A very wise old woman once told me the secret to a long and successful marriage. She said:
"You fall in and out of love with your husband/wife all throughout your marriage. You always love him/her but you are not in love with him/her. And it is what you do when you are not in love with him/her that makes or brakes a marriage"
so yes, i do believe you can love but not be in love. I have experienced it over and over in my 9 year marriage. I also love my husband, just sometimes that love is the giddy, freecaring, romantic, stargazing, heart racing, sexy, head in the clouds kind of love {thats when you are in love} which everyone has experienced and enjoys. But you cant stay that way for years and years, life gets in the way, you have kids, you change diaper {nothing romantic about that}, you pay bills {not romantic}, you get sick and feel like dog sh*t {definately not sexy} So most of the time, i just love him. But if you just hold on long enough,{in my case up to 2 or 3 years} and if you have a parnter that actually cares about you, you will notice one day, out of the blue, WHAM...you get that fluttery feeling again when you look at him, and you just cant keep your hands off him, and before you know it, you are all in love with him/her again...
problem is most people start thinking something is wrong with their marriage because they no longer get the fluttery feeling when the look at their partner or because life has gone stale and has no excitement. And then they start to look for all the bad things the other is doing, and start keeping score and who does more and holding gruges. For reals, if you had the kind of excitement everyday of your marriage like you have when you first start dating, honestly you would have a heart attack or cardiac arrest from all the heart pounding sensations. its all the more harder, when one person in the relationship doesnt even TRY to make the other feel loved or cherished. When you stop doing "little things" for the other person, just to make them smile because you are mad that you did more dishes last week. Well it is just stupid and petty. When you are too busy playing the blame game, then you cant see the good things that happen. And when you look for the bad thing, guess what, you find bad things.
And if you give up, get divorced just because you are bored and daily life has no excitement, you will soon find yourself in a vicious never ending cycle. You will get divorced from this man, fall in love with another, find and deal with whatever his damage is {because they all have some issues}, work it out, life gets boring, divorce and so on and so forth. you will never reach the end reward, with is the happliy ever after, growing old together. come on, have you seen two elderly people skipping around and chasing after each other? no...you see them walking quietly, slowly, holding hands. or sitting side by side, reading but not talking just enjoying each others companionship but not have to entertain all the time.
so i, for one, believe in the secret .......