When You’re Not in Love Anymore

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When-Youre-Not-in-Love-Anymore


So, you’re in a relationship. You’re exclusively only dating this one person. You’ve had your ups, your downs, your hard times, good times, and even an incredible honeymoon phase in the very beginning. So what went wrong? Why aren’t you feeling that love, that passion, or that lustful and exciting feeling, like you did when you started out? Well, for starters, real love grows and changes, and many times people mistakenly feel that it fades—but they’re wrong.


Every relationship has its ups and downs, so that’s definitely something to expect. As well, it’s important to realize that the honeymoon phase is something that happens early on in every relationship, and if that’s not even there from the get-go, then you’re probably with the wrong person. There are definitely ways that you can make the honeymoon phase last throughout your relationship. And when your relationship is good, the honeymoon phase can even for a lifetime. 


There’s a big difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. As juvenile as it sounds, it’s still important to know the difference from being passionately in love with someone and just loving them as a friend, or even just feeling the love for them as another human being. It’s true what they say, “You can’t make your heart love somebody.” Well actually, “they,” meaning George Strait. He sang that song, and I feel that it touched so many people, because they found it to be very relatable. So many people go through relationships and find them to be the most incredible relationships with the most wonderful people, and as much as they like to be in love with that person and to create the perfect situation and relationship with them, they can’t. No one can. 


You need to decide how much you love a person and whether that love is more of the friendly kind of love, or someone that you can imagine sharing your life with and possibly growing old with. Being in love isn’t something that is “nice to have” in a relationship, it’s something that’s a “must have” for every relationship or there will be a point when you’ll feel genuinely unhappy, and no one wants that feeling, especially if you’ve committed to someone for life. 


Being in limbo for too long, not knowing what to do, and being in an undecided state of mind can be truly torturous. It’s important to think before making big decisions, and that includes whether to stay with someone or end a relationship. So you have to give yourself some time to think, but you can’t endlessly think and be in a state of limbo. Otherwise, you’re going to torture yourself and the other person, and your relationship definitely won’t thrive by any means. It’s important to make a decision, and stick with it, as opposed to going back-and-forth and having a bunch of make up-break up sessions, because they will add a tremendous amount of turbulence into both of your lives.


Generally speaking, most “relationships are like roller coasters,” and yes, I did borrow that line from the original, “Parenthood.” Relationships have ups, downs, and many turns, just like I said previously. And some people prefer to have those high-highs, even if they come with the possibility of involving some low-lows, because it usually means that your relationship has passion. Some people prefer not to have those roller coaster ride types of relationships, even though they’re usually filled with a lot of excitement, spontaneity, and passion.


It’s a personal preference on whether or not you want to have that type of crazy-amazing chemistry with your partner and be passionately in love with them or not. And perhaps you’d prefer to settle for someone that’s more of the simple type of person with a simple type of life. And although there might not be as much passion, at least they’ll know that it’s stable and that they don’t argue or have too much drama in their lives. I think that there should be a good medium if you’d ask me, but if I had to choose one or the other, passionate love will always win that argument. 


Now, I realize that certain things are a matter of opinion and everyone will like what they like and go for the type of person that they prefer. However, in my articles, I definitely promote being passionately in love with someone, and I view it as the most important thing in relationships. I just figure, why bother, if you’re not in love. Why bother working on your relationship, putting effort into things, spending your time with someone, or even sharing any bit of your life with that person, if you’re not passionately in love with them.


If you want to just be friends with someone, then make it clear from the get-go, and don’t explore a relationship with them on a romantic level. Know what you want from the very beginning, and if somehow you’ve developed feelings for someone that you’d started out as “just friends” with, be honest and clear about it to the other person, or just suck it up, kill the thought, and stay true to your original intentions. But if you’ve gotten to the point where you’ve completely fallen madly in love with someone that you were supposed to be “just friends” with, you likely won’t be able to just kill that thought, brush it off, or move on. You’ll probably tell the other person, and it can go one of three ways—you’ll stay friends with them, you’ll get to explore a romantic situation with the person, or your friendship might come to an end. Having said that, it’s imperative to know whether you still truly love someone, even though your love has changed, and that the love has grown, despite those changes.


There are many things that you can do to spice up your love life if you choose to stay with someone. Having said that, love is not something that can grow, if it wasn’t there from the get-go, and if those feelings of passion were never present early on. Make sure that your relationship is based on love, and if you’re having your doubts about whether or not you love the person, maybe you need to take a step back and reevaluate your relationship altogether. People don’t fall out of love unless it wasn’t love at all, and it was more so, something like lust. You can definitely fall out of lust, but true love grows over time, and it definitely changes, but it doesn’t change for the worse.


I actually find this subject to be thrilling and exciting to write about, because many people feel that when you’re in a marriage for such a long period, the love fades, and your desire for one another lessons or even goes away, because you’re so used to a person. But let me tell you something, and you can either believe me or not, but it’s true— When it’s true, genuine, and agape love, that love doesn’t fade, nor does the passion. When you’re truly in love with someone, your love grows and changes for the better, because it’s going to be based on real substance and a strong foundation that has nothing to do with superficial or petty things.


I can’t tell anyone what to do—nor would I want to for that matter, but if someone wants to break up with someone or if they’re debating whether or not to leave, that’s a decision that you or they have to make for themselves. All I can say is that it’s imperative to think first and foremost before making any decisions as such. And if your decision is based on whether or not you still have feelings for the other person, then I suggest that you consider spicing up your love life, as opposed to abruptly leaving.


There’s a big difference between having a hard time and going through a rough period where there lacks passion, from being in a situation that was never truly based on agape love, which is most likely why you might feel that the passion or love is gone or has faded. It’s very easy to get used to someone when you spend a lot of time with them or when you’ve been with them in a long-term relationship. But if you feel like the love and passion has completely gone away and there’s not even a way to retrieve those emotions, then you should probably just move on. Just remember, if your relationship was based on real love, it’s always better to try and spice up your relationship when you’re having a hard time, as opposed to just leaving and ended things. Think before you take action.

Anne Cohen
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