Why People ‘Fall Out of Love’?

Why People ‘Fall Out of Love’?

People don’t really fall in and out of love. Someone chooses to love so the feeling of love is there; or they fail to love, so the feeling of love dies and goes away.

When two people are loving each other, they are both patient, kind, truthful, protective of others, trusting, hopeful and persevering. They are choosing to love and they are choosing to act on love.

The result is the fruitfulness, the feeling of love in both of their lives. We say they “fell in love” or they are “in love” with each other. But the feeling of love, the “falling in love” comes for a reason--because they have chosen to love.

Unfortunately, eventually one person will hurt the other. When hurt comes, at first, we keep choosing to love, but eventually we get enough of the hurt and the next time the hurt comes, we choose to no longer be patient, no longer be kind…

When we do this, we hurt the other person. Hopefully, we forgive and we repent. And if we forgive and repent, we quit being angry. We quit being rude. We choose to be patient and kind, again.

And hopefully the other person chooses to forgive us and they continue to love us and act on love, in patience and kindness, trust, truthfulness, and being protective of others, hopeful and persevering. Then the loving in each person’s life restores the fruit in their own lives.

The trap is we think other person should restore our fruit. They can’t do that. People who hurt you can’t heal you. They can’t fix you. And you can’t fix yourself either, by the way. But loving can heal you.

This is what happens eventually if we keep going back and forth and we stop repenting, and we stop forgiving. Instead of each person persevering in love they both stop persevering, stop being patient, kind, truthful, protective of others, trusting and hopeful; and they become the eight things love is not: angry, rude, prideful, boastful, selfish, unforgiving, envious and delighting in evil.

Now there is no feeling of love left in the relationship at all. So, people say they “fell out of love.” That’s not what happened. They quit loving, so the feeling of love fell out of their relationship.

The good news is that we can always choose to repent and start loving again, and if two people will do that, the feeling of love will return to their relationship.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Think about it.

Trust God’s Word no matter what.

Keep your eyes on the horizon.

If this doesn’t make sense, read my book, “The Right Fight: How To Live a Loving Life.” It’s all in there. I spent seven years writing it. It will help you set your life on a path of fruitfulness and show you how to live a loving and courageous life instead of a life driven by fear. Order the book on Amazon and at shieldsofstrength.com.