WHEN THE “FEELING OF LOVE” IS GONE
After several years of marriage, when a couple has had children and survived a few traumas of parenting, and when the couple is solidly established in a business, profession, or vocation, the initial passion of a new relationship may have dissipated. If the couple is together only because they are married, have children, and own a home, but without the feeling of love, they may need to rediscover the love and passion that was a part of their relationship.
Pain-Filled Relationships
Whenever a couple experiences pain as a result of their marriage, it is likely that the feeling of love will drift away. Pain may come about because one spouse is inattentive to the other’s needs for emotional care, physical help, spiritual guidance, or sexual fulfillment.
Pain may also result from a more destructive pattern such as anger. One spouse may have come to the marriage with accumulated anger. That anger may be due to a lack of affection as a child. The anger from childhood neglect got transferred to the spouse. Even though the angry outbursts are not really about the spouse, the mate will feel hurt and pushed away.
We remember the law student whose wife was helping him through college. He was raised by a punitive father who never showed care for his son. Even though the mother was very expressive of her love, his father’s behavior left the son feeling unaffirmed. Now in marriage, whenever the wife did anything that could possibly be construed as having some negative reflection on him, his childhood anger came out toward her. The feelings of pain overshadowed the sense of love.
Drifting Apart
Sometimes a husband and wife drift apart because of external pressures. Probably the single most common external stress that pulls spouses apart is the conflict and pressure associated with raising children. The likelihood of spousal stress increases with long-term child behavioral problems or caring for a child with a chronic illness.
The stress caused by children may begin as early as during pregnancy. Some morning sickness during the first three months is likely to make the woman less interested in sex. During the second three-month period, her figure begins to expand. Her concerns about body image may trigger hesitancy sexually. In the last three months, the size of her abdomen may interfere with her comfort in lovemaking. During the last month, she may avoid sexual activity almost totally. It is important to point out that unless the physician has indicated a concern, there are no physical reasons a healthy pregnant woman should not make love. The reasons for avoidance are emotional responses or physical discomforts rather than physiological issues.
The husband may have difficulties with the idea of making love to his pregnant wife for fear of hurting her. He may not understand how well protected the baby is inside the uterus. And he may not be able to come to terms with the idea of being sexually involved with a pregnant woman, the woman who is carrying his child.
After the baby is born, it will usually be four to six weeks before the couple will be given doctor’s approval to resume having sexual intercourse. Even then, the wife may still be very tired; her body will not yet have fully recovered, and she may experience some vaginal pain. In addition, she now has the responsibility of the child, who is totally dependent on her. This mother-child relationship will often bring about major changes in terms of how the woman sees herself and how free she feels to respond sexually. Some women experience dissonance between their roles as mother and lover. Some couples find this to be more true if she is breast-feeding. It is as if sex is a desecration of the beautiful mother-child-nursing-caring relationship. Even if there are no attitude difficulties with mothering, fathering, pregnancy, or nursing, the major commitment of time and energy necessary to get a child through the first few months is a disruption in any relationship. As beautiful and delightful as children are, and as much joy as they bring into our lives, there is no doubt that readjustment is a major event for most couples. Many couples will not consciously deal with this readjustment together and hence will begin drifting apart.
About the time the couple is ready to renew their sexual relationship, they usually begin thinking about having the next child. Often the whole experience is repeated, and then the mother has not only a nursing child but also a jealous two-or three-year-old. If the couple stop with only two children, there will be a four-or five-year period in which the relationship cannot maintain the closeness that existed before the first pregnancy. If they have more children, the time period lengthens with each new pregnancy.
We are not saying that every child introduced into a family will bring distance and the loss of love in the marriage. In fact, the shared joy and nurturing often enhances the feelings of love. But there is a likely possibility that the sexual relationship will be interrupted and that the couple’s feelings of love for each other will change.
School, Career, or Business
College, graduate school, a new business, or any other outside focus can so capture the couple’s energy and interest that there is little time left over for the expression of the love the couple had for each other in the beginning. It is easy for a student to let deadlines for papers, reports, books, or research projects become the controlling force. The marriage relationship, including the sexual dimension, becomes less and less significant.
The same thing can happen in building a career. It takes time and energy to become efficient and successful. Generally, the career person will be gone for more than eight hours a day. Even if active involvement is limited to forty hours a week, the career will often take much mental and emotional energy, leaving little for the partner.
Building a business can have the same effect. A start-up company tends to consume the person in charge if it is going to be successful. The marriage relationship may suffer as a result of such a business push.
Whether the distracting factor is school, career, or business, the effect is the same. When two people do not have continued, intense, intimate sexual involvement, the lubricant or oil of the marriage lessens and the friction in the marriage increases, taking away from their sense of “being in love.”
Unfaithfulness
When we get married, we don’t lose the attraction to others, but what we do with that attraction is very important. We recommend that you affair-proof your marriage. Recognize your vulnerability, and always turn any distracting feelings toward your spouse. Quickly replace other images with positive memories of anticipatory thoughts of being with your husband or wife. But when attention to affair-proofing doesn’t happen or isn’t successful, serious damage from an extramarital affair may ensue. Affairs grab the involved partner in a most powerful and controlling way. The feelings of the new relationship, which tend to feel like love, overtake the love of the marriage. The hurt of the spouses of the involved partners builds distrust and destroys the feelings of love toward the spouse who caused such deep hurts.
