I'm Just Not "In Love" Anymore
By Gary Chapman
The Question
After being married one year, I'm not sure I'm "in love" anymore. Where could we have gone wrong?
The Answer
This is the same question I was asking after the first year of my marriage. I had been told that if you are really "in love" it will last forever. I was misinformed.
The fact is that the emotional obsession, which we commonly call "falling in love," is a temporary experience.
Research indicates that the average life span of this "in love" phase is two years. Since we fall in love before we get married, most couples are coming down off the high within the first year of their marriage. We no longer feel those warm bubbly feelings, and we no longer think that our spouse is perfect. In fact we are realizing that we are so different, and we are wondering, "How did we ever get together?"
Then begins the second and more important phase of love: learning how to speak each other's love language. My book The 5 Love Languages has helped hundreds of thousands of couples make this transition. The basic idea is that each of us has a primary love language. Almost never do a husband and wife have the same love language.
In order to keep emotional love alive after we come down off the "in love" high, we must learn to speak each other's language. The five love languages are Words of Affirmation, Gifts, Acts of Service, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. Once you make this transition, you will each feel loved, and you will hardly even miss the "in love" high.
Your emotional love tank will be filled by your spouse's regular expressions of love. To discover your primary love language, visit www.5lovelanguages.com.
