If you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling it’s up to you to decide to let it go or get it back.
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Love is one of the most undefined and over-expressed experiences I have ever come across as a coach and woman. We have all sorts of ideas and notions about it that either reinforce its importance or hold us back from loving fully.
Being in love may happen by accident at first, but I truly believe it’s a choice whether your nurture that love or not.
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We have ideas of how love should look, how it should feel, and how it should be expressed. All these shouldings cause us great struggle in long term relationships, and as a coach who works with relationship challenges and a person who has had her fair share of challenges, one thing stands out to me — being in love at first just happens and then through conscious choice and action love either stays alive or runs its course.
But what happens when you love someone but aren’t feeling in love and you want to feel that ‘in love’ feeling again? (Sometimes you will not be in love with them and be ready to move on, that’s OK too!)
Being in love may happen by accident at first, but I truly believe it’s a choice whether your nurture that love or not.
Here are some of the ways I see people erode the love they have for their partner and I have some suggestions about how to build that love up instead of tearing it down.
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It’s a simple concept but not so easy to practice. You take actions that are the catalyst for those feelings of being in love and shake up that slump you have assisted in creating.
Stop expecting and start appreciating.
I get it, sometimes your lover will let you down. It hurts and you take it personally.
What if you didn’t though? What if you saw it as being about your lover and them doing their best?
Even if you see their behavior as not good enough, what if you reviewed why you stay and complain, instead of improving your self-esteem and making other choices?
How would that change the nagging? No one feels sexy nagging a partner, it’s like begging for love and appreciation. Your lover doesn’t feel sexy and appreciated when you nag them either. It simply causes more distance.
Start acknowledging all the reasons you stay and love up on your partner for all of those reasons. Appreciate rather than expect!
My experience working with men as a coach is they are always doing their best in any moment, it doesn’t mean what they do should be accepted — especially bad behavior — however it stops you taking it personally.
Have boundaries and take responsibility for your own stuff.
Bad behavior and broken promises suck and no one wants to experience that. However if your lover keeps breaking their promises or doing things to hurt you, it is really important that you set healthy boundaries and honor them, whether they do or don’t.
You need to agree on what’s OK and not OK. Then you need to stick to that agreement. It’s not OK to just wait until they mess up so you can play the blame game.
Your needs are 100 percent your responsibility and you need to have your own back. This is your job. When you do this, you can spend more of your energy loving your partner and loving yourself.
No dynamic is caused by one person alone so work your stuff out. Get a coach, therapist, or couple’s counselor. If you do what you have always done and it hasn’t worked, then you’re only going to get more of the same unless you make real changes.
Here are some changes that can help you fall in love again.
Do lots of self-care/self-loving activities.
It’s so much easier to love up on someone and feel super drawn and sexy towards them when you feel super topped up and sexy in yourself. Taking responsibility for your own needs takes the pressure off your lover and leaves you with lots of energy to share.
The problem is the more we complain about things the more we reinforce the belief in whatever we’re complaining about.
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Any person I have ever discussed a relationship with played a part in the problem. They were not free of responsibility. They made choices that reinforced and kept an unhealthy or unloving relationship alive.
Self-care / Self-love seems to bridge that gap and helps bring a serious amount of clarity around what you need, what you want and what is actually yours to heal as much as it adds clarity about what is truly not OK.
Make a list of all the wonderful things you love about your partner.
Nothing gets you loved up more than focusing on what’s amazing about your partner and what is sexy about them. Focusing on all the good points starts to release bonding hormones and that alone can help wake up that loving feeling.
Stop bitching to your friends.
OK, guilty as charged. That’s how I know this is unhealthy and undermines your relationship. No one is perfect and if your partner is that bad and you keep staying, you really need some professional help. The problem is the more we complain about things the more we reinforce the belief in whatever we’re complaining about. Which also releases more of those chemicals in our bodies that make us feel it for even longer.
Often your friends will blindly agree with you, very rarely do they ask “what’s your part to play?” Very rarely will they have an unbiased opinion because they love you. Although venting is good, there is a fine line between expressing and venting and reinforcing negative beliefs. A good therapist/coach is the most unbiased person you can pick to talk this stuff out with effectively.
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There is no perfect person but there is a fit that you can work with and with that fit, you become your best version of yourself and they theirs.
Relationships are messy and we don’t need fairy tales to feel loved or to be in love with someone. We need conscious healthy action. Life is going to happen and you get to choose whether you face it with love or not.
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Agreed. These “how to love her again, “how to restart the spark after a separation”, how to redefine you r bad breakup etc… ” articles are getting a little tiresome. The fact is that not everyone needs to be partnered up or in relationship. The most important thing is for a person to learn to be independent as possible. Lean to full fill yourself!
We humans tend to over-complicate things to the greatest extent possible.
I’ve learned to keep it simple, to address love as the simple act of caring about another more then one cares about themselves. The degree to which they exercise that belief is the degree to which they love.
With that understanding, I went out to find my best friend, and married her. Everything else has fallen into place.