Being Married But in Love with Someone Else

which is a person who is married but says that they are in love with someone else okay and what do we want to talk about with that person maybe just a little bit about you know why why they are thinking that way you know two people not in an affair and when you know I know this was new to me you know that the whole concept of limerence and and all of that I knew nothing about it so maybe just explaining a little bit about what the person who is going through the affair what they're thinking okay now the reason that I can speak to this very specifically is because many many years ago I left my wife Alice for another woman we actually divorced I divorced Alice to be with the other woman three years after divorcing Alice we put it back together and I remarried her and we've been married know at the time of this recording and a couple of weeks it'll be 31 years but it does put me in a position where that I understand a lot about what people feel and what they're going through because I've been there the thing Allison don't remember is that there are different kinds of extramarital affairs and for some people who are watching us the extramarital affair if you're the one who is in it for some people that's primarily because of the fact of or less sexually motivated sometimes people talk about things that they call sex addicts for example and as a sexologist I don't use that phraseology I don't call people sex addicts and I don't need to get a null reason to explain why I have people want to use that phrase doesn't bother me whatsoever but I prefer to talk about people who have compulsive sexual problems okay and there are some great resources out there and if your if your infidelity if your affairs based on the fact that you have a sex drive that seems to be out of control in the sense that you're looking for constantly looking for new partners then we can help you with your marriage but when it comes to that particular aspect you're really gonna need to find some help beyond what we do now we can help you and we have coaches and all kinds of great things for you as a matter of fact a little later we'll tell you more about coaches but you can go to some websites such as if you want a secular resource to help you you know go to sex help calm s exh ELP calm it's not a porn site it's actually associated with Patrick Carnes there's kind of like the granddaddy of the guys and gals who deal with sex addicts if you want to use that phrase and and on there you can actually take one of their tests to see if you are what they would call a sex addict actually for those of you who are married to a person that you think may or may not be a sex addict there's a test you can actually take on your spouse on that same site and then they can refer you to two counselors and therapists that they've trained around America that they validate they have vetted they've trained them they say these are people are gonna help you with that if you prefer a religious source there's one that's outstanding it's great it's called xx Church actually three X's xx x church.com pretty sure it's calm you might want to check dot org I should have checked it before we came on the air but it's xxx Church X x-axis eh you are CH and a pretty shirts calm if not tried org and they come at it from a faith-based perspective and they've got some great materials for both husbands and wives but you know because you talk to the people on a phone that the kind of affair that we most often deal with is not just sexual as a matter of fact didn't start that way typically right started as a relationship so if that's you if you're the person who is involved with somebody else like I never ever would have thought that I was the guy who would have cheated on his wife or the gal who would have cheated on her husband and yet I am in the situation where I am quote mandala in love with this other person that's the one that we see most often and that's the one that we deal with most often I understand the tremendous amount of emotion that you feel I also know that you and all likelihood did not mean to get into this situation it started off as a friendship you guys communicated with each other and in the course of that you found yourself attracted to him or her of course and it was reciprocal attraction came back the other way but as you were communicating with each other begin to be very at least over time they get to be very transparent very open very honest with each other even more so at some point then you are now with your spouse you may have been that open and transparent with your spouse somewhere back at all along the line but but now it's with this person and as you've shared your fears your dreams your weaknesses your strengths here your frustrations your desires as you talk to so openly and honestly it's like nobody nobody in my life have I ever been able to explain myself to who got me who understood me like this person does it's like and I think that's where people in the modern day time used the phrase soulmate if you go back into mythology soulmate meant something totally different but I think now they use the word soulmate to refer to the fact that it's like like this person was made for me I was made for him I made for her and in this connection is just absolutely beyond description I can't even explain it to other people because I don't know if anybody else has ever felt when I fell or what I'm feeling now and and it becomes this intense relationship that almost always becomes sexual but not always sometimes it stops short of that we typically call those things emotional affairs but the sex then is not really about the sex although and I'm talking those are the people who are in this situation if it has become sexual you have felt a deeper sexual connection than you have felt in some time but it's not really because of the sex is because of that emotional development that you've already created with each other where you really are trying to connect in every shape fashion or