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I Love You, but I'm Not "in Love" with You Anymore:
I often hear a spouse say, "I love you, but I am not "in love" " with you anymore. Too often marriages settle down and the feelings that were once experienced develop on a different level. That hot, intense and fiery passion dwindles.
That fire can be snuffed out by any combination of kids, finances, work, physical condition, an extramarital affair and family issues. Can you remember back in the beginning when you saw your partner sleeping and were filled with feelings of almost uncontainable love? I see this change in too many couples where through the years, those feelings morph and what was once that uncontainable love-excitement turns into one of "ho-hum" and taking each other for granted.
Sometimes this makes people develop what I refer to as the brother-sister syndrome. You love your spouse and say to yourself you would never want to hurt that person, but you feel like you are no longer in love with the person you married.
If this has happened to you, you might be thinking your marriage is over because, after all, how can you get your passion back. What you are overlooking is that your love is still present. Your spark is still there. It is not dead. You just haven't nurtured it. I would also guess that you have built-up anger and resentment that you may have been stockpiling for years.
All of these factors work collectively against passionate love in your marriage, and make you feel as if the sexual heat of your marriage were dead.
You don't need to throw away your relationship. You need to learn new relationship skills so you can restore your relationship.
Look at your marriage that used to be a beautiful and perfect flower which has now withered. If it were truly a flower, it would be over. But your marriage is not a flower; it is a relationship between two people. It is not dead; it needs attention and nurturing to bring it back to the beauty and strength that it once had.
In order to restore the beauty of your marriage, you have to commit yourself, your time, and your energies to do so and you need to learn new relationship skills.
A complicating factor is when your anger and resentment obstruct your desire to improve your marriage. This obstruction shows itself as the "too little, too late" feeling. You're ready to give up on your marriage-perhaps you are already mentally shopping for a different partner, or perhaps you already have a specific someone in mind.
The complication is obvious: you have begun to commit yourself elsewhere and are reluctant to turn yourself around to salvage the relationship you have already mentally abandoned.
Also, you might be reluctant to repair your marriage because, you are thinking, it will give your spouse the mistaken impression that all the years of his or her bad behavior were not really so bad.
Most of you can rebuild your loving feelings if you commit yourself, your time, and your energies to do so and you find the resources to learn new relationship skills.
The following are starting suggestions to improve your feelings in your marriage. These are a few I selected for you from the many ideas discussed fully in my programs.
First, is your marriage suffering because there is a breach of trust? Many factors can result in a loss of trust. The trust has to be mended before you can fix the rest of your marriage.
Next, you must make it a point to spend time together, like the old days when you enjoyed each other. Be friends and do fun activities together!
Try to stick with activities that allow communication skills to rebuild during this time. Finally, remind yourself to display thoughts of appreciation and praise. At first, because you're not used to it, you may have to pre-plan how you will go about demonstrating good and positive feelings. You will be surprised what a difference authentic gratitude and praise can make in your relationship-not just for your spouse, but also the changes you make inside yourself when you begin to freely show gratitude and praise.
Be physical with each other-touch when you are talking, hold hands, reach out to touch your partner's face or back. Compliment how your spouse looks. Flirt with each other. Make out together.
You have to practice, and sometimes learn, new skills to make it happen. Stop and reverse the falling-out-of-love process; start treating your spouse like your best friend again, and, by doing so, begin rebuilding your love right now.
As always, I wish you all the best on your road to a wonderful marriage.
Frank Gunzburg, Ph.D.
1-866-654-1300
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