How do you choose to be in love with your spouse?

Question

I very often see advice on this message board telling people that "love is a choice." I don't understand how that works -- please give examples of how when you fell out of love with your spouse you chose to fall back in love, and how you made that happen.

Answer 1

It's not so much a matter of choosing to be in love with your spouse. It's about making a choice to make your love work together. Many times in a marriage, you encounter things you don't understand in your spouse. Marriage is a growing endeavor, always evolving and working through things. You continue to grow and your spouse continues to grow. Sometimes people grow apart - and that's when the choice comes into play. You may be thinking differently than you used to and your spouse may not understand it, or it could be your spouse does something you don't understand. At that point - it's important to look deep into yourself and look - really look at your spouse and try to understand what has happened.

There's and old saying - "Familiarity breeds contempt". That phrase is something to ponder in a marriage and is often the cause of most break-ups. We get comfortable and forget to do the small things we used to do, or start to take the other person for granted. That starts to build up into bad feelings which can lead to disaster in a marriage.

It's very important to nurture the marriage, but if you find yourself in a situation where everything seems overwhelming and the only way is out - it's time to soul-search and remember why you fell in love. After that, you figure out what you need to do to recapture those early feelings. Your mate should be your best friend, and treated better than anyone else around you. The same applies to your mate.

The choosing to be in love means going through the soul-searching and deciding it is worth the effort to make it work. Through better or worse.

Good Luck.

Answer 2

Love is a choice yes, but it doesn't mean that once you choose to love them the fluttery feelings come rushing back again. It means that during the times when you don't feel like you love them anymore you choose to stick it out with them anyways. You choose to be with them because you are commited to them even when you don't feel it. That's what real love is. Choosing to be committed even when you don't feel anything or when you don't necessarily want to. Couples that have been married for 30, 40, 50 years can understand what this means. Love is not a feeling. Love is sticking it out when the feelings may not be there because you made a commitment. Hope this helps.

Every relationship will go through times when they don't feel in love anymore. It's during those times that we choose to be with our spouse anyways. People have a very hollywood idea of what love is. When the fluttery feelings wear off people break up. That's why there is so much divorce now. People have the wrong idea of what love is. Love is choosing to work it out anyways because you made a commitment.

Answer 3

You never know who you're getting your advice from on Y!A. Notice that the people who actually understand the concept of "choosing to love" someone tend to actually be married. The people here telling you love is about "butterflies in your stomach" are probably kids.

Of COURSE a real relationship is about choice! Do you honestly believe you make it through decades of marriage based on feelings? When you have a big fight and you "feel" like you want to kill your spouse, do you run right out and get divorced? Of course not, unless you're completely selfish and immature. You make a choice to stick with it through the good times and bad, knowing that you'll have both.

You'll notice that a wedding ceremony doesn't just say, "Do you love each other? OK, great, you're married!" No, they make you take a sacred VOW to stick together through good times and bad, sickness, health, richer, poorer, no matter what. Right from the start they spell it out for you that you're making a choice, and that your decision is going to be seriously tested over the years.

I think part of the confusion of your question is that you're assuming love is just a feeling, and you can't understand how you make yourself feel something. Yes, feelings are part of it, but your actions are the real measure of your love. Feelings can and will be over the map. Real love is more constant than that. Real love continues to show kindness, patience, support, etc even on the days when you don't feel like it.

Interestingly, though, in doing that you will often find that you CAN influence your feelings. If you have a spouse that's worth sticking with, even though he will often fall short of your expectations, you can choose not to hold a grudge. You can choose to do loving acts, the sort of special things you did for each other when you first fell in love. When you do loving acts, you'll find that the feelings, which may have waned, will often follow.

Answer 4

I don't see "love is a choice" meaning choosing to fall back into love with someone. I see it as choosing not to fall out of love with them in the first place.

Presuming that we are not dealing with abuse, cheating, alcoholism, etc. then most marriages end when one or the other person just falls out of love. If you feel that coming on, there are steps you can take to change.

It might mean spending time together, or even short times apart. The advice column people call it "rekindling"... finding that spark that you used to had and relighting it. Reminding yourself why you loved this person in the first place and are those reasons still true.

This could include special dates to get away from the kids, more talking and/or cuddling, couples counseling, choosing not to spend time with others who are detrimental to the relationship, etc.

Of course, this is all dependent on both partners being willing to work together.

Answer 5

At times some of the the negative things about my spouse seem overwhelming and I wonder how I ever fell in love with him in the first place! But, there are many good qualities about him. If I choose to focus on the good things he does and not our differences, I realize I do still love him. Nobody is perfect, we're all human. It works as long as the good things about someone outweighs the not so good. Each person in a relationship must also be willing to try to alter any hurtful behaviors to the best of their ability.