form and you're thinking wow nobody else has even felt this before I can't even begin to describe what this feels like I'm in love beyond anything I knew that love could be by the way if you're the spouse listening and watching and and I'm describing your spouse right now I know that you don't like what I'm saying I know that you're thinking good grapes just rip my heart about heart out and stomp on it I mean that's kind of yeah you felt it one time it has been saying that to you right yeah it was definitely definitely just gut wrenching but I will tell you that at the same time as that it's so hard to hear I I felt relief because it showed me that I wasn't the only one because so many times we were going through these things and we're thinking you know we're the only one that's experienced this pain were the only one who our spouse is saying these horribly hard things to went so the first time that I you know heard about marriage helper and read the resources online and I it was my my gut reaction was relief because it was the thing with limerence and these relationship affairs is it's almost just like a textbook checklist that you can go down with with things that people say yeah and and I'm glad it gave you hope and I'm glad you guys put it back together I really am I'm known like you I like your odds but really did it just need God but at the time you know I considered killing him not because of what he felt but because sometimes those of us who are in that situation can do some mean things now I'm not saying that he necessarily Dement things to you but I definitely did mean things to he'll us if you're thinking what do you mean well again I'm talking now to the person in this situation Allison's mentioned already a couple of times the word limerence I'm probably not going to talk a lot about that in this particular session you can find out more about that on our web site Mary's helper com marriage help yarn.com we've done all kinds of podcast and everything else about it but right now since I'm talking to you who feels this I know what you're feeling because I felt it and I don't know how strong and powerful it was and if anyone at that time in my life had looked at me and said that's not love I want to tell them what they were full of it would have been a southern pronunciation of a word and I would have been very clear you don't get it this is love and it is it is a kind of love and again to the spouses who's you know my spouse is in this thing don't tell me he or she loves that person that one thing we will always do is tell the truth even when it's painful we just don't know any other way to do it to be what we're supposed to be in to help you it is a kind of love but if you're the person who's in it right now and I understand and I know the intensity of what you're feeling I'm gonna tell you something that you're not gonna believe right now probably don't want to believe and think you know if somebody full of something is you dr. bean because you don't get it actually I do get it I've been there I know what it feels like not only that and since then I've dealt with thousands and thousands of couples and well let's just say individuals like you who've been there and in the social sciences we can actually measure and identify different kinds of love now I don't want to get into that now it's not really what we need to talk about let's just say we can measure different kinds of love one kind of love we don't ever try to measure it's what people call true love and the reason we don't try to measure that's because true love is whatever a person feels at the moment and since that's so unique and so individualized it's not something in the social sciences we can actually measure so we have other names for different aspects of it and as Allison alluded to the kind of love that you feel right now the word we use for that is limits so not going to describe limits so much just to tell you that hopefully about what I've said so far you know that I understand what you're feeling and know first of all from experience but if it were just my experience that would be an anomaly not just my experience but the experience of thousands and thousands upon people of people with whom we have worked and tons and tons of research in the social sciences some of my own and and some from people all around the world it's a matter of fact recently I've been reading back through another few hundred articles I've downloaded that mentioned the word limerence and looking to see what else people have found and discovered there's a leading Helen Fisher's he's an anthropological biologist for example PhD dr. Fischer he's done a lot of research about it as well and we know that what you're feeling is real and it is a kind of love but we know for a fact it's going to end now I know you don't believe that or if you do believe it you don't want to believe in because of the fact but but no no nobody's ever felt like this and I'm gonna feel like this for the rest of my life and I know that's what you're thinking and feeling I do get it I guess that been there don't need to keep telling you that but I have it there but one thing about this kind of love and the reason we can actually put a name to it measure ed is because it inevitably has an end and and there's some reasons for it biologically there's some reasons for it in terms of anthropology there's a nation even reasons for it if you if you're an evolutionist don't have time to explain all that right now I except to say we know that what you're feeling right now that's amazing if you're in the middle of that will at some point begin to fade not only yours but the person with whom you were quote madly in love and quote that person it will actually at some point begin to fade with him or her as well and and when it comes back down you're gonna start looking at things differently than you do now so here's the message I hope that you're here and believe or at least will consider the decisions you make when you're in the height of that emotion that