# Can you fall back in love once you've fallen out of love?



## Daisy10 (Nov 10, 2