Falling out of love?  (Unsuccessfully searching for love).  The information below is about you but can also be applicable to 'the other' person (if you are the recipient of the following painful behaviour, or if someone has fallen out of love with you for reasons you cannot understand, for example).  I will write however as applicable to you, for clarity purposes.

Are you in a relationship but thinking of resuming your love search? Are you falling out of love with someone you were absolutely enamoured by until just recently and you don't know what's going on?  Or, do you find yourself falling in and out of love inexplicably and often?

Do you jump from one relationship to the next for no rear reason except, perhaps, because the 'feelings' for the other come and go? 

If this is the case, and you are searching for love (not a string of lovers), then it may be time for self-introspection.   It may be time to know that 'falling in love' or having a strong crush on someone are not indications that we should enter a relationship with them.  They are not an indication of true love nor that true love may follow at some point.  Why?

Because there are many factors that may trigger such emotions in us.  Sometimes they have nothing to do with the other person and all to do with ourselves.  There is a common-place phrase, which I'd hear often: 'falling in love with love itself'.  At the time it'd make little sense to me and, even if I thought it'd finally grasped its meaning, I would, in the end, find it quite unhelpful.  But this phrase holds some truth, to some degree; I will elaborate on it to make it a lot clearer (hopefully!) 

It is true that we may consciously be searching for love so intently that we make ourselves vulnerable to a lot of 'tricks'; sometimes such vulnerability stems from subconscious triggers (we don't really need to know what these are for us most of the time but, if you wish to know, therapy will definitely help).  But the outcome is the same, namely that we think we are in love with someone when, in fact, we are not in love with them at all.  Click here and scroll down to the paragraph starting with 'If you want to go deeper' to read my explanation of this point.  After that I also recommend you read my detailed example here.

Now that you've read an explanation (though simplistic, of course, for practical purposes) of what can be at play when you're head over heels with someone, you can see where I'm going.  If it's a 'bubble' and not based on truly knowing the other person, it'll eventually burst, in one month, three months, one year even.  But, one day, you will no longer have those feelings for the other person and you'll wonder what on earth happened!  

Falling OUT of love in a long-term relationship/marriage. Are you falling out of love with your partner/spouse and wondering why?  Has the sparkle gone?  

If you wish to immediately read about effective ways to rekindle the passion between you 2, go here.

What is a true soul mate?  Find out here

A great book about love reviewed  here

A list of great self-help material is here

 

Of course, if you are falling out of love for 'tangible' reasons, for example because the relationship is 'painful' in some way (read the analogy of useful vs useless on the 3 Relationship Types page for further example of a 'bad' relationship) then it's a good thing that you are thinking of moving on.  You must, above all, take care of yourself and your own growth. 

But, let's say your partner or spouse provides the emotional comforts you need, is kind to you, is supportive, contributes to your well-being in some way (spiritual, psychological, emotional or any other way); and yet, you are no longer in love with him/her.  You look at him/her and wonder where the sparkle went.  You are beginning to 'eye' someone else because this new person seems to infuse the elusive 'sparkle' in you!  It can happen.  Before you 'jump' ship, though you should be aware that, at certain times in our life, we tend to seek the 'highs' that falling in love gives us and that, for the reasons highlighted on the first part of this page, it may highlight a phase in ourselves rather than have anything to do with the new 'flame'.   You may have become vulnerable to the 'high' that a new interest gives you, as explained above.  It happens to everybody and, if you actually want to stay in your current relationship because it IS a good relationship, being aware of what takes place in our mind is a great step forward towards keeping true love.

There are tools you can use to recapture the sparkle in your relationship.  Some are phony, in my opinion, others are truly helpful.  A list (and a full explanation) of very effective tools is here .  Those tools are only to be used if you are in an overall good and loving relationship and only wish to rekindle the 'sparkle', the passion you once had for each other.

Of course, if you can, couple therapy (a psychologist rather than a counselor in this case, I would say) will help.  If you cannot go to couples therapy for financial reasons, for example, I would read the book highlighted here as a great start (it's not my book, but one that helped me in this quest).   In the coming days I will write about another great tool which seems to help many couples who want to recapture the 'in love' feeling they once had for one another.  It's called NLP and I have written about it here.

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