(This is the idea behind my 52 emails book, which is for couples rekindling their connection as well as those who want to kindle from scratch.) ![]() Often, this can occur when you and your spouse express curiosity about each other, and learn about different aspects of one another. Couples counseling can also help you and your spouse build a romantic connection. Individual therapy can help you figure out if you want to leave you partner, or why your feelings of resentment are bubbling over right now when you may have been content at an earlier time. If you are not in love with your spouse, and this causes you anger, regret, or makes you want to cheat, then sometimes, therapy can help you. Their anger may be directed at their spouse (for not being more passionate, romantic, or whatever else), or at themselves for “settling” instead of holding out for someone they felt more passionate about. (Some people also feel like this when there has never been sexual chemistry between themselves and their spouse these are related situations but not completely the same.) This can lead to divorce, infidelity, or, in the case of people who are more risk-averse, feelings of depression, anger, and being trapped. In both of these situations, someone feels like they are losing their opportunity to be fully alive, and to fully experience the near-universal (or so they think) human experience of being in a passionate romantic relationship. (2) At least one of the partners thought they were a non-romantic type of person when they married their “best friend” spouse, but later in the marriage, they fall in love with someone else outside the marriage. (1) At least one of the partners has never experienced reciprocal passionate romantic love with anyone, and feels that they missed out on the possibility of experiencing it by “settling” for their spouse. But for many people, feeling that you’ve never had a deep romantic connection with a spouse is a source of constant distress and regret. If you are a person with a non-romantic, but still deeply caring marital relationship, you may not understand people who would throw away a perfectly good, stable marriage for a reason like lack of passion. At this stage of her life, she may feel that she greatly desires a happy marriage, and also a good sex life and dinners out with her husband, but she may doubt that she will ever feel (or would ever want to feel) passionately romantically connected to another man. This hypothetical woman and her second husband may have a great sex life, even better than the sex life she had with her first husband, and lots of date nights. Before you feel too badly for her second husband, let me assure you that in my experience, a couple’s sexual or even “romantic” behavior (e.g., dates) is not directly linked to whether the partners feel romantically connected to one another. When she remarries in a few years, she may “settle” very happily for a man whom she respects and loves, but to whom she doesn’t feel that same romantic passion. They may also be older people, or people who remember prioritizing romantic love at an early phase of life, but no longer feel that it is quite as important, or important at all.įor example, a woman may have been in love with her first husband, but when he passes away unexpectedly and she is left with three young kids to raise, she may transform into a person who is much more pragmatic. The people that generally don’t mind not having ever been head over heels enamored with their spouse are sometimes people that don’t feel much in the way of romantic passion in general. ![]() There are some people that don’t really mind, or even prefer, having a spouse that they consider more of a friend. For people who never felt this, life can seem unjust and unfulfilling. Feeling in love with your partner makes many people feel like they finally understand a basic human experience, and gives them happy memories even if their marriage doesn’t work out. ![]() For many couples, when their marriage experiences lows, empathic ruptures, or phases of boredom or “ monotogamy,” they can look back at the initial honeymoon phase of feeling in love with their partner, and reassure themselves that they made the right choice. In our culture, romantic love is given a high priority, and is generally considered the primary reason for marriage. The secret is that they have never felt truly “in love” with their spouse. Sometimes they bring it up themselves, and sometimes it comes out later in therapy. Some people come into therapy with a secret.
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