509. (3) This lust totally annihilates any conjugial love in it. It totally annihilates any conjugial love in it because this love is utterly opposed to conjugial love - so opposed that it not only tears it apart but also grinds it into powder, so to speak, and thus annihilates it. For conjugial love is love for one of the opposite sex, whereas this lust does not continue with one, but after an hour or a day is as filled with coldness toward her as it was before with heat. Moreover, because the coldness is one of loathing, any compelled cohabitation and faithfulness causes it to mount to the point of nausea; and it thus so consumes conjugial love that nothing of that love is left. It can be seen from this that this lust is deadly to conjugial love, and because conjugial love forms the inmost element of life in a person, that it is deadly to his life. It can also be seen that in consequence of its progressive thwartings and closings of the interior elements of the mind, this lust at last becomes one of the skin and so merely appetitive - yet with the faculty of understanding or rationality remaining.