“I love him. I’m just not in love with him anymore.”
I heard these words on a show recently and they totally rankled.
I think because they feel like a cop out. An excuse to bolt the minute love isn’t fun anymore.
And I think it feed a lie so many of us believe.
That romantic love is, above all else, a feeling.
And when that feeling disappears, well then….perhaps it’s time to move on.
Okay.
So don’t get me wrong.
People can experience feelings of love. No doubt.
Especially when a couple first starts to fall. Those early days when being apart physically hurts. When you can’t wipe that goofy grin off your face. When the mere thought of your honey makes you swoon (do boys swoon, or is that strictly a female phenomenon?). When you read Song of Songs and think Solomon stole the words right out of your heart.
The feeling of romantic love is a strong, heady thing.
The lie comes in when we believe those feelings are meant to last. And when they’re no longer there, we’re meant to separate.
I’m not saying these feelings go away completely or that after a certain amount of time, we’re incapable of experiencing them.
I’m just saying feelings are so fleeting. So fickle. And love is so much more than that.
Love is a choice.
Love is an action.
Love is commitment.
And commitment takes work. Hard, determined work.
This is the kind of love that gets a couple through the valleys and the storms and the sometimes mundane, sometimes stressful everyday act of living.
This is the kind of love that makes a couple two halves of the same whole.
These are the couples on the dance floor at a wedding, with fifty plus years of marriage in their pocket.
I don’t know about you, but I find that picture so much more romantic than even the most passionate beginning. A true testament to the word love.
Let’s Talk: Agree or disagree? Have you heard anything that’s rankled you lately?
Satan has deceived the whole world until the woman of Rev 12 delivers the true word of God Rev 12:5. She is not a church, she is not Israel, and she is not Mary. She is the prophet like unto Moses and Elijah Matt 17:3, Acts 3:21-23, Luke 1:17 delivering the true word John 1:1 from the wilderness Rev 12:6 to prepare a people for the Lord’s return. God our Father will not put any child of his into a hell fire no matter what their sins. It never entered the heart or mind of God to ever do such a thing Jer7:31, Jer 19:5. Turn your heart to the children of God. A gift is now delivered and proven to the whole world as a witness Matt 24:14. http://minigoodtale.blogspot.com. A righteous judge gathers ALL evidence before making a judgment. If you are called to know the true word- Prove all things. God chose a woman.
When our daughter began shredding herself and our family apart, John and I made a verbal, conscious decision to stand back to back with each other. We literally said “if we blame each other, we’re through, if we stand together, we’ll ALL make it”. He put his hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eyes and said “we will get through this.”
2 years ago, when when clinical depression started to eat me from the inside out, he fought FOR me and WITH me to make sure WE stayed as an US. Fighting to keep my head in the game when it was nowhere near making good choices was something he did because he loved me and he loved US. It wasn’t pretty and it hurt at the time.
But, years ago, I did that for him.
As I type this, no more than 30 seconds ago he said “I love you, Hon.”
Seriously, the man says that on average 20 times a day.
He is my warrior, my hero and best friend. Like Jess said, I can look at him across a crowd and share an unspoken conversation.
I can’t remember the last time he bought me flowers, but I can certainly remember the last time he made me woozy.
I was directed here by Barb and just wanted to say it’s an interesting and lovely conversation. I personally see the whole thing through a different lens, I believe like Barb that love is more than a feeling and certainly goes deeper than choice. I love people I would never choose to love – and whom I have actively tried to unlove. And I believe committment is a social issue which we tie together in our heads and our laws with love, especially these days – not too long ago, of course, marriage was nothing about love at all but about dynasty and property and business deals.
But like I said, interesting discussion, and I look forward to exploring your blog further. 🙂
I love the early moments of falling in love, but I wouldn’t trade the intimate and mature connection my husband and I experience on a daily basis. Almost twenty years and I still get the fluttery feelings at times. But nothing is sexier to me than looking at my man and knowing he’s literally read my mind in a crowd, then a smirk plays on his face b/c he knows what I thought was funny…and it was just between us. No words.
You can’t do that with a first date. Or second. Or third. 🙂
well said!!
I’ve heard people say this before and you’re right, it’s a cope out.
The Bible says the heart is deceptive. We can’t base life off of feelings, though feelings are good- they just shouldn’t dictate how we live and who we love.
We are called to love the unlovable, but how can we do that if we can’t even love our spouses?
