Do you remember when you used to think about your spouse all day long? The multiple date nights and surprise gifts you used to exchange. In fact, you used to speak each other’s love language so much that there was no real yearning for an “I love you”.
Now fast-forward a few years into your marriage. You now have children at school, a bond, business and a demanding full-time job. Honestly, you don’t have time to daydream about your spouse all day long anymore, and they have noticed.
It’s not that you don’t want to go on dates anymore, but life has just got so busy. It’s also not that you don’t necessarily love them, you do. However, you’ve also got so comfortable and secure in your relationship that, though unintentional, you’re taking each other for granted. And because of how busy life has become, your spouse is no longer your number one priority.
You’re now irritable, impatient with one another and clash a lot. Sometimes you may even get uncomfortable when you’re around them because you worry about the conversation turning into a fight.
If this sounds familiar, then you’ve joined the many couples that feel like they love their spouses, but have fallen out of love – feeling more like housemates.
Truth is we live in a society of clichés, sound bites and fitting in. We have a generation that cares less about the discipline of time and sacrifice, yet have a fantasy of a “forever after”. They want trust without the patience of building; faithfulness without the investment of integrity; and love without the discipline of commitment.
People marry for many reasons. Some marry because they’re in love, and then divorce because they’ve fallen out of love.
Feelings and chemistry, often mistaken for love, are what really give them the green light to go ahead or not. When feelings change, as feelings do, or even more devastatingly, when their marriage goes through a rough patch or they feel they’re no longer in love, they tap out.
Falling in and out of love is an outcome of feelings, and has very little to do with love, actually. Marrying someone because you’re in love is as shallow as divorcing them because you’re no longer in love. Never trust feelings to the point of making life decisions based just on them.
Falling out of love shouldn’t mean an end of a marriage. Change in the intensity of feelings is a natural process. It doesn’t signal an end of love and therefore, the relationship. True love is a harvest of time and sacrifice. Time invested in the process of commitment, patience and consistency.
And sacrifice through the choice of selflessness, maturity and generosity. Love isn’t something you experience before getting married, nor is it something you lose at the point of divorce. It takes time to grow it, and it also takes time to put it off.
For couples that value unity, love is strengthened in the tranches of challenges and trials marriages go through. True love gives of itself in spite of your feelings. It isn’t chemistry or automatic. It’s intentional. It develops over tested seasons of commitment, patience, turning towards each other and consistently choosing one another above any circumstance – over a period of time. It is deliberately cultivated for better or worse.
While many people take falling out of love as a sign of a dying relationship, we think of it as an invitation to change your perspective about your marriage. There are many ways to think about the changes in your relationship besides “it’s over”.
For instance, changing your perspective can bring a greater understanding of how you and your spouse are co-creating marriage distance and discord while inviting you to work on your part.
You’re not going to be “in love” all the days of your married life. There are days, some going after the other, you simply won’t feel in love. And it’s okay! Don’t freak out, and start to question the entire marriage.
Realise that falling out of love is as much your decision as falling in love. It’s not automatic. Your love for your spouse is either high or low because you simply made the choice consciously or unconsciously.
Connect with your spouse at a deeper emotional level. Do not chase love, or the feelings that love brings. Invest time in your marriage, and sacrifice for your spouse. Develop a common goal that’s bigger than yourselves, and yet learn to have fun together as you grow.
Love is not everything in marriage. It isn’t all you need. In fact, as you mature, you learn that love cannot sustain a marriage. On the contrary, it’s in fact marriage that sustains love.
Staying married is not about staying in love nor is it primarily about your happiness. It is fundamentally about keeping covenant, driven by a sense of mutual commitment, common purpose and shared meaning – understanding that you're involved in something far bigger than you.
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