Falling in love is probably one of the most exciting and heart-racing experiences.
Imagine being head over heels for someone, and despite the number of years you’ve been together, never would you imagine or think about what it’s like to fall out of love.
Unless you’re an overthinker, then you’ve probably kept overthinking whether or not your partner is falling out of love - or maybe you.
Yikes.
I mean, I get it, it does happen, and it can probably be one of the scariest things to face. But, especially when you’ve been together for quite some time, through all the challenges and major life changes that you face together, it can significantly change you in some ways.
But despite it being difficult to grasp, what exactly does it feel like to start falling out of love?
It’s difficult to precisely describe what it feels like to be out of love, but it’s defined typically by behaviors (or a lack) that undermine intimacy in a relationship. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you hate or are angry towards them; it also doesn’t mean you no longer care for them.
It’s just - confusing.
It never comes abruptly; falling out of love often starts off as losing feelings gradually. It is probably one of the most common reasons people use to break up with someone.
But the question still remains, why do people fall out of love?
When you're in love, you can't stop thinking about the person you're with, you want to spend every minute with him or her, and you feel very grateful and fortunate to have this particular person in your life. However, individuals do occasionally fall out of love. And even if they had felt very enthusiastic about this individual, these feelings might fade away with time.
You’ve probably spent hours searching about the signs for falling out of love, and you’d find similar answers, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the standard since it’s not a checklist.
The number one reason why people fall out of love is that they’re human. It’s quite difficult to understand our own feelings because even in the healthiest relationships can make us fall out of love and fall back in love.
But why is it that people let go or end things when they start falling out of love? It’s a big mystery. Some say it’s because they get scared, or that they find it a struggle to keep staying in the relationship.
How does falling out of love affect YOUR relationship?
“I don’t love you anymore.”
“It’s not you; it’s me. I just lost my feelings.”
Yikes. Those are the words we are constantly trying to avoid, especially since we know what happens next.
Yes - the one heart-racing feelings for the relationship have passed and faded, and then comes the breakup.
However, falling out of love doesn’t always mean the end of the world. I mean, I get that the first few months of falling in love can make you feel complete bliss, euphoric sensation, and butterflies, but when you start getting used to the routines, and you’re starting to lose feelings gradually, things just get less exciting.
We are so focused on that Hollywood ideal of “happily ever after,” we instinctively assume that the heart racing feeling and sensation of love would continue forever, even when we know that it’s not always the case. Movies just make relationships look easier because they only show the challenges’ gist, but we always know they’d still get that happy ending.
The fact that every couple from a committed relationship will eventually fall from grace, but on some rare occasions, some relationships actually get past it.
Falling out of love can be a blessing and a curse.
The good news is that once you fall out of love, you begin to start learning how to preserve genuine love, which leads to a healthy marriage or long-term commitment for future relationships. If you even take time away from your significant other, you may end up coming back and rekindling that old love with your spouse.
What happens next?
It’s scary enough to fall out of love, but it is terrifying to face life without your significant other (since you’re already used to them around you a lot).
Here are a few things you could do,
Acknowledge and Appreciate
Instead of focusing on what’s missing, and constantly revisiting past problems, focus on acknowledging the things that your partner has done for you and appreciate the love that they are giving you.
You don’t necessarily need to do grand romantic gestures, even the act of writing and posting notes and letters to your partner about how you feel and appreciate them.
Guard your heart
As much as we want to open our hearts and lives to another person, we’ve been hurt by the love we thought would never hurt us. We start to build our walls, worried about opening ourselves up to a new love.
Often the hurt from the past comes back to haunt us, more times than we can count. Identifying the areas in which you shut down and protect yourself, so protecting your heart behind an unyielding wall, will enable you to soften that wall and begin to move toward your partner.
Give yourself time to heal and don’t push yourself to love again when you’re not ready.
Start communicating
Partners are no mind readers, they need to know and understand what you need and want from them instead of expecting them to do exactly what you want them to do.
There is tremendous power in realizing that we don't have to wait for anybody else to change in order to experience love, but that we can meet our own need for love by taking action on our own behalf. When you understand the love given and make a commitment to putting loving behaviors that open your heart and start communicating openly, you can have a loving, honest, and happy relationship for the rest of your life. Even if the work is not always simple or quick, the results are definitely worth the effort. Because, at the end of the day, what we truly want is to love and be loved.
COUPLE RECONNECT
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