So true. We can’t base our life off our feelings. Not to negate those feelings or say they aren’t real or that they don’t matter. B/c they are and they do. Absolutely. Just that we can’t let them determine how we’re going to live.
I don’t know if chooosing to love and feeling love have to be mutually exclusive. Sometimes when you choose to love someone, even if you don’t feel like loving them, the feelings follow. And love is so complex that the ooey-gooey feelings we have at the beginning can’t fully describe what love is. My husband and I have been married 5 1/2 years, but we’ve passed through some dark valleys and our love is deeper and different than it was in the beginning. And knowing that we’ve chosen to love each other, and stay together, even through deep hurts, makes my feelings for him more intense, I think. I’m so moved by sacrificial love. The kind I see when couples stick together through illness and old age and seemingly impossible circumstances. Good stuff to talk about. Thanks for bringing it up!
“Sometimes when you choose to love someone, even if you don’t feel like loving them, the feelings follow.”
YES!
We just had a great sermon on this at church on Sunday.
My pastor also said: “Your marriage covenant sustains your love, not the other way around.”
Great insights here!
I am moved by all the comments above. I agree with some, don’t with others. 43 years ago when we joined our lives together in front of God and our families we pledged to love each other as long as we live. At that time neither of us knew how long that would be because of our health. We made a conscious decision to stay together forever though, sometimes it’s been really, really hard, but then we remember that pledge we made and God see’s us through that valley. Today we both still have major health problems, but we do everything we can each day to help the other through it. Thank you Katie for your post today.
Thank you for chiming in! What a blessing that you have each other to help one another through the health problems.
Right on with this post, Katie! If I had walked out the minute I didn’t “feel” love, I’d have left a year after the “I do.” The best love is not anchored in feelings.
Agreed! Write the book (:
This is a story we could all relate to!
Maybe someday!
I’ve read these comments, now I’ll make mine.
Tom and I are in our 35 year of marriage and we still love each other deeply. Those first ‘in love’ feelings, when you can’t stand to be out of his sight, your heart leaps when he leans forward to kiss you, you jump when the phone rings because it might be him……they don’t last forever. But they are replaced by something far richer. They are replaced (sometimes they come back, too, at times!) by a deep and abiding love, richer than anything you ever thought possible when you stood at the altar and vowed to love each other till death do you part.
Tom received a diagnosis on Feb. 23, 2006 and the doctor said, “I’ll give you a 40% chance to live 5 years.” I was totally devastated and went to my storage building and railed at God. I said to Him, “Lord, we’ve not had enough time. He’s my best friend. I’d rather hang with him than anyone in the world.” We had many, many tough times, taken off chemo because it was killing him, his being hospitalized for an emergency blood transfusion because his hemoglobin dropped to 6! But it’s nearly 7 years now and he’s still here and doing well. Praise God!
When I need prayer, when I get scared, Tom’s the first person I turn to. One night I awakened and felt his hand on my head and he was whispering prayers for me. I have chronic conditions that cause me a lot of pain when they flare. It took all my reserve not to burst into tears. Just the other day I was feeling bad and he walked up to me, grabbed my hands in his and began to pray and storm heaven for me! That’s true love, Katie, and better than a fluttering heart, in my opinion.
True love is when he holds you in his arms and says, “Cry it out.” when your mother passes away. It’s when he take the week off just to be with you because you hurt so bad because you miss your mama.
True love is when he holds you up after you’ve had surgery and are hurting so bad you’re shaking and helps you in the bathroom, even helps you take a shower.
True love is when you look over at him and he smiles at you and you can see he treasures you.
True love is when he comforts you when a close family member betrays you and your heart is broken. He listens everytime you need to talk about the pain you feel.
True love is when your child breaks both your hearts and you have to cling mightily to each other and God to survive the pain.
Katie, these things are what makes a marriage last. You can’t just walk away from something like this when the ‘in love’ feelings aren’t there all the time.
True, too, are the times when I didn’t actually ‘feel’ like loving Tom when he was grouchy with me and we’d argued. I made a choice then to continue loving him because I made a commitment and I was honoring God.
I love my husband fiercely. We’ve had ups and downs but I’ve never, ever even considered leaving him because I can’t live without him. He is my strong support in tough times, my cheerleader when I need shoring up and he’s precious to me.
Maybe that didn’t sound like what you wanted to hear, but it’s my life and to me marriage is not something that you just walk away from when things don’t go your way or you don’t ‘feel’ like going throught the storm.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Thank you for sharing this, Susan.
