How do you fall back in love with someone?

notechno

Leave her be. However hurtful it is in the long run, you will be doing her (and you) a favour.
If the positive, overflowing, do-or-die feelings don't come naturally then you have to cut loose. You could really, really work on it and feel that you're getting towards some kind of positive future. But it will be built on sand - first sign of trouble, first real arguments, and all that positivity would just ebb away.
You love someone, you feel you would die without them....or you don't. Simples

jayII

I'd say give it time.

Spend time together if possible, try to relax about it all, and talk to each other. Counselling may help, but proximity and having good times together may lead to you falling in love with her again. Try to relax about it all, have fun, and see how your feelings develop.

I believe that all long term relationships go through 'slow' and 'intense' times. Those with successful and long marriages have just learnt to weather the slow times.

If you still feel the same when some time has passed, at least you'll know that you haven't given up easily, and can leave with a clear conscience.

RoxieW

If you give up your wife and family I would worry that the person who will regret it in the long run is you. That said, a marriage can only work if both people put in the effort. She is probably irritating you because she is picking up on your vibes and being needy. Put some effort into getting the spark back and see where it gets you. Could you arrange a child free weekend away? With valentines coming up you have the perfect excuse. If not, at least have an evening out together, where you both get dressed up. Maybe send her off to the hairdressers
Just get away from the stress of daily life, relax and try to enjoy being together, and see how you feel then.
Is done turning your head? It can be easy to think that the grass is greener but it fairly is.

Savvy_Sue

tinytemper wrote: »

I am swaying between 'you have one life make the most of it and she will get over it' and 'put up and shut up,I chose this path I deal with it'

Did anyone ever tell you it would all be sunshine and roses? If so, they lied. Love is darned hard work. DH is INTENSELY irritating at times and I'm sure I am to him. And sometimes love is a conscious decision, not a fluffy feeling.

PhilipP wrote: »

But one thing i want to add is that you should never feel guilty for the way you feel, and you too deserve to be happy.

I think I agree with the first half of what you say, less so with the second half.

There's no point feeling guilty about the way you feel: it's the way you feel, so you might as well be honest about it. However, you can make a conscious choice whether to act on your feelings, or act on facts.

Fact: at some point you loved this woman enough to settle down and make babies with her. You say "I am her world". You must have done something to deserve that.

But it's the "you too deserve to be happy" that bugs me. I'm not sure what I want to say about it: sure, I'm not saying the OP should stick in a desperately unhappy situation, BUT if the OP 'deserves' to be happy, surely the OP's partner doesn't deserve to be made unhappy, do they?

And sometimes, we think "this isn't making me happy" and we get out, only it wasn't actually the situation that was making us unhappy, so instead of being an unhappy person with a supportive partner and lovely kids, suddenly there are two unhappy people, one struggling to make single parenthood work and the other struggling to be a part-time parent.

OP, if you can focus on the act of loving your partner, rather than the way you feel about things, the situation might change. And if they don't, I'd say that counselling either alone or together was always worthwhile.

GlasweJen

There's a book that may help you relate to your OH better, here's a link to its webpage:
http://www.5lovelanguages.com/

you can pickit up cheaply on amazon

Lunar_Eclipse

Yes it's possible. I firmly believe in where there's a will, there's a way, so if you will it to happen, there's a high chance it'll happen.

I often think situations like you describe are mainly about perspective and expectations. They are also sometimes about unhappiness with ourselves which we incorrectly rationalise as being with someone else, usually a partner.

Marriage is a journey. With ups and downs. Could you really leave her? As in knowingly cause her that much pain? I know I couldn't. Let alone for what reason; it's not like you know you'll be happier without her.

I'd try to break the cycle with effort and a positive mental attitude. Tell yourself you're in love with her several times a day and say thanks for your blessings; works wonders!

Finally, I would tred carefully if you decide to talk about your feelings with your wife. Communication is the foundation of a good marriage, but it needs to be respectful. Be very careful not to destroy her emotionally, which then comes back to bite you.

Savvy_Sue

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

I'd try to break the cycle with effort and a positive mental attitude. Tell yourself you're in love with her several times a day and say thanks for your blessings; works wonders!

Personally, I'm not sure I could keep saying "I'm in love with DH" if I didn't feel that way.

However, I can (and I have) made a conscious decision to SHOW love towards him, even when I don't necessarily FEEL love towards him.

One definition of love is wanting what is best for the other person. When we love our children, we don't necessarily give them what they want, and we most certainly don't always do what we want: we aim to do what is best for them.

