|
|
Did your spouse tell you, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you?”
What does that statement mean?
Hi. I’m Mort Fertel, author of Marriage Fitness.
A person who says, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you,” is making a distinction between 2 different feelings. But NEITHER of those feelings are love!
When a person says, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you,” they’re saying that I CARE about you but I’m not EXCITED about you.
CARING about someone is a good thing. It’s reflective of CONCERN. But it’s different than love. I care about the starving children in Africa, but I don’t love them.
Being EXCITED about someone is also a good thing. But it’s different than love. I might be excited to have a relationship with the President of the United States or a Hollywood star, but that doesn’t mean I love them.
While someone who says, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you” seems to be making a distinction between “different loves;” in fact, they are expressing their confusion about what love really is. And that’s why they’re having marital problems and maybe even an affair (because who are they IN LOVE with?).
Love is something we articulate in the vocabulary of ACTION. Love is a verb. It’s not a feeling you get from another PERSON; it’s an experience you receive as a result of DEEDS YOU DO for another person.
And those deeds are not a secret. In other words, love is NOT a mystery! There are specific things you can do with your spouse to solve your problems and build love in your marriage.
Just as there are physical laws of the universe (such as gravity), there are also laws for relationships. Just as the right diet and exercise program makes you physically stronger, certain habits in your relationship WILL make your marriage stronger. It’s a direct cause and effect. If you know and apply the laws, the results are predictable—you can “make” love.
This is exactly why I created the Marriage Fitness program. I wanted to offer people a step-by-step system to make and maintain love in their marriage. And the program works for any marriage, even if only one spouse does it.
Very often in my private coaching sessions, someone will say to me, “I love my spouse, but I’m not IN LOVE with my spouse.”
My immediate response is to ask, “Can you list for me 5 ways in the last week that you’ve DEMONSTRATED your love for your spouse?”
I usually hear noise on the other end of the phone; grunts, partial statements, and gasps for breath, but none of what I hear ever passes for an answer to my question.
“I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you” is a cop out. It basically means that I have no clue how to make a relationship last LONG-TERM so I’m exiting to get high from another short-term romance. But whoever they’re IN LOVE with now will also eventually hear, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you.”
Of course, this is all fine and good, but it’s really your spouse who needs to hear this, right?
Do NOT print this blog article out and give it to them. And do NOT tell them what I said.
Getting your spouse from “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you” to “Okay, let’s give this another chance” is a tricky task. If this is your situation, it’s crucial you handle it strategically. One false step and your marriage could be over. If you take the right steps, you can draw your spouse back in and begin to restore your marriage TOGETHER. How do you do that?
Learn more about the Marriage Fitness system of relationship renewal by subscribing to my FREE report, “7 Secrets for a Stronger Marriage” and getting a FREE marriage assessment. Click here to subscribe. It’s FREE.
Warm regards,
Mort Fertel
Author of Marriage Fitness
Marriage Coach
Yesterday morning, there was a mourning Dove outside my window. The soft cooing of that bird made me think that Spring might be getting close to the part of the country that I call home. I can’t wait! I love to get outside and do things, get active again and get my Vitamin D absorption up. If you’re in a part of the country that continues to be pounded by snow, try to keep focused on just how Sweet it will be when Spring gets to your part of the world. And remember, it will get there, no matter how distant it might seem today!
The same can be said for peace of mind. I know that in the midst of the emotional turmoil that accompanies the breakup of a marriage, we often forget that life will ever return to normal. But just as Spring in inevitable, so is emotional recovery. It might take time, but never give up on the belief that your pain will ease, your anger will go away and your heart will mend! Try to look past today, just as you have to look past bad weather, and watch for the good times on the horizon. The more focused you are on getting through this painful time, the quicker you’ll be through it.
I now have a Twitter feed that you can follow, to make sure you’re updated regularly about the Blog updates, what’s going on in my life, etc. Follow me at http://twitter.com/jonrousch. I’ll do my best to make sure I keep you posted and who knows, I might even make you smile or chuckle from time to time.
