Love, more than anything else, is about value. Value can be a very healthy thing or a destructive thing. We tend to value what meets a need or fulfills an expectation. At different stages of maturity what we value radically changes; therefore, who we will love changes in harmony with our maturity and values.
If what I love about a person is what I value about them, why do we fall out of love or lose value? The answer is not as complex as it has been made to be. Here are the top three reasons I have observed for people falling out of love. But don’t be discouraged; I’ll show you how to prevent it and how to recover it!
- The top reason we stop valuing/loving the other person is this: After they caught us they stopped doing the things they did to catch us. Their efforts were real and genuine, but they are too emotionally lazy to keep putting forth the effort. Therefore, they no longer give us anything to value.
- The following is the one situation that is the hardest from which to find recovery; but it is possible. Many times what we valued about a person was not real. This lack of “realness” can be the creation of either party. Some people, desperate for love, create an illusion of the person they plan to marry. They imagine that person meeting their needs. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone describe their fiancé and everyone in the room is thinking, that’s not who he or she is. I call this painting a person into your life’s picture. They are not who you want them to be, so you deceive yourself and paint them in the way you want them to be. You close your eyes to what everyone else can clearly see. The humiliation of this type of self-deception is so devastating one will rarely admit it. They keep insisting, looking for and convincing themselves that the person they imagine is “in there somewhere.”
The other side of this deception is when the person you committed yourself to was never the person they presented themselves to be. You were deceived! Very few people will admit to being deceived until they are so emotionally pillaged they have no other option but to face reality. There are few things as humiliating and enraging as discovering the person we love has been dishonest with our deepest feelings. - Since we are always growing and changing, and our circumstances and needs change, what was valuable to us changes, i.e. what made us feel loved the first year of marriage is completely different three children, two job changes, a sluggish economy and a home mortgage later.
So how do we prevent falling out of love, and how do we recover love when it is lost?
- Always seek to understand what is important to your spouse and do it! It doesn’t have to make sense to you. It doesn’t have to be what is important to you. After all, this is about making yourself lovable/valuable to your mate. (I am not saying you should do anything that violates God’s Word, violates your conscience or your dignity and worth.)
- Never stop growing as an individual. Life and relationships are dynamic, they are ever-changing; we must change with them. We don’t need the love we had when we first connected; we need the love that makes us valuable and precious to one another today! If you are becoming who you want to be in Jesus, and your spouse is becoming who he or she wants to be in Jesus, you will never grow apart. Regardless of who we grow to become, growth in Jesus is always growth in our ability to give and receive love!
- Be willing to express your needs in a non-threatening way. If you don’t tell others what is important to you at your current stage of life, they can only assume or judge. Too often they are trying hard, but in the absence of meaningful communication they are trying hard at the wrong thing!When the motive of generating love is present i.e. making the other person feel precious, held in high regard and valuable, usually the only thing missing is meaningful communication.
I have a way to help couples communicate and build wonderful marriages. I have used this tool in premarital counseling, marriage restoration and enriching love. According to testimonies, thousands of marriages have been enriched and many recovered from the simple exercises in this plan. I once presented this to military returning from deployment: some had not been with their spouse in over a year; some were suffering with PTSD; some relationships were so violent they had to receive permission from the courts to be in the same room for the meetings. I’ve seen every kind of situation where people have rediscovered love!
Brenda and I released a book several years ago called We Still Kiss. The concept was this: after raising kids together, blending two families, losing everything we had, fighting legal battles, me nearly dying, astronomical medical bills, menopause, family disasters, chronic fatigue and more, we’re still in love and we still kiss!
Here’s the way it works. Both people in the relationship agree to: 1) Read the same chapter of the book each week 2) Establish a date night to eat together, or just sit alone with no children or interruptions and discuss what you read. You can discuss how none of that chapter applies to your relationship, or how you think it does apply. You can do the exercises suggested in that chapter. Discuss what kind of thoughts or ideas came to mind as a result of reading the chapter. And discuss how you can apply what you’ve learned. 3) You both agree that you will not use the information you read as a means to attack, criticize or belittle the other person. It’s that simple!
By following this simple plan couples discuss things wrongly assumed about their relationship. They talk about important matter they never discuss without fighting. People actually learn how to have meaningful communication. They learn how to solve problems without fighting. Through doing the exercises they discover how easy it is to stay madly in love!
If you’re ready to go beyond a depth of value for your mate that you now have, if you’re ready to recover what you’ve lost, if you are ready to protect against falling out of love CLICK HERE and order your copies of We Still Kiss. Anyone who orders during the month of February will receive a coupon code for 50% off an audio download of any of my relationship series!