Answer 6

Our relationship with God is supposed to be just like our marriage to the partner. God mentioned do not get married to an unbeliever. That is called unequally yoked. If a Christian marries someone that's not a Christian the non-Christian will not appreciate their relationship with God like you could have. We, the church, are alleged to be the the bride to Jesus Christ. In Matthew 9:114-17 Jesus is evaluating Himself to a bridegroom of a wedding. He says that why must His followers mourn for Him at the same time he's still with them. They must mourn for Him even as he's faraway from them. All Christian humans whether married or no longer will have to place Christ in the front of their lives. He is the most important. Then their marriage should be 2nd. If the spouse is a Christian they will have to be doing the precise equal factor, striking Christ first. But if they don't seem to be they might fell betrayed. It is not like Christians romantically love God like they love their partner. Philos love is a love of like friendship, that is what stage you go through before you get married. Then it's eros love just like the love in a marriage. The 1/3 love, agape, means unconditional love and that is what Jesus Christ has for us. He will love us it doesn't matter what. I'm hoping this helps!

Answer 7

I also want to recommend "The Five Love Languages" by Dr. Gary Chapman very strongly.
I must also disagree with those here who say that love just happens. Love is a commitment, not just a feeling. Feelings pass, wane, change, and that instability of feelings will leave us disappointed. Staying committed, putting effort into maintaining and growing a loving relationship and understanding and speaking your loved one's languages (read the book to understand that) are what is needed now. Choose to do loving things for the special person in your life, even if you do not think your heart is "in it."

Answer 8

I fell out of love for w few days...I played the what if game with every scenario I could imagine...I finally realize the feeling of falling out of love with him was an emotional experiment preformed by my sub-conscious in order to overcome the trauma i had gone through as a child surrounding my parent's divorce. It was nasty and left far reaching scars. My children are now the age I was when the divorce occurred. This was an amazing realization that started the process of healing. Also if you have young kids you really do go through a time of 'weaning' them around 2-3 years old. I found that at this age they need more Independence and it's a balancing act of healthy ways to accommodate this process. For me it was a matter of filling the void and emptiness I had before I realized it wasn't my husband being distant it was my children leaving me feel that way. The dynamics just need to be adjusted.

What it comes down to is that attraction is a choice in that if you were ever in love with your husband you can have it again. If you are open to personal growth and he is as well. If you can talk openly with him it will come faster. I can promise you that the issues you need to work on inside you are the places to start. I asked God to show me love for my husband I woke up each morning asking to have that as my goal for the day...to see the ways my husband loves me and to simply be attracted to him.

I realized I never really fell out of love because when I cleared my mind of everything I found that just the safe place to fall at the end of the day in his arms was the most profound gift. Love yourself!

Answer 9

It may help if you think of love not as an emotion, as popular culture teaches us, but as a principal. You can choose to 'love' someone, that is, to behave toward them in a loving, caring, forgiving manner. Quite often, if we act like we love someone, the feeling follows the actions. In a normal relationship, that is then reciprocated. Your spouse feels love because of your actions, and remembers that he/she loves you. A relationship cannot become stagnant. We must continue to perform loving acts for each other. When we forget because of the press of life, we begin to take each other for granted, result is, we both feel taken for granted, romance dies. Occaisonal flowers or a box of chocolates, a concert together or roller skating. Baking your spouses favorite cookies of cinnamon rolls. Your undivided attention, reading a good book to each other. There is something called 'Love Languages', there are supposedly five. Gift giving, Words of encouragement, Physical touch and closeness, Acts of kindness, Quality time. We all have two major ones. These are the ways that we not only show love, but the things that make us feel most loved. One of the tricks is to discover our own and our loved one's. Blessed the couple who match!! We don't all. Then we can learn to realize the 'I love you' behind our spouse's actions that we didn't see before, and we can learn to say 'I love you' so they can hear us. Ideally this would prompt all sorts of wonderful conversations (Honey, I never realized that when you asked me to go fishing with you, you were saying 'I love you, I want to share with you'!! or Now I understand why it's so important to acknowledge your wonderful cooking, you're saying 'I love you' by fixing what I like for dinner.) and our spouse would learn to speak in our love language. Be patient!

All those little things that we did for each other when we were first seeing each other, we need to keep incorporating them into everyday life. A note in a briefcase or a lunch bag is a good one. Be silly with it sometimes. Aren't lovers supposed to be silly in love?

Please note that I am refering to a normal, healthy relationship. I do know of miracles that have taken place in destroyed relationships, where trust has been broken, then restored, but I am not talking about an abusive relationship. There is a different dynamic there. These tactics can make the relationship more liveable for you, but are probably not going to change the abuser.

Answer 10

Any commitment is a choice. Falling in love is the easy part.

I recommend "Five Love Languages" www.fivelovelanguages.com

I choose to love my wife. I chose to marry my wife because she completes me. We are nearly exact opposites. She likes lists and is organized. I fly by the seat of my pants on most stuff. She panics before and during a time of crisis. I get through crisis and then fall apart. I'm easy going, she's uptight. I'm a squiggle, she's a square.

I love her for who she is, what she is, and how she is.

You have to choose to love what you're not.