Biffaloo420

I have always known that there is a difference between being in love and loving some one. But, my question is, is a relationship over when a person feels as if they only love that person? Meaning that feeling of "being in love" seems to have faded.

Sultana

Well, it means that the work phase of the relationship has begun, if you care enough to work at it.
This happens to every relationship eventually. If both parties are dedicated, you can make more of it. Or one can choose to simply jump from relationship to relationship, thinking that it's over once "that feeling" is gone. Of course, sometimes it really is over, but I happen to think that's mainly when both folks don't have the same level of dedication to maintaining the relationship. And you know, sometimes there's a reason for that.

Of course it's better to work at the relationship before this happens, but it's an easy thing to miss/take for granted.

__________________
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
At night, the ice weasels come." -

Matt Groening

My goal? To fulfill my potential.

shesus

The 'in love feeling' wears off like anything else does. The first part of the relationship is like a high. Then you get comfortable and the work and loving starts. I wouldn't say you're not 'in love', you've just moved to the next stage of the relationship. Now if you feel hate or indifference, then there are problems. The 'in love' feeling will return from time to time.

Relationships have stages and you can't bail on them just because of a stage unless it's a bad stage. Go with your instincts. It's hard to advise you without more information, but I would say that you are progressing through a relationship and changes will need to be made and work needs to be done to keep it moving.

__________________
Whatever did happen to your soul?
I heard you sold it

Choose Heaven for the weather and Hell for the company

little_tippler

I have to say that when I loved someone and was with them, I always felt "in love" to some degree at the same time. There is always some wearing off of that rosy phase at the start of a relationship, but I always felt that somehow it was still there, maybe to a lesser degree because I could actually think straight and say intelligent things again! I don't think they should be separate if you can help it - if this is a romantic partner we're talking about. Once it's separate, then you're just "working at it" for whatever's sake and that just doesn't sound like any fun.

I agree with what shesus says:

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

abaya

Can you tell us more about your situation? How long have you been with this person? Are you married? How long has it been since you felt "in-love," and were there any major events/circumstances that have changed the nature of your relationship?

(I hope I am not being too nosy, but it's just hard to answer your question without a little more specific information.)

Personally, though, I do think the "in-love" part comes and goes, and that it really requires work and conscious effort to keep that part alive. Romance is hard work, and keeping it going for years upon years is not something "automatic" (maybe I'm a cynic, but I know very few people who succeed in relationships by taking each other for granted).

I think Sultana is right in that if falling out of love is the only reason for leaving a relationship, you might find yourself in the same place with the next one, and the next, etc... some people never get out of those patterns, and they are never happy. Now, if you sincerely feel like you are "settling" and that you are compromising your own happiness only to remain in a committed relationship, and not because you are truly committed to the other *person* (not just the relationship), then you have to ask yourself what you really want and if something/body else would make you happier. But if you do really love that person, then maybe it's just a stage (as Shesus said) and there will be more in-loveness in the next stage.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

astrahl

Not to plug, but I'm reading a book called <i> Passionate Marriage </i> and it describes the difference between loving and being in love.

It is possible to fall out of love when you fall out of emotional contact with your partner. You touch them but you don't feel them. Check out the book from your library. My husband and I are reading it separately and it is making a big difference in our relationship.

__________________
Maybe it was over when she chucked me out the Rover at full speed.
Maybe Maybe...
~a-Ha