Ok ladies, if you’ve read much of the main Survive-Divorce.com site, you probably already have a pretty good feel for my stand on parenting through a Divorce. I think it’s the most important issue there is! Let’s face it, the adults will survive, they understand what’s going on, but the kids are pretty much caught in the middle. Not only do they not really have the capacity to fully understand what’s going on, but they don’t get to make many of the choices in the situation. When Custody begins to be addressed, all too often the adults let their anger and hurt feelings affect their judgment about what’s really right for the kids. I know that at this point in your life, taking any advice from a man might be the farthest thing from your mind, but if you’ll give me just a minute or two, I think this is really important.
I am always on the lookout for unbiased, progressive ideas regarding Custody arrangements and recently I came across some resources that you might find extremely helpful. Psychologists Dr. Gail Elliot and Dr. Barry Bricklin have teamed up to put together some Child Custody strategies that are written with specific focus on the issue from the perspective of the individual parent. As a woman, your approach to the Custody portion of your Divorce may require different specific strategies than those of your ex-spouse. I think that you’ll find their ebook to be an excellent guide to the process you are going through. Take a look for yourself and see if you don’t think agree.
Please resist the urge to assume that the Father of your Children no longer needs to be heavily involved in their lives, just because you want him out of your life! It takes two parents to raise good kids, and so as you go through this Divorce, the Custody issue is one that you need to try to address with ONLY the best interest of your kids as the primary concern. The resources put together by Dr. Elliot and Dr. Bricklin are geared towards that end, and they are written so that your specific perspective as a Mother are taken into account. If you don’t think this is the particular information you need, please keep looking for balanced, objective guidance to this all important aspect of your Divorce.
If you’ve read much of the main Survive-Divorce.com site, you probably already have a pretty good feel for my stand on parenting through a Divorce. I think it’s the most important issue there is! Let’s face it, the adults will survive, they understand what’s going on, but the kids are pretty much caught in the middle. Not only do they not really have the capacity to fully understand what’s going on, but they don’t get to make many of the choices in the situation. When Custody begins to be addressed, all too often the adults let their anger and hurt feelings affect their judgment about what’s really right for the kids.
I am always on the lookout for unbiased, progressive ideas regarding Custody arrangements and recently I came across some resources that you might find extremely helpful. Psychologists Dr. Barry Bricklin and Dr. Gail Elliot have teamed up to put together some Child Custody strategies that are written with specific focus on the issue from the perspective of the individual parent. As a man, your approach to the Custody portion of your Divorce may require different specific strategies than those of your ex-spouse. I think that you’ll find their ebook to be an excellent guide to the process you are going through. Take a look for yourself and see if you don’t think agree.
Throughout the site, I always strive to help people reduce the “war” factor in their divorce, but while I am an advocate for a more peaceful, thoughtful approach to Divorce, I’m not blind to the fact that you may be in a situation where you need to get fully informed, and take aggressive steps to safeguard your own interests and those of your children. I hate to see either parent get sidelined in the lives of their children just because Mom and Dad can’t get along anymore. Don’t let that happen to you, it’s not right for you and it’s not right for your kids! If you don’t think the resource I’ve linked to here is right for you, please don’t stop looking! You owe it to your kids to make sure they have the best chance at having two fully involved parents in their lives, for the rest of their lives!
Jon
I was talking with a guy the other day who is in the early stages of a Divorce. There are two kids in the situation, both under about 10 years of age. The couple is committed to doing whatever they can to protect the kids and minimize the turmoil for them. With that in mind, they were trying to come up with something that might be less disruptive to the kids while the house is being sold and the paperwork is getting done, so here’s what they came up with. They are renting an apartment on a 6 month lease, and for the duration of that period, each of the adults will take a week of living at the apartment while the other party stays at the house with the kids. While that period of time is going by, they will be listing and trying to sell the primary residence.