you're feeling right now thinking I'm making decisions because this is the way I'm going to feel for the rest of my life it's not really the way it's going to be you're making a decision thinking this is the way I'm going to feel for the rest of my life and the documentation is emple the experiences of others is plentiful I know you believe you're gonna feel like that for the rest of your life but you're not and then when you get down to here when that intensity finally fades and and it will when it does you're going to look back at the decisions you made up here and realize that some of the decisions you made thinking you were going to feel like this or that the other person was going to feel like this forever led you to make some decisions that caused you pain and where you're going to be and paying for other people that care about you and love you know I don't have time to explain all of that I'm hoping that I'm saying enough about it that at least you get intrigued and want to know more and if you want to be sending some questions in to ask us about it we'd be glad to answer those questions if we can and we'll talk about some other things as well as we go through this but what I'm trying to tell you is I know as a matter of fact many people on our staff know because they have been right where you have been and even people like Alison here knows because that's where her husband has been that she's in both he and she you're open and transparent to talk about and if you ever ever want to talk to somebody who is not not gonna be judgmental toward you who's gonna try to understand he said well what if I call and I get Alison and she's the one she was the spouse and her husband linter that she won't be compassionate I think like you will I would have I have huge compassion I had compassion for my husband when he was walking through it and it's another one of the great things that I've learned through marriage helper and the question is you know is is your spouse a good person doing a bad thing or a bad person doing a bad thing and I quickly could answer that I knew my husband was a good person doing a bad thing I understand from Elison standpoint the bad thing was she he's cheating on me so yeah just in doubt she would say that right right yes you're shooting yes and so I I mean yeah we absolutely have compassion for anyone that calls in and is seeking advice because we know that you know you're in a hard spot you're seeking you're seeking help and you're looking for answers and you know it's it's our job to point you in the you know give you resources to help guide you and point you in a direction of hopefully towards reconciliation for your marriage but there's no judgment at all well we hope that's what happens because that's why we exist but at the same time we don't try to force you to do that either we try to understand what you feel and most of us here do and we will help you with all the resources we possibly can and of course I'm nonprofit exists to help people reconcile their marriages but if you call us we're not going to twist your arm to do that we're gonna offer you a lot of really good resources and a lot of understanding but we're gonna accept you making your own decision now if you're the other spouse watching going what good is that you're not gonna help me at all understand that we also help you and we care about you and by the grace of God and if you wind up coming to our workshop for example we've been doing that particular workshop since 1999 now it continually gets better because we continually add new stuff to it as we learn more so it's not exactly the same workshop it was in 1999 it's better workshop than it was in 99 but our what we see is that according some research done not professor I guess it's a university is that seven years later seventy-seven percent of those couples are still together so it does help people solve their problems work things out and stay together so if you're the spouse thinking where's my hope what we offer actually does that for three out of four couples that come to our workshop but if you're the spouse who's saying but wait a minute I'm not going to come there for you guys to beat me up and make me stay made that's not our approach approach is to understand you to accept you as you are to teach a lot of good things from which we hope you make your decisions but we're gonna be your friends and love you no matter what so if it sounds like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth and it's just something that works by accepting what people feel rather than telling them what to feel teaching rather than commanding this is what you have to do we don't use guilt we don't beat people on we're all for saving marriages but if you're the person who's in the affair you're never gonna find a group of people anywhere I don't think that'll understand you better than what you do and he'll be kinder a nicer to you and respectful to you anymore than we are and if your other spouse thing but I want to save the marriage what about me we also on your side just as much and we'll do all we can to help you guys do that but never in a hand in heavy-handed way that's the workshop is such I don't know any other word to describe it but it is such a safe environment for everyone that walks in whether you know no matter which side of you're on for your marriage whether you're standing forward or whether you're your gut you know both feet out the door that's the thing that we hear over and over again with the people that come to our workshop is you know no one is here to twist your arm we're here just a you know to present information to and what you do with that is is completely up to you so yeah it's a it's a incredible environment that's created at the workshops right [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Marriage Helper

Views: 42,672

Rating: 4.648241 out of 5

Keywords: limerence, madly in love, married but in love with someone else

Id: 9KdE4acqSvU

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 05 2018