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what is love

Love Is What You Do: Immutable Law of Marriage
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Love is what you DO.“I just don’t feel it anymore,” she told me.

So I asked, “What are you not feeling?”

“Love.”  She told me she no longer loved her husband.

I asked, “What are you doing to be loving?”

She looked up, a bit surprised.  “What?  I just told you, I don’t love him.”

I challenged her, “I heard you say you don’t FEEL love, but I didn’t ask that.  I asked what you were DOING to be loving.”

She admitted she was doing nothing.  Because she didn’t feel anything.

I think she had the equation wrong.  She wasn’t feeling any love because she had stopped being loving.  To be fair, they both had stopped being loving.  No surprise that the feelings pretty much evaporated at that point.

Here’s the problem:  Love is a complicated word.  It has many meanings and many shades.  But when a marriage is in trouble, almost always, the default definition is the feeling of being in love.  Then, that is used as the yardstick of the relationship.

Unfortunately, those feelings are a result of acting lovingly.  But people keep waiting for the feeling to be there, so they would feel like acting.

Listen below on why this is the wrong move, wrong direction.  And how to change it.

Immutable Laws Of Marriage Series
#1 Marriage Is About Becoming A WE
#2 Marriage Is NOT A Vehicle for Happiness (Or Misery)
#3 We ALL Have Fear
#4 There Is NO Pause
#5 Connection Is The Lifeblood
#6 The Goal Of Conflict Is Progress

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Love Is NOT Effortless
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Authentic love is the basis of a lasting marriage.Maybe you have heard these lines:

  • “Love should just happen.”
  • “This is just too much work.”
  • “I’m not feeling it, so it must not be true love.”
  • “I just don’t feel the attraction/excitement I used to feel.  Something is wrong.”

Have you ever been told something so many times that you begin to doubt yourself?  You begin to believe what the other person (an upset spouse, friends, family, etc.) says — even if it goes against what you (think you) believe.

Our notions about love are like that.  And unfortunately, those romanticized notions of love are what we grow up on.  We are fed them by movies, books, songs, and culture.

But Authentic Love is different.  It is not devoid of romance.  It is just not based on it.  Romanticized love is based on 4 unsustainable elements.  Authentic Love is based on 4 sustainable elements, and in your control.

“I’m not feeling it” is not a reason to end a marriage.  It is a reason to reconsider the working definition of love.

Don’t be sucked in by the view of love in the movies, in the books, in songs, and that others around you might have.  It is dangerous, and misguided.

(No, I am not against romance — unless it is used as the “litmus test” of a relationship.  Otherwise, it is great!)

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST:
Interview with Bob Grant
The Save The Marriage System
Apply to the Virtual Coaching Program

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