So beautiful, Susan! Yours is a marriage we should all strive for. Thanks for sharing a little of it w/ us.
Amen. Beautiful. I’d choose that any day over heart fluttering too! I just keep thinking of how Jesus wept over Jerusalem, how God aches for His beloved to throw herself into His arms, how He whispers over us, longs for us and loves us fiercely also.
Romance is the milk. Sacrifice is the meat.
Love.
I would add surrender to the meat pile. 🙂
Hugely, hugely agree! You said it so well, I really don’t have anything to add…
Except…you know, I think your thoughts extend really well to faith. I don’t always “feel” love for God. I just don’t and maybe some people would think that’s a horrible thing to admit. But the feelings aren’t always there. It’s a choice, a day-in, day-out choice to love him through my thoughts, words and actions, no matter what I’m feeling.
Does not sound horrible to me at all!! Totally, 100% relate, Melissa.
Katie, I agree. Love is a choice. I didn’t always feel this way. But I can tell you, with 26 years of marriage behind me, that marriage is indeed all about choices. When you stand at the altar, teary eyed and trembling, one thing most if not all couples say in their vows is that they promise to LOVE. Cherish, honor, obey, whatever the words, that L one is always there. And so it remains. A vow. A commitment before God and friends and family. How then do we wake up one day and say, “I don’t love you anymore, I’m outta here!” It happens. Too often. Sure, maybe you look at the guy you married and go whoa what happened to you? Maybe he thinks the same about you some days. Does that give us the right to walk out? Not if we believe God is in the middle of it. Love is not Valentine’s Day. Love is not roses and champagne and chocolates. it’s not jewelry. Love is a shared lifetime of hopes and dreams, devastation and sweet victory. Love is knowing you are safe. Love is knowing you can stay up all night arguing yet still wake up together in the morning, and it’ll be okay. Love is praying, planning and putting aside all the human frailties that make it oh so easy to find fault in the other. Love is being there, no matter what. And sometimes it’s because you have to be. But God can change hearts and minds, and marriages. I’ve seen Him do it. Love is a choice, but it is also a gift.
Thanks for this today, I’m glad we can share our thoughts with each other. 🙂
Love this Cathy:
“Love is a shared lifetime of hopes and dreams, devastation and sweet victory. Love is knowing you are safe. Love is knowing you can stay up all night arguing yet still wake up together in the morning, and it’ll be okay. Love is praying, planning and putting aside all the human frailties that make it oh so easy to find fault in the other. Love is being there, no matter what. And sometimes it’s because you have to be. But God can change hearts and minds, and marriages. I’ve seen Him do it. Love is a choice, but it is also a gift.”
If we only love when we feel like loving….then what’s so special about that? I think we are most sanctified when God teaches us to love in spite of our feelings.
Not saying the feelings are never there. I thank God that by his grace, I still experience surges of overwhelming, intense love for my husband….but it’s easy to show love to him then. I have to rely on God and His strength so much more when I’m not feeling those surges.
You read my mind this week Katie. I have a dear friend in the middle of a lie and I am heart broken over it this week.
I clearly remember right after Ted and I were married 25 yrs ago, an old couple in front of us at church who’d just celebrated 65+ years. They were absolutely the most adorable couple. You could FEEL the love oozing around them in an aura that pulled the corners of your mouth upward just watching them. I remember Ted and looking at each other thinking–we want THAT!
I also remember early on at work being one of the youngest nurses on the floor where I worked at the hospital. So often the older nurses would remark–“oh just wait, your honeymoon will wear off.” It really bugged me, that they bought into the belief of settling for less. I’m not saying there haven’t been painful struggles over our 25 yrs. But I am saying, love is all the richer now.
And that is what I want my dear friend to see. But she is only looking at one small piece of the puzzle and can’t see God’s vision of the bigger picture.
Love is work worth the sweat and tears. And with God in our picture–oh so sweet.
In response to the Barb’s post above. My friend who is ‘in the middle of a lie”–it isn’t that her feelings are a lie. I KNOW there are very real, hurt, betrayal, anger, pain, etc that seem to overcome those old feelings of love from the start.
But, I think the lie she’s looking at is that somewhere else, whether in another relationship or not–there is a place where I will not be hurt, left, betrayed, broken. No one is immune to pain in this world. Pain is a stumbling block to send us deeper into the arms of Jesus, to experience a deeper love than we’d ever imagined or created on our own.
