Falling Out Of Love
Falling out of love is far less discussed than falling in love, perhaps because the former happens without any noise. It is gradual, slow, and morally unsettling. By the time it fully unfolds, you realise there is no room left for negotiation.
Love, like many things in life, does not operate on compromise. It either exists or it does not. Relationships can survive on compromise, but love cannot. In a relationship, you may agree to disagree on many things. You may choose to remain in a contract and perform your obligations, yet the spark will always be missing.
When the urge to please someone fades, when the desire to make them happy or win their approval ceases to matter, love fades with it. Strip away all the flowery explanations of love and what remains is the need to revere someone, to surrender yourself for the sake of pleasing them.
Couples who fall out of love reach a point where they no longer care enough to want to do things for each other. You cannot make a man give you flowers. He may do so out of custom or obligation, but for him to truly surprise you requires genuine sincerity in wanting to please you.
Passion cannot be borrowed. It cannot be fabricated. The passion in love arises from how deeply you value the person, how strongly you wish to surrender yourself, how intensely you want to immerse them in your emotions.
When someone no longer feels this way, it usually means they have lost the desire to please the other person. That is why one has to remain worthy of love, both physically and emotionally. If you become intolerable, you fall from that position of reverence.
A lover is revered, not like a parent or a god, but in a way that is unique to a lover. The urge to please exists because we hold that person in high regard, because we want to devote ourselves to them.
Reverence can exist only if there is something worth revering. People who fall out of love almost always have stories of once being deeply in love with each other.
Unfortunately, one way to rekindle love in a relationship is by maintaining a temporary distance while evolving yourself into someone worth admiring again. What did you once do to woo that person? How did you keep them engaged? You need to cultivate a certain mystery around yourself.
Conversations must change. You need to bring more lightness into them, not overt jokes but exchanges that carry a hint of flirtation. Even when you have the permission to go all the way, staying at the edges creates intrigue.
Once you understand how love works, you can try to reintroduce those elements into your relationship to bring back the spark. This is possible only if both people are still together and there are no fundamental issues. If you cannot stand the sight of the other person, the problem lies elsewhere.
The greatest emotional tragedy in human life is the absence of love, because it is a grief that never dies, only intensifies with time. I would not wish the absence of love even upon my worst enemy.