Because of its newness and excitement, the outside sexual involvement will often seem so much more fulfilling and satisfying than the marriage. When the spouse engaged in the affair has been unhappy and unfulfilled in the marriage and then experiences fulfillment and satisfaction in the affair, it is natural to have the feeling of being in love with the new partner. Since it is difficult to maintain an intense passion for two people at the same time, the wandering spouse usually feels that he or she is no longer in love with his or her spouse.
Sexual involvement outside one’s marriage often forces a choice. If the person chooses to return to the spouse, and the hurt spouse is willing and able to engage in a process of forgiveness and restoration, love may be nurtured again in the marriage.
But if the person chooses to divorce the spouse and marry the new partner, the same problems are likely to develop in the second relationship that were present in the first. The pleasure and excitement experienced in a new relationship are deceptive in that they lead the participants to believe that the feelings of love associated with attraction will last; however, the passion of attraction usually dissipates within six to thirty months. In order for passion to last a lifetime, the attachment of intimacy must be developed. The scriptural directives about faithfulness to one’s mate are not there just to make life complicated, but because God loves us, he wants the best for us and knows that commitment and faithfulness work best to bring about long-term fulfillment and happiness for everyone involved.
Never Were “In Love”
It may come as a surprise to many, but some couples marry for reasons other than love. The reasons always seem logical at the time, but over a period of months and years, that “reasonableness” often diminishes. It is not uncommon to hear such explanations as, “I thought he was the best I could do,” “It seemed he would be a good husband and father for our family and would be able to provide well,” or “I never really felt I loved her, but I thought the love would grow.” Some will believe their reasons should have worked because, “I was taught that love was an action, not a feeling, and it seemed as though we had many common interests and that this would work out well.” Then there’s, “My mother really liked him and he was the first one that she liked, so I thought that would be best for me,” and “I knew she was God’s choice for me.”
Whatever the reason, many couples marry without attraction, passion, or love for each other. In our culture, this lack almost inevitably gets in the way of a couple’s sexual relationship. A sense of passion or love, though hard to define, seems to be a necessary ingredient for total sexual experience. If love was never there, as times get tough, as love develops with someone else, or as one spouse is reminded of past loves, it becomes much more difficult to maintain the relationship or to work toward sexual satisfaction. In some cultures where divorce is less acceptable, the relationship may be able to survive. But in our society, with all its emphasis on fulfillment, satisfaction, and love, and with divorce being common even within the church, a relationship not based on love is bound to have difficulty. It is our opinion that couples can learn to love one another if they are willing to commit themselves with all of their being—spiritually, behaviorally, and emotionally. Achieving that commitment will take work.
HOW DO YOU “FALL IN LOVE” AGAIN?
How can you build or rebuild love? First, both spouses must want to pursue love between them. If only one is interested in restoring the relationship and focuses on making the other happy, it will never succeed. It takes commitment from both people. With that commitment, a loving relationship is a possibility. And once you have established that loving relationship, you can build your sexual intimacy and passion.
Let’s say that you and your spouse have made the commitment to build or rebuild love. Where do you start? Counseling, from a pastor or a professional therapist, may be necessary to help you deal with and heal painful memories.
In other cases, the couple may be able to develop love on their own. They do it simply by talking together, sharing their feelings and thoughts, expressing where they have been, where they are now, and where they would like to go in the relationship. The step-by-step process of sexual retraining detailed in our book Restoring the Pleasure is usually necessary to discover sexual passion and intimacy.
Sometimes love grows again almost spontaneously when a change occurs in the couple’s life. The children grow up and leave home, or the career becomes less demanding, and without those external pressures the couple can rediscover their affection for one another. The commitment was there all the time, but the corresponding attention that nurtured the feelings was lacking.
Specific planning to clear out involvements that interfere with the development of love, and to allow time for positive experiences together, should include mutually selected nonsexual and sexual events. In these times together, the couple focuses on communication, fun, or bodily pleasure. We recommend our Formula for Intimacy (on page 202) of fifteen minutes per day to connect emotionally, to share spiritually, and to kiss passionately.
The couple may need to examine and deal with old habits that have a way of hanging around when a couple have been operating apart for a number of years. Examine those habits and decide which ones must be consciously altered. Don’t just assume that everything will work out fine—strive to make sure it does!
If one spouse has been unfaithful, there is no way that love in the marriage can be established unless that spouse will make a firm commitment to the marriage relationship and to building trust through accountability. When trust has been broken, actions of love do not necessarily bring healing. There may be real struggles with the whole nature of commitment and the development of an understanding of what the marriage contract means for each spouse.
If you are in a marriage in which all the effort for the marriage seems to be up to you, and your mate does not seem willing to communicate—you are in a tough spot. It is difficult to give general directions about how to proceed, but there are several things we recommend as a way of getting started. Spend some time assessing your contribution to the problem. Are you nagging, withdrawing, demanding, complaining to friends or neighbors, or being the “suffering spouse”? Determine if there are any ways of change offered that you haven’t accepted. Be sure your needs and desires have been clearly expressed without blame of your spouse. Don’t wait for your mate’s action—you make the first move. If nothing works, seek some help from a professional who has an unbiased perspective.
Focusing on building intimacy in the sexual area is often an effective approach to discovering or renewing a love relationship. Although sex is not the basis of love, a lack of sexual passion and intimacy is a symptom of a lack of love.
There are people who have, by their own efforts, built a relationship of love when those feelings were not initially there. For most people, outside help is required to achieve this. That support system may be a small group, an empathetic friend, a helpful pastor, or a professionally trained counselor. Always remember that people have the capacity to change. God can work in your life as you let him. If you don’t have the feelings of love, you can grow into them in the days ahead.