It is hard to ever beat the first date, first kiss or the first moment we meet someone that we instantly fall in love with. The follow up dates tend to still be great, and might amplify our original feeling but that is only until the novelty of having something new wears off. I know it might be a bit harsh to think of it in those terms, but we as human beings basically like new things. We like new toys, cars, wardrobes and are very happy in the beginning but it soon wears off. Even when eating great food, it usually does not taste as good the next time and if we ate it everyday we would soon grow sick of it.
I will give a little example of this as I went on a trip to Tokyo. I stayed at a top rate hotel, and the breakfast menu had everything that you could imagine with the buffet area being bigger than my entire town home. I was the happiest person alive until the next day, as I already felt it was not the same. As I came back to that same hotel two weeks later it was just more of the same and I became bored of it. It is insane when I think back on it as the place was magnificent and the food beyond delicious. So with that in mind, what do we do about love?
Many couples go through a stagnant period, and thus the divorce rate in this country is booming. I believe that it crossed the fifty percent threshold a long time ago already. This makes single mothers and single fathers the new norm. I do not think that their kids feel like it is normal. They probably deal with it and put on a front, but I think there is a direct correlation between our lifestyles and the many burdens that we place on the kids' shoulders. So what do we say to a friend that tells us, I just do not love her/him anymore and am thinking about leaving? It depends how good of a friend they are, right? I don't think that many of us would know what to tell them, as many our having the same thoughts ourselves.
I came upon and audio lecture the other day by a relationships specialist and they mentioned studies that were done on couples such as these. Usually this doctor only seen and spoken to the person that was thinking of leaving, and this way was able to come to a few interesting conclusions. The first one is that love is a verb, not a feeling. We can love to love, but there is no such thing as just loving a person. When you think of love really try to dissect the meaning. Isn't it all about the sacrifice, selflessness and placing the other person first? If we want to get our love back, we can start by making the actions first. This specialist said that the people that did, all came back saying that the feeling was coming back or that it was there the entire time just buried under all the other junk.
I think this is a very positive message to the rest of us. If we want to feel loved, we should love first. Do something nice for your partner and don't expect anything in return, now that is love.
