I listened intently knowing that he was about to drop a bombshell. There was strained silence at the other end of the phone line as he struggled to articulate the words. Then he blurted out, ‘The truth of the matter is I am no longer in love with my wife’. He sighed in resignation, or possibly relief that he had finally voiced to someone what had been in his heart for months.
The genesis of this problem is not far-fetched. We have been sold a lie by the media about the character and nature of true love. Consequently, people spend their lives in search of their ‘soulmate’ – the ideal person who will light all their fires, excite them endlessly and complete them perfectly with no conflict in sight. They expect that when they finally fall in love with this mythical person, all doubts will disappear, it will be perfectly clear that they are meant for each other and they will never experience a moment of ‘ordinariness’ with that person for the rest of their lives. They anticipate that loving their soulmate will be always exciting, always energizing, and always perfect. They fall in love with the feeling of being ‘in love’ – the headiness, the highs, and the hopeful aspirations. Then they get married and after several months or years their world comes crashing down because their ‘soulmate’ does not seem to fit them so perfectly after all.
At this point there are three choices. Some people come to the erroneous conclusion that they made a mistake marrying their spouse and become convinced that the only way to happiness is to leave their spouse and go in search of love again. Others resign themselves to the reality of a loveless marriage and simply hang in there for the social status, for the kids or for financial reasons. But there is a third way, God’s way, and that’s where I want us to focus our attention.
We need to make a distinction between the concept of being ‘in love’ as Hollywood has portrayed it and the reality of what love really is. It is normal for relationships to start off with emotional highs. However, if we attempt to draw upon emotion as the strength of marriage, we will fail miserably because emotion can be so fickle. Emotions cannot sustain a marriage because the very nature of emotions is that they are inconsistent and totally unpredictable. One thing that is predictable though is decision. The kind of love that sustains a marriage is not an emotion over which you have no control; it is a decision over which you have total control. At some stage in marriage, we have to make a switch from an emotion-driven commitment to a decision-driven commitment. When you are decisive about loving your spouse, it doesn’t matter how you feel when you wake up in the morning because you have decided to give unconditional love regardless. This is the foundation for a lasting marriage.
Someone may be wondering, ‘Does this mean that I am sentenced to an unsatisfactory marriage for the rest of my life?’ Absolutely not. In Revelation 2:4-5a God gives a clear picture of what happens when people lose their first love for Him and how to recapture it. The lessons are equally applicable in marital relationships. Hear Him, ‘You have left the love you had in the beginning. So remember where you were before you fell. Change your hearts and do what you did at first.’ I see four key principles for rekindling love in this scripture.
How have you changed?
The phrase, ‘You have left’, suggests that when you fall out of love, it is usually because something has changed in you. The tendency is to blame your changed feelings on your spouse but usually what is really happening is that you have changed the way you view your spouse. The first step towards rekindling love is to take responsibility for your feelings rather than blaming your spouse. Thoughts like, ‘I would love her more if she started meeting my needs’ or ‘The reason why I no longer love my husband is because he hurt me’ is indicative that you have entered the blame cycle. You place expectations on your spouse, they fail to meet those expectations, and you blame them for it and consequently refuse to meet their needs. This is a vicious cycle which squeezes the love out of marriages. Thinking, ‘My marriage will change when my spouse changes’ is a disempowering thought as you have no control over your spouse’s behaviour. When you start thinking, ‘My marriage will change because I am becoming more loving, more caring and more responsive’, then you are suddenly back in control and that changes the atmosphere of your home.
Remember where you were
The next step towards rekindling lost love is remembering how your relationship started and why you fell in love with your spouse in the first place. Very often the cares of life rob us of our beautiful memories and we forget the strengths that attracted us to our spouse in the first place. The reality is that those strengths are still in your spouse but you need to remind yourself of what they are. Remember how convinced you were that your spouse was a gift from God. Rather than using your memory to recollect your spouse’s failures, use it to recapture the good times and focus on restoring the relationship to its former beauty. Your spouse is still the same person you fell in love with so refuse to allow your current conflicts to cloud your perspective. You can recover what was lost.
Change your heart
The reason why you fell in love in the first place is because your heart was open to your spouse. Feeling that you are no longer in love is usually evidence that you have closed your heart. To open your heart to your spouse again you will need to begin to view him or her from a positive perspective. Usually, when we get close to someone we begin to notice their faults and weaknesses which we never saw in the early stages of the relationship. Focusing on your spouse’s shortcomings is deadly to your relationship because that is what convinces people that they have made a mistake. I like a quote from Benjamin Franklin which I read many years ago, ‘Keep your eyes wide open before you get married; and half shut afterwards’. We all have weaknesses but successful marriages are built by people who can look past their spouse’s faults, see their strengths, and celebrate them.
Do what you did
You can recapture the feelings you had for your spouse by doing the things you did when you first fell in love. When we first fall in love we are extremely in tune with our partner, attentive to their every need and actively pursuing their wellbeing. When we begin to settle into the relationship and start taking our spouse for granted, decline sets in. Begin again to treat your spouse with kindness. Focus on meeting their needs rather than getting your needs met. Do the fun things you used to do together when you first met. You may not feel like it initially but as you begin to treat your spouse right, your feelings will catch up later.
What do you need to do today to rekindle the love in your marriage?
