limited kind of love. Love like any emotion doesn't look the same to everyone. For me deeply loving someone means I put them first, I consider them more than I consider myself. I go too much the other way and lose myself. There's a healthy middle ground between the two extremes where you can love someone deeply and consider them without always putting yourself last or losing yourself. If you're at the extremes it only works if the other person is at the same end of the scale, so if you both consider the other first it works, or if you both priortise yourself it works. This isn't just for romantic love, parents can have this limited love too. XH loves our kids, I know he'd risk his life to save them, but on a day to day level he is incredibly selfish and not willing to put them first. I think his capacity to love is limited by how selfish and self centred he is, but that is what love is for him.

Mahidevran · 13/10/2024 23:05

SquirrelSoShiny · 13/10/2024 22:53

I agree.

I also think some people are instinctively more polyamorous and have the capacity to love two people BUT there's often a thread of selfishness or narcissism. The partners are reduced to 'people who meet the cheater's needs.'

100% this is at the core of it. This different definition of love generally is held by narcissists, to say you love someone when you’ve been shagging someone else, with a straight face, means you believe that to be the case. That’s because their definition of love is entirely self serving. What they mean is, “I want you, but not exclusively”, “I want you to serve my needs but it doesn’t stop me accepting others advances in serving my needs or me pursuing others to serve my needs”, “I enjoy your company” “I like building a life with you”, “I’ve enjoyed shagging you”

what is doesn’t mean is, I adore you, exclusively just you, I only want you, I want to protect the life we’ve built together, I never want to see you hurt, I want to protect and cherish you always, you are the only girl for me.

narcs simply don’t think that way, although they can pretend to, and they can mirror this type of love to the point where it feels you’ve never loved or been loved like it before….but, all people to them are to serve their needs, they can switch it on and off, and there will always be someone who can replace you, because it’s not real, not in the sense that you believe it is. So their love isn’t worth having because it’s not how you are thinking love is. Helps to ask someone what their definition of love is!

Mahidevran · 13/10/2024 23:10

And you’ll never meet a narc who’s more in love when he’s about to lose his home, family, reputation, retirement, cook, cleaner, home organiser, sounding board and someone to shift the rest of his daily burdens onto. It’s simply impractical to the narc. If he could have all of that back but in a body that’s 30 years younger and a naive mind that believes everything he says, he’d take that option instead- in most cases- every time. Sorry to say this OP, but this is how so many of these people operate. I believe it’s what you represent that he’s scared of losing, because if he gave an actual F about YOU, he’d never have done any of it.

XChrome · 14/10/2024 04:18

Firstlemonaid · 13/10/2024 22:39

Sometimes it's not because they care about doing wrong. It's because they dont want to have to stop doing it. Slightly more nuanced.

Of course they don't care about doing wrong, otherwise they would stop doing wrong.
I don't think the poster you are responding to meant to say they care about their wrongdoing. They only care if they get caught doing wrong.

honestasever · 14/10/2024 04:39

I suspect he still does love you @Summerdaysandnights
and always has.

I’m not sure if you’ve said how long this affair was?
Affairs are about the cheater, it’s not a reflection on you and not always about your relationship. Some people in good relationships cheat, and some people in shit relationships don’t. It’s a failing in him.

Please don’t feel you have been robbed of those years.
I understand your pain.