Falling in love is such a beautiful thing.  The Hallmark channel and other romantic venues make this their primary focus offering the possibility of a ‘happily ever after’.  Humans have been enraptured with the idea of love ever since their beginning.  The idea of falling in love for most people is understood only as a feeling therefore leaving many without a clear understanding of love.  We as humans need love, want love and pursue love.  Love is one of those words or concepts that is often misunderstood and therefore can leave a trail of broken and bleeding hearts.

All too often I have heard people tell me when they come for marital counselling that their previous relationships that fell apart often involve the words we fell out of love with each other.  This makes it sound like just a happen stance thing with no rhyme nor reason, as though all by chance or simply a thing that is biological in nature.

Ignorance is a destroyer and in this case it destroys relationships, it destroys marriages.  When I dig deeper and help people to better understand love and how it works sharing with them the “secrets” of making love work, then it makes sense and the results speak for itself.  First let’s understand the mechanics love or at least the bare bones of it.

Understanding Love

In our English language we use the word love for various things that we enjoy, have an affection for or a devotion towards.  We can love bananas, love a dog or cat, love our child, love a job, and love your husband/wife.  Love is a word that has numerous different meanings.  In some other languages love does not have only one word but a number of words to define or better describe a particular kind of love.  The Greek language is one such language which essentially has four words for love: agape, phileo, storge, and eros.  These words help to differentiate what kind of love is being expressed when they desire to communicate an affection or affinity towards their object of choice.  Understanding what love is more specifically will help those in a marriage relationship to be more purposed in making love work.  

Agape Love

This word began to emerge in some of the works of Plato approximately 500 years before Christ.  It wasn’t until the time of the writing of the Septuagint and the New Testament of the Bible did this word take on a more distinct meaning that includes not only a devotional type of love but an unconditional, self-sacrificing love to be given to both foe and friend.  This is a virtuous love though can involve deep devotion involving a non-sexual passion.  This love can also be described as an unconditional love, which is divine in nature.

Phileo Love

Also known as philia is a love that denotes brotherly or sisterly love.  It is a mutual friendship type of affection or love.  It is known to be dispassionate in nature and virtuous which can exist between family, friends, and even spouses.  It is a love that is mutually beneficial and can be understood as you scratch my back I scratch yours.   This kind of love we see in other English words such as philanthropy, philology, philoprogenitive, and other words that include “philo” which denotes a liking for a specific thing. Unlike agape this love has conditions because it requires mutual benefit.

Storge Love

This word is used specifically to express non-sexual physical affection that is generally expressed in family and friendship relationships.  Such examples would be the physical care and affection that parents give to their children.  Another example would by giving someone a hug as in a friendship or cultural greeting.

Eros Love

Eros kind of love is passionate and sexual in nature.  It involves a longing, sexual desire, in modern Greek it denotes romantic love.  In ancient Greek it denotes an expression of courting and love in marriage.  Plato used this love to express an appreciation for beauty.  This word we can see used in our English language as in erotic love.  When people refer to falling in love or falling out of love this word would best describe the meaning of those statements.  

Conclusion

When we fall in love or fall out of love our feelings and passions have shifted.  This happens for one or more of these three reasons:

1. All romantic, sexually passionate feelings in a committed marital relationship begin to diminish somewhere between two weeks to two years according to Dr. Patricia Love and Jo Robinson.  This is largely due to the mind and body normalizing itself thereby lowering those hormonal levels.
2. The reason that passion existed either no longer exists or has severely diminished because of the lack of meeting each others emotional needs. 
3. Bad habits that have been repeatedly demonstrated towards your partner in the relationship.  Such bad habits can be understood as love thieves that are a result of selfishness, ignorance, lack of self-control, and/or unresolved past emotional issues in ones life.

To fall in love again is possible and does take effort and often professional help.  In my next article I will discuss how love in marriage works. 

Sources:

1.  Agape. (2019, February 7). New World Encyclopedia, . Retrieved 21:00, December 11, 2019 from //www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Agape&oldid=1017946.

2.  Love, Patricia and Robinson, Jo, Hot Monogamy: Essential Steps to More Passionate, Intimate Lovemaking, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012.