Do Married Men Ever Tell The Other Woman That They Love Her?
By: Katie Lersch: One of the most persuasive problems that couples have when trying to reconcile after a husband’s affair is the wife believing that he truly still loves her and wants to be with her. This can be particularly true if he made claims to be “in love” with the other woman.
Sometimes, the other woman will make this claim (while the husband denies it) and the wife will desperately want to believe that it isn’t even close to being the truth. Someone might ask: “do married men ever tell the other woman that they are in love with her? The other woman my husband cheated with is telling me that he told her that he’d never loved anymore more than he loves her. I find this a little hard to believe. I come from a culture where the mistress was sort of disrespected and every one knew that it was only about sex. People generally believed that a man loves his wife, but he lusts after his mistress. In my mind’s eye, I pictured my husband having sex with her without much conversation and without exchanging words about their feelings. But she insists that this is not true. She insists that he told her that he loved her almost every time that they were together. Of course, she has no proof of this whatsoever. So that makes me not believe her even more. And my husband denies ever expressing feelings of love for her. I want to save my marriage, but I am not sure that I am going to be able to if I believe he actually loved her. The affair is over. He has been with me pretty much every waking moment since I found out about it, so I do believe that he has broken it off and perhaps her whole ‘love’ claims are because she’s trying to split us up so she can have him. But it makes me curious if married men tell the other woman that they love her.”
Men Can Express Love For Various Deceptive Reasons: From the correspondence that I get, it is pretty clear that in some instances, yes, this claim is made. I think that the reasons why a husband makes this claim can certainly vary. Some men are dealing with a woman who isn’t going to carry out the affair unless she believes that he loves her and that they are going to have a future. (And so he tells her what she wants to hear.) Other men may truly believe that they are in love with her in that moment in time, but then quickly change their minds when they are faced with the prospect of losing their marriages.
Putting It In Perspective: I know that what I am about to say may seem insensitive and I don’t intend for it to come out that way. But think for a second about what really matters. Your husband has made no attempt to see her and he seems perfectly content to end the affair and move on with his marriage. Does this sound like a man who is desperately in love with the other woman?
If he loved her that much, he would have refused to end the affair and would still actively be in that relationship. But this is not the case. He chose you. And he chose to break things off with her abruptly and completely. This is not the behavior of a man who is deeply in love with another woman.
And I am not defending the behavior of your husband or any man who cheats. I know first hand just how hurtful and devastating that behavior is. At the same time though, I do believe that most men are telling the other woman what he thinks she wants to hear.
Why An Affair Doesn’t Meet The Criteria For A ‘Loving’ Relationship: A relationship based on lies and secrets can’t be a very loving relationship, by definition alone. Most of the time, the other woman desperately wants to believe that she is loved because it makes the whole thing easier for her. I’m not saying that she’s lying. He may have told her that he loved her. But his behavior right now does not indicate that he does.
We all know that truly loving relationships are built over time. They require honestly, loyalty, and truth. They often come about gradually and they mature as the couple weathers storms together. Most of the time, an affair does not meet this criteria. It is a short term thing that generally happens when a man is struggling emotionally and therefore has nothing emotional to give to the other woman. It may make her feel better to think he loves her. But the fact that he keeps her a secret, gives her scraps of his time, and usually drops her the second his wife finds out is not very indicate of true love.
So yes, married men do sometimes tell the other woman that he loves her. But certainly, not all of them mean it. Many say it just to make things seem easier from a moral point of view. And they quickly back away from this view once they have been caught or once enough time passes so they can see their feelings a little more clearly.
Thankfully, my husband never declared any love for the other woman. But we certainly had other issues to overcome. You can read more about our struggles and how we overcame them on my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com
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