I totally agree Anne! Especially this: But I am saying, love is all the richer now.
I think the more we choose love and commit to our marriages, even through – or maybe especially through – those valleys and rough patches – and come out of them together….this is what makes love so rich. This is why my heart melts when I see those elderly couples walking and holding hands or dancing at weddings.
That is the kind of love that is so much DEEPER than anything we could experience in the beginning. But that is the kind of love that comes with time and plenty ‘o life in our pockets.
I don’t think I can agree or disagree, but to add that love is complicated. In the Greek there are four different words to describe it, so I can understand how the character on the show wanted to differentiate by using our English language. People can love, but not be IN love. (Phileo love, which is brotherly love, compared to agape love, which is unconditional.) It has been my experience that it is impossible to offer unconditional love to someone unless I am being empowered by God (He’s working through me) to love someone in this way. I cannot muster it up on my own.
While a person may try to act “as if” (action), I think there still has to be respect for one’s feelings. A person can talk herself into choosing love, acting in a loving way, or committing themselves to marriage, but sometimes they still come up empty. I don’t think our emotions or feelings are a lie, and that notion bothers me. If we didn’t FEEL or care, we would have no basis to make decisions.
I understand the point you’re trying to make, and I definitely think that commitment takes hard work, but I also think to ignore the feelings behind WHY we commit (i.e., we want to obey what we believe God says we should do in our marriage) is dismissive of a whole realm of validation for people, which can be damaging, and create a sense of failure if a person feels they can’t measure up.
My parents have been married for 63 years, so I believe in commitments, but I think there has been so much more to their marriage than personal efforts. I believe God is behind the scenes, and He is the one who empowers them to “choose” love.
Not trying to stir anything up, but I wanted to voice my opinion because I have witnessed the whole “feelings are a lie” thing do a lot of internal damage to people.
Always love when you jump into the convo, Barb.
I understand why the character said it too. But if I left my husband because I didn’t feel “in” love with him anymore…..then that’s problematic. Those “in” love feelings come and go. It’s the commitment and the deeper love – the love that is MORE than feeling – that keeps our marriage so rich and satisfying.
I hope I didn’t give the impression that successful marriages are a result of rolling up those sleeves and trying really hard. Of course it’s God’s grace. His grace is all over it.
Also, I just want to make sure I’m clear. I don’t think I ever said feelings are a lie. The lie comes when we believe those heady feelings of “in” love should always be there and if not, it’s time to jump ship. That is the lie. Not the feelings. And I’ve seen THAT lie break up many marriages and cause much damage.
Gotcha. I misunderstood the way you were linking the lie.
I still can’t help but wonder where the deeper feelings of love that forge a commitment stem from, though. I’m not convinced that I proactively try to love my kids or my husband in a deeper way; it is something outside of me that already exists and sustains us during the hard times. I personally wouldn’t jump ship when we fight or when I can’t deal with hard issues, but I can’t credit myself as better or smarter or more loving or less selfish, etc., than someone who does jump ship—because I have no idea what the context of their leading to that decision was. We like to think we have control and choice over such things, but sometimes despair, or hardness, or naivete, is part of our make up. I’m not excusing it, but I’m not judging it as right or wrong, either.
Very true and a good reminder never to judge:
“but I can’t credit myself as better or smarter or more loving or less selfish, etc., than someone who does jump ship—because I have no idea what the context of their leading to that decision was.”
What saddens me is that some people jump ship b/c – excuse the cliche – they think the grass is greener on the other side. I’ve seen people quit a marriage b/c they’re bored or lonely or (insert any other emotion here) and they think being with somebody else will fix those feelings.
I never understood why people say “Love is a CHOICE” and what that means…they make it sound robotic like “I CHOOSE to love you” to me it sounds like they don’t mean it from their heart, they mean it from their head as if they’re MAKING themselves love someone…But I have to agree with you on the part about people calling it quits the “minute love is not fun anymore”, very sad but true in many cases…
See, I disagree Alexis. I think our feelings are fickle. I can run the whole gamut of feelings in a single day – happiness, excitement, frustration, irritability, calm, stress, sadness….
I think love, while is can be a feeling, is so much MORE than a feeling. Read Cathy’s comment below. When we get married, we make a vow. These vows are a choice. We choose to love our spouse even when we don’t feel like it. And trust me, there are times in every marriage where we you won’t feel like it.
What’s cool though, is that in the choosing….something amazing happens. Love grows deeper. And richer.