I have heard many couples aver ‘we aren’t in love anymore’ or ‘we just seem to have grown out of love!’ And whilst I understand their plight, I refuse to take their statement verbatim. There’s no such thing as falling out of love.
When couples say that they have fallen out of love, I only tell them one simple thing – you don’t fall in love and then grow out of it. Love is a verb. And therefore, does not just magically happen. You don’t spin it out of thin air. It’s your actions which build and sustain the ‘feeling’ of love. Keep that going, coz magic too is not magic, unless you ‘do’ the trick. Efforts are important. And it takes a conscious decision to work at this magic to sustain LOVE, as it happened first! This decision is one of CHOOSING your partner, every single day – on days when you feel lucky to have her as well as on days, you feel like murdering her! No kidding!
Suggested read: Why you need to dump romance to have a happy marriage?
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This CHOICE entails doing things you did when you, as you yourself might say, ‘fell in love.’ And once you do that, you’d see how that statement “I have grown out of love” or even the more inane one “I don’t/can’t love him/her anymore” is turned right on its head.
Having said that, I will now explain why I said I understand the plight of people who justify their inability to CHOOSE their partners after a while with the generalization that’s beaten to death – couples fall out of love all the time, we just happen to be one of those unlucky couples!
All crap!
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They say what they say because they cannot CHOOSE their partner! They cannot seem to justify their failing relationship dynamic on the basis of their incapability to confront matters and set them right, but instead, opt for the negative output of a cost-benefit analysis! Not that I have a problem with either – I understand that some relationships which end need to end – but there are many that can be saved from their untimely death and developed into what could be LOVE-ly, life-affirming relationships. Only they don’t – coz the partners, self-admittedly, fall out of love!
How this sad plight can be averted is subject matter for another post but here’s a list of all the reasons due to which couples fall out of love or as I’d put it, do not CHOOSE each other:
1. They take each other for granted
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One of the most common killers, this fatal monster eats a relationship alive. A potentially happy relationship can be devoured whole when the partners fall into a comfortable pattern of familiarity and retreat into a lazy mode of passivity and indifference. When efforts disappear, love does too! Like I said, it’s a verb. Magic, too, happens with a flick of the wand!
2. They are incompatible
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When the initial fireworks burn out and the excitement of the new relationship ebbs, a couple may discover that their lifestyles, priorities, values, and expectations of life and love may not align! Sometimes, it takes knowing someone really well to realize that you are actually strangers! This is just one of the signs of falling out of love with each other.
3. They have a toxic style of attachment
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If one is involved in a relationship with passive, avoidant, controlling, deceitful, codependent, manipulative or addictive attachment styles, there shall come a saturation point when a partner shall choose to opt out. Of course, the problem can be resolved by setting boundaries within a twisted attachment style, but couples today, seem to outgrow the contents of their love-box and patience-barrel faster than they can live up to their emphatic proclamations about unconditional love and braving the storms together!
4. They aren’t completely vulnerable
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When a person holds back a part/parts of self from the person he loves (claims to love?), he is falling prey to fears – of engulfment, rejection, and perhaps, intimacy too! In being a willing victim of these fears, he is withdrawing from your pull, to protect himself.
And while that is a natural response, love does not warrant this self-destructive pattern of protection. In choosing to not become completely vulnerable, you are closing the doors on your modes of learning, growing, and sharing your love and lives with each other!
Suggested read: Breakup or makeup – when to let go
5. They started off on a wrong note/faulty foundation
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If the relationship moved too fast in its beginning stages or started off as a rebound thing, it’s likely not rooted deep enough to weather the relationship storms together! A breeze can come and peel off the ‘committed’ label, anytime! For it is a label anyway!
6. Expectations aren’t being met
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It is always easy, in the initial stages of a relationship, to accommodate the needs of your partner. However, it is after a certain period of time that partners relapse into their old selves and no longer feel obligated to go the extra mile to fulfill their partner’s wishes and desires – especially if they aren’t shared ones! This causes a rift that increasingly widens and makes their love-citadel crumble!
7. They fight frequently and dirty
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Some couples just do not know/learn the art of agreeing to disagree. As such, they cannot work together, struggle for control, and often end up yelling, screaming, and hurling hurtful comments at each other! A blame game (however subtle or direct) is the fastest way to blow up your bond!
8. They make disconnectedness the norm
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When disillusionment settles in and you are unable to grapple with the forces so as to resolve normalcy, you find your new normal in disconnectedness. You get trapped in the vicious cycle of being in a bland relationship, repeating the toxic patterns over and over or move on, often to repeat the same mistakes in the next relationship. Unless you take care to resolve the issues that create a distance, you may find yourself in recurring instances all the same!
9. The honeymoon period is over
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This is how we are wired. Often, when the initial feeling of butterflies in the stomach, weakness in the knees and knotted twirls in the insides ebb, we fail to have the highs level out into a consistent stream of love. With bills and dishes piling, partners become complacent and take each other for granted, thereby murdering their own relationship.
Suggested read: 10 things you MUST do at the start of a relationship
10. It wasn’t love in the first place
Could be – you are the best judge. Look back and see because hind sight is always 20 / 20.
And that’s all for today! See ya soon!
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