Have you ever realized that you don't like something that you previously did? For me, I used to love skateboarding. I would follow certain athletes, buy their shoes, follow the events and competitions and regularly skate around my hometown and envision myself as a pro when I was not even close. But nowadays I am still interested in skating, but I do not follow the sport as I used to. I am still interested but have changed my mind over the years as to how I would like to fill my free time. I also decided that I was tired of going to the hospital due to injuries sustained by skateboarding, but that is another story.
As it relates to love, I think that there is a point in time where we can fall out of love with our partner; Meaning that the warm and exciting feelings of closeness and interest go away. But we have confused the state of love as a choice with the feeling of love as a lagging effect of safety and connection.
Falling out of love is possible. It is in some ways normal especially when you consider that your partner sees all the difficult parts of you, as you see the most difficult parts of them. As relationships develop in intimacy, the more difficult, sharp, hurt and distressing parts of our self (therapist term for personhood) become exposed. It is healthy and good for the self to be known and explored, but it can be painful and/or vulnerable and/or unattractive from time to time.
So, while the feeling of love is sometimes here today and gone tomorrow, the choice of love for your partner is always present. The problem of falling out of love because the warm fuzzy feelings are lost can be revived and solved through learning about your partner and engaging instead of withdrawing and living a parallel (non-intersected or separated) life without your partner.
The good news is that the love that you want to feel can be re-felt with focused effort and connection. The Gottman's research finds that relationships can be stressed; you can have expectations for relationships because relationships can grow and become stronger through the stress. So your falling out of love feelings can be explored and fostered via communication, conflict, sex, and love.
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