UNLEASHING THE K.I.S.S. MARRIAGE- FALLING OUT OF LOVE (Part 2)
Posted: August 15, 2014
I get all warm and tingly when I find a gorgeous pair of designer shoes at 70% off the last sale price. Or, if I find out that one of my articles is being published and I’m actually going to get paid for it. But that glow quickly evaporates over the next couple of hours or days. I’m not “in love with the shoes or articles”; they just give me a lovely jolt of temporary bliss. But I’m afraid we might expect that same kind of pleasure rush in our relationships and it may be our gauge for determining whether or not we are in love. We live in a very selfish and pleasure seeking world and I think we have confused the definition of love.
“Love is directed outward toward others and not inward toward ourselves. It is not a feeling but a decision to meet others’ needs.” So if you feel that the love has gone out of your marriage, the romantic feeling is gone and the intimacy roots have been damaged beyond repair (See Part 1 of this Article) do not despair. I know with absolute conviction that love can be healed, restored and you can again have that romantic feeling.
I was a young, insecure and needy woman who married a very young man. I had expectations that my husband would saturate me with love, meet all my needs, listen to me and cherish me above everything else. Strangely enough he needed the same things from me. So take two people looking for the other person to fill each other’s love tanks; meet each other’s needs and you have a Molotov cocktail of angst and power struggles just waiting to implode. Several years into our marriage we both “fell out of love” and decided divorce was the answer. But something unexpected and beautiful happened. We started attending church, and got to know the One who is the essence of love and chose to have a personal, intimate and spiritual relationship with that source called God. Over the next few years we learned that God is the unlimited and powerful source of love. When we learn to receive God’s love into our lives, we have enough love in us to actually pour unselfishly onto the other person. Here is how the bible describes love and how my first husband and I began to unleash this love into our own lives and ultimately into our marriage: Let look at:1 Corinthians 13:4-7.
- Love never gives up. We made a determined choice NOT to get a divorce. We decided that we would learn how to love each other and stay committed to the vows we expressed during our marriage ceremony, “till death do us part.” We stayed true to this covenant until my husband died very suddenly on the basketball floor two weeks before Christmas in 1994. We had so many wonderful, satisfying and love filled years and I am so grateful that we “never gave up.”
- Love cares more for others than for self. We made a determined effort to speak kindly to each other, and say and do nice things that would put a smile on the other person’s face.
- Love doesn’t demand its own way. We both decided that it is hardly ever important to be right.
- Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others. This was a hard one to let go because most of us keep a chest full of wrongs done to us. It was time to forgive all the wrongs we felt were done to us, let go of resentment and learn to communicate our hurts when we felt injured.
- Love doesn’t “fly off the handle”. It was time to realize that we all do things to irritate each other. No point in getting mad at someone when we all do things wrong at one time or another. Decide what’s important and let go of the rest.
- Always looks for the best. Intentionally look for the good things in the other person; the things that made you fall in love with them in the first place. It’s still there, maybe tucked away a bit, but words of love and encouragement will draw them out.
- Love doesn’t revel when others grovel, Love takes pleasure in flowering the truth, it puts up with anything, never looks back, always trusts God and keeps going to the end. Love endures through every circumstance.
So you see, we don’t fall out of love. It’s all right there inside of us we just need to ask God to help us heal the damage and restore the love.
I am so glad my first husband and I fought a good fight to save our marriage. Two days before he died he said these words I will never forget, “Life just doesn’t get any better than this.” He was able to say this because we asked God to help us rebuild our marriage and learn to love each other again. Love always wins.