He and I talked about this for quite a while, as my thoughts first turned to some of the obvious questions such as “What happens when someone leaves the apartment messy and the other person wants to fight about it?” or “What happens if a pipe breaks in the house while Dad is living in the Apartment? Does he come fix the pipe or does Mom call a Plumber?” Some of these questions were addressed in an agreement that the two worked up, and of course some will just have to be dealt with then they crop up. I’m really not sure if this is going to work well, or if will turn out to be a disaster, but I did think it was a novel approach to the problem and it may help the young kids get used to the idea of only having one parent around, while leaving the whole “we’re moving to a new house now” thing until later. I’ll keep tabs on this couple over the next few months and will watch how this works out and keep you all posted.
Till next time,
Jon
In my opinion, there is one constant regarding the thorny issue of custody of the children in nearly every divorce, and that one constant is that there is no single answer that works for every family. The days should be long past, both in the courts and in the minds of parents, where there is an assumption that the Mother is the primary care-giver and the Father is to be the primary financial contributor. I don’t think kids are best served by dividing up the difficult job of parenting through divorce by making it this cut and dried.
We say we want our Daughters to grow up with equal opportunities to excel and prosper in life, but at the first sign of Divorce many of us quickly revert back to the “traditional” roles that were the standard back in the 1950’s. We strive to raise our Sons to be involved, caring Fathers, but the role they see defined by divorce is one where the Father simply writes the checks and comes to visit every other weekend.
I challenge you to take a different look at parenting if your marriage is breaking up. Don’t follow the tired old path of least resistance, the Kids live mostly with Mom and Dad pays the child support and only gets the kids on every other weekend. That’s not shared parenting, that’s lazy, self-centered attitudes towards your ex-spouse that is overflowing onto the kids.
Both Parents shared in the job of bringing kids into the world, and I believe both parents have a right and an obligation to continue to provide ongoing support and nurturing of the kids, through the divorce and beyond. Sure, there’s no problem with financial support, if it is relevant and realistic, but I don’t think it should be an “assumed” part of the deal. I have no problem with the kids spending most of their time in one house or the other, but which house and how much of the time again should be a decision made based solely on what works best for the kids.
Now of course, I understand that some situations are unique, there may be abuse involved or other extenuating circumstances, and those each require their own solutions, but I’m talking about the vast majority of the divorces going on today where Mom and Dad simply figured out that they can’t live with each other. Divorce in that instance is between Mom and Dad only, and the Kids have a right to have two parents fully involved in their lives, for the rest of their lives.
Now that the dust has settled, the Christmas Decorations are packed away and the glitter from the New Years celebrations have been swept up, it’s time to start thinking about what we’re really going to do this coming year. I’m not talking about some “new years resolution” to join a gym, or start a new diet, I’m talking about sitting down and doing some real soul searching. You’re going through a difficult time right now, and believe me, I know how difficult the Holiday Season can be when your relationship is tanking!
But if ever there was a time for you to take the turning of the year, and in fact the beginning of a new decade, and put that symbolic change to work for you, it might be the best time – right now! Maybe your situation is one where you know you need to leave a relationship, but you haven’t been able to make the decision and take that first actual step. Maybe you’ve been waiting to file legal documents, or sign them and get the process completed, maybe you’ve been fighting over every little thing, determined to make the process as difficult as possible for the person you’re leaving. Maybe it is time to change – and change for the better.
Let’s face it, 2009 was the end of an entire decade that will probably go down in history as one of the worst. So I say let’s all make a fresh plan to make 2010 the start of the best one in our lives. Let’s chuck off the chains of fear and negativity and try to breath a fresh, positive perspective into our lives. That’s going to be the message you’re going to hear from me all this coming year. I’m going to be using this space to cover the individual issues and overwhelming complexities that are associated with the breakup of a marriage, but I promise to always try to balance it all with on overall focus on finding the positive, on finding ways to help you regain your center, to refocus yourself on finding joy in life, and to being the best person you can possibly be, married, divorced or whatever.
Please stay with me, please share your comments and let’s engage ourselves in this process and work together to make 2010 and beyond, our best years ever.
Jon
|
|
