Since my recent marriage breakup, I've been giving a lot of thought to this question. I don't profess to have the right answer, but I have found out that love means different things to different people. Love also changes, and hopefully grows, as we grow and become more mature.

Some of us, however, tend to take love lightly, without giving a thought to the chain reaction we unleash when we hurt another person. This reaction keeps spreading and spreading because of certain actions on our part, and without us even knowing we end up touching others: friends, family, colleagues, even animals and other beings, such as plants. You better believe it: love has a profound effect on us all, and likewise with the reaction we cause.

Now, the choice we make is simple: do we send out a "positive" reaction through our actions or a negative one? I can only share my own experience to answer this question. First and foremost, I learned something very important:
YOU CANNOT BUILD LOVE ON ANOTHER'S MISERY.

In my life, I always made it a rule not to get involved with anyone, unless they were free to love. I never wanted to be "the other woman", knowing that I was the cause of agony to another woman. Only once did I break this rule, albeit unknowingly at the beginning, but when I knew the truth I ignored it, and much later learned that "you definitely cannot build love on another's misery"; it will always come back to haunt you.

I will cut a long story short on this one: one of my exes told me that he was over his relationship with his girlfriend, and the reason she was still in the picture was because he felt responsible and was now looking after her financially--but that their relationship was platonic. Well, this might have been his view of it. Unfortunately, once I allowed myself to become involved, I found out otherwise. The girlfriend wasn't in a platonic relationship, as far as she was concerned, and she confronted me. I chose to believe him instead of her. I know since then that I caused this woman a lot of pain and agony. In the end, I realised that "you cannot build happiness on another's misery" and I ended up leaving the relationship. Once I left, I called up this woman and asked her to forgive me. I shared with her my side of the story and told her that, even though I believed him, I still ended up hurting her. And for that there was no excuse. I was lucky that she was big enough to forgive me, and I was able to walk away with a clear conscience. Since then, I never made the same mistake again.

When I met my present husband--yes, legally, he is still my husband. I made sure that he was free to love. What I couldn't do, however, was ensure that his understanding of love was the same as mine, and much to my detriment, this has caused me heartbreak and agony.

When we took our wedding vows (and even before this), whenever I told him I loved him, I meant this:

*I'll be with you for life
*I will love you for richer or for poorer
*I will love you in sickness and in health
*I will never forsake you for another
*I will share all I have with you
*I will grow old with you
*Even if we disagree or have arguments, I will always be willing to work things out.

But when he said he loved me, this is what he meant:

*I will love you as long as things are okay between us
*I will love you as long as you don't get sick and I have to look after you
*I will love you as long as you keep working and put money on the table
*I will only share with you what I want--not everything
*I tell you that I will grow old with you, but I don't really mean this
*I will try not to forsake you, but it doesn't do any harm to keep my eye open in case there is someone better out there
*If we disagree or have arguments, I won't give you a chance to work them out, because by that time I'll have someone else on the side and I will dump you like a piece of garbage.

And this is exactly what happened. When I was sick, he didn't support me (either emotionally or financially). When I needed him the most, he wasn't there for me. When he got tired of me, he found someone else, and made sure he had her "lined up" before he dumped me. When I begged him to work things out with me, he never gave us the chance. He didn't want to go to counseling; he didn't want to even talk about it. He was already too busy planning his future with his new woman.

Evidently, we all have our own views about love, don't we? For the sake of the seven years I was with him, he didn't even give me one chance to try and see whether we could salvage our marriage.

Since then, I wrote to his new woman and told her that my husband has done this to others before me (I'm number three, as far as I know). So it's obvious that he didn't learn from his mistakes as I did. I never received a response from the woman--not that I expected to--but I see that she has taken his side of the story without even bothering to stop and think how much hurt she has inflicted in my life.

She is certainly not part of what I call "the sisterhood". She is trying to build happiness on my misery. When she met my husband she knew he was married to me, and yet she went along with everything he said. Even before my husband left our home she was already meeting with him, going out with him, flirting with him and planning her life with him.

She has unleashed a chain reaction that she has no idea about: not only has she inflicted hideous and agonizing heartbreak within me, but she has hurt my family, my friends, my colleagues, and all those around me that "were taken in" by my husband and his lies. Now, I know it takes two to tango, and I am not laying all the blame on her doorstep. I mean, she simply went along with what my husband told her.

Having said this, she still had freedom of choice. She could have said "no, I don't want to be the other woman" or "I don't want to be the homewrecker". But she chose to become my husband's partner in crime. She chose to build her happiness on my misery, right alongside of him.

It's obvious that the meaning of love for these people does not hold the words "fidelity" and "honour". They are both selfish and don't care whom they hurt as long as they can be together.

My message to them: YOU CANNOT BUILD HAPPINESS ON ANOTHER'S MISERY. You will one day find that all your lies, deceit, selfishness, etc, will have had such a huge effect on those around you; and even on you, yourselves, that your union will not last. How can it?

By the way, he is still legally my husband, and will be for some time to come.