The Cure for Falling Out of Love

I don’t believe we just fall out of love. Sorry if you disagree, but love is not like a top 40 song that you get sick of with more and more exposure.

“So then why do we fall out of love, Mr. Smarty-Pants,” you may be asking, “since it appears to happen all the time?”

First, those are culottes to be precise, not smarty-pants. Second, all too often we haven’t fallen out of love because we haven’t fallen in love in the first place.

Is your heart is racing, your hands sweaty and your face flushed?

Or the flu?

That’s not love. That’s passion, excitement and initial attraction, but it’s not love yet.

Love is bigger, more expansive and deeper than clammy palms. The way I’ve defined love all my life is it is the strongest romantic feeling you have ever felt for another. That’s it. It’s that simple.

What I call love may very well be different from what you call love, but once you feel it, it doesn’t just go away.

“Bring back romance and

your lovesickness will return.”

We fall out of love not because love diminishes, but because our definition of love changes. What was once our strongest romantic feeling for another may no longer be the strongest if we discover the next level of love.

My first girlfriend in high school, I loved with all of my heart. However, the feeling I have for my wife today is very different than that early love of yesteryear. My definition of love has changed, not my feelings.

If your hands stop sweating, your face never flushes (like the toilet in the guest bathroom) and your heart stops racing, that alone isn’t enough to tell us if we’ve fallen out of love.

What we’ve done is fallen out of passion. True love lies underneath the lovesickness. If it’s not there, you never were in love in the first place.

Too many people use “I’ve fallen out of love” as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Passion fades so they’re off to find it somewhere else. And they’ll get it because that’s a byproduct of new relationships, excitement and passion.

That’s the fun part of love, but it general lasts only six to 18 months. After that, if you want it back, you either start a new relationship or work on romance.

It takes time and effort, but it’s worth it if true love is lying below the surface of that passion.

So the next time you think, “I’m falling out of love,” decide if you ever were in love in the first place. If not, feel free to walk away. If you were, you probably still are but are just missing romance.

Bring back romance and your fever (lovesickness) will have returned.