What're your views on falling out of love?

“Falling out of love” usually doesn’t happen out of the blue. I’d imagine that there’s a reason for it, whether it be that the one person is bored and has lost his/her passion, their partner changed over the years, or the person changed. It depends on the scenario. Falling out of love may sometimes be a workable issue, or sometimes there is no going back when too much damage has been done. Falling out of love, when it’s not salvageable, I’d think would involve a major, drastic change within the people or the nature of their relationship. I think if it’s an issue of staleness, a loss of enthusiasm, that can be worked with.

when I hear “falling out of love” I usually take it to mean “coming out of the infatuation stage”, which isn’t always a bad thing.

However, there can be a difference. “Falling out of love” can be permanent and bad in a relationship. “Not being infatuated” is completely different and it’s natural. You can be in love but yet not infatuated. With a little work, you can get that spark back.

When I hear the term “falling out of love” I think about bright eyes and in turn I reflect on when I fell of out of love with the girl that I was with for 3 years. Falling out of love… I think you’d have to think about the volume that you hear it at. I mean to say that maybe like it’s been said before, there might be a reason. There is a quote from some one… I can’t remember right now but, he said: “you got to know when to hold ‘em. Know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away. ” or something like that.

But back to your original question. I’d say yes, of course there is a chance to rekindle the fire. Be the person they need you to be. Love them. Love them like it mean something. Because it should.

I think this topic is very situation specific and that a whole host of factors go in to someone coming out with those words…

It is usually a long term process, not just a one time thing. When the combination of life’s little annoyances add up to “I am not going to take it anymore” that is when you hear falling out of love. Sometimes people entered into a relationship by allowing themselves to turn a blind eye to the faults of the partner. When the faults don’t disappear, they can take on an exaggerated importance, until the “final straw”.

I agree with @lynneblundell that this topic is very relationship specific. There are many factors that go into falling out of love, starting with false expectations at the start, to depression, to mistaking infatuation, to expecting relationships to not require constant work.

Whenever I see a question like this, I think of an exchange in the movie Shenandoah with Jimmy Stewart:

Lt. Sam: I want to marry your daughter.
Charlie Anderson: Why?
Lt. Sam: I love her.
Charlie Anderson: Do you like her?
Lt. Sam: Well, I just said I…
Charlie Anderson: No, no. You just said you loved her. There’s some difference between lovin’ and likin’. When I married Jennie’s mother, I-I didn’t love her – I liked her… I liked her a lot. I liked Martha for at least three years after we were married and then one day it just dawned on me I loved her. I still do… still do. You see, Sam, when you love a woman without likin’ her, the night can be long and cold, and contempt comes up with the sun.

I think Love never goes away. If you feel you have fallen out of love, it wasn’t love.
I still have those feelings for every woman I ever fell in love with, regardless of how badly I was treated by them.

In my case it wasn’t “falling out of love” as much as it was admitting that the love was never really there to begin with. I was in a relationship for over 20 years because it was there. It was the relationship I had always been in and it seemed I would always be in it. The spark couldn’t be reignited, mostly because it had never been there in the first place.

We’re getting relationship advice from Kenny Rogers?

When my mum and dad split up I remember her telling him that she loved him and she always would but she wasn’t in love with him anymore. I believe you can fall out of love with someone that you were once very much in love with. People can change as they get older and if they don’t change in ways that compliment each other and the relationship then they may find themselves wanting different things out of life than they did in years gone by. I certainly don’t believe that if you fall out of love with someone you were never really in love in the first place.

Falling out of love always leads to falling back in.

@ChazMaz not always

60% of the time, it works all the time.

Personally I never used the phrase as it always sounded a bit off to me – I have loved quite a few people in my life – they were all my partners but the intensity and the depth of my love varied…that is because I was at a different stage in my own life and because of other factors…when I met my current husband and tried to help him with his marriage, I realized that I should be asking the same questions of my marriage and I realized that I no longer loved my own husband or perhaps I never knew what true love was…when I met him, I was 17 and it felt like love…we had a good time for many years…but when I met my current husband, it felt like ‘no, this is what it actually is, love, that is’

@stratman37 and you’re basing this on…?

you’re kidding, right?

@stratman37 about what?

you’ve never seen Talladega Nights with Will Ferrel?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir so you are saying that you fall out of love. There is a chance you will never fall in love again?

@ChazMaz perhaps I misunderstood what you’ve written – I took it to mean that even when you fall out of love with a person you will always fall back in love with them…which isn’t always the case…I didn’t mean that one will never fall in love again…although now that I think about it that’s of course possible as well…
@stratman37 no

@Simone_De_Beauvoir , here’s the T-shirt:

http://images.cafepress.com/image/18666916_400x400.jpg

sex panther is a cologne in the movie

@stratman37 cool.

The “spark” can be reignited, but it takes serious work. You have to rebuild your communication skills, and you have to come to want to give to the other person again. It usually helps to have a counselor. This is harder to do on your own, although possible. If you do attempt this on your own, make sure your partner also wants to try. Then research the topic, and use the techniques and wisdom you gain from your research.

Group therapy can also be less expensive than individual therapy, if cost is an issue. It can also be very helpful to hear other couples’ stories.

Love is a choice. Therefore falling out of it is a choice too.. regardless of the trauma that brought you to the decision.. imho.

I think that when you fall out of love with a person you can fall back inlove with them, but it may not be as deep as when you first fell inlove with the, because somehere in your mind is all the reasons you fell out of love with that person to begin with, may be possible though that if both people change they can work together to get it to where it was before, but I think that would take time.

I think initially people experience that heady ‘in love’ feeling but it develops into a more comfortable companionship feeling. Maybe this is the stage where people start to question whether they ‘have fallen out of love’ because they have learnt all they perhaps want to know about each other or that they just become too ‘comfortable’ with each other and become complacent.

Also I think the falling out of love feeling is more circumstantial and is dependent upon issues between the couple. My friend once described problems and difficulties in a relationship as ‘building an album’ in that all the difficulties in the relationship are collated together into a mental ‘photo album’ until we come to a point that we have filled the album and can no longer continue the relationship with that person. Maybe this is also when you fall out of love.

@stratman37 ahaha, no not really, just a little reference and thanks for reminding me who it was.

Thanks for the great responses everyone!