We teach them to dress themselves and to wipe their own backsides, we make them do their reading practice, we insist they say 'please' and 'thank you', and bits of it are darned hard work and at the time they do not appreciate us one little bit, and they get a bit older and they hate us and strop and slam doors. But we still love our children, even if we don't always LIKE them.

Well, I think relationships between adults are similar: we work through the hard bits, and we do it because we LOVE the other person, and it's not a lovey dovey feeling which when it goes is gone forever.

lostinrates

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Personally, I'm not sure I could keep saying "I'm in love with DH" if I didn't feel that way.

However, I can (and I have) made a conscious decision to SHOW love towards him, even when I don't necessarily FEEL love towards him.

One definition of love is wanting what is best for the other person. When we love our children, we don't necessarily give them what they want, and we most certainly don't always do what we want: we aim to do what is best for them.

We teach them to dress themselves and to wipe their own backsides, we make them do their reading practice, we insist they say 'please' and 'thank you', and bits of it are darned hard work and at the time they do not appreciate us one little bit, and they get a bit older and they hate us and strop and slam doors. But we still love our children, even if we don't always LIKE them.

Well, I think relationships between adults are similar: we work through the hard bits, and we do it because we LOVE the other person, and it's not a lovey dovey feeling which when it goes is gone forever.

what a fantastic post.

I've not experienced this situation...yet...but another thing we do is try and make sure it doesn't happen that we feel 'drifting'. Communication, the showing love....all of this is part of that. I think for us, though we felt getting married didn't change our relationship it did mean there was a commitment of love made in which we could communicate fears, worries complaints against the far greater picture of love. Tackling niggles as they arise ..even if its simply for the niggled to come to terms with an irritant and put it behind them, is helpful.

Ballyhoo

Wow, tricky.

You say you aren't in love anymore, which might be true. But you might be in a rut, especially with kids. Maybe you need to kickstart this thing to get out of it?

NOT valentine's day. Too predicatable. Do you have friends you can drop the kids off to for the day sometime soon?

Do that, then do something special and meaningful for the both of you. It doesn't have to be flowers and chocs (which would make me vomit, as well as not being very MSE), it could be a recreation of your first date, a spontaneous drive out in the country. Whatever it is, make sure you surprise yourself, as well as her. And do get out of the house, it's really important to change your environment if you're going to change your experience.

Who knows? Outside of your normal routines, away from the normal pressures, you might see her in a different light.

Gigglepig

A few thoughts:

If you have promised to stay with someone and settled down with them, they deserve you trying a bit harder and giving them a chance, and your kids deserve it too. I think a marriage is not just about "being in love" but about friendship, companionship, and being there for each other when things get tough.

You do not mention how long you have been married, but I don't think it is realistic to have as strong feelings of being "in love" for years and years, but think about everything you share which would be thrown away if you walked out and tried to start over! If you leave, you may feel more in love with someone else, but what about the x years you have invested in getting to know someone really well, building a life together, having a family?

How will leaving impact you - if you walk out, will you still be able to believe that a marriage can last forever?

You mention that you don't fancy your wife. What about her, what do you do to make sure you are attractive to her and still keep a spark?
I also think it is hard for someone to seem attractive to you if they don't feel attractive themselves. If she is over worked, sleep deprived due to small kids, stressed, all of those things are not going to make her feel attractive. The same goes for you. If for example you have other big worries on your mind, work too long hours or don't get enough sleep then that won't help.

Several good tips have already been posted regarding how you "court" your wife to try to revive the relationship.

Perhaps it is also good to think through whether there are any other things that bother you, which do not necessarily stem from your relationship. Midlife crisis issues... ;-) finding it hard to come to terms with getting older and wishing one was a madly in love young person again, with lots of opportunities and fewer responsibilities. Some times, the relationship issues are just symptoms of something else that is going on inside us.

Some times maybe it helps to take on a shared project, something you both dream of. Saving up to buy a holiday home abroad, take a gap year to travel the world, volunteer once a week, run a marathon... During the time you settled down and started a family together you focused on a shared project, which may have brought you closer. Once that is done, could a new shared project in your lives help to bring you close again?

If your partner is loving and supportive, then feeling madly in love is perhaps a luxury. Some times, I think we "think too much" because our lives are very good and we have the spare energy to be philosophical. You say that you are "her world" - have you thought of how lucky you are? It is easy to miss the lovey dovey feeling of "being in love" when things are good, but if you became very ill, disabled, or extremely poor, how would life be without your loving supportive spouse?

Only you and your partner knows your relationship and what is best for you, I just wanted to throw in a few thoughts to consider. Good luck and I hope things work out well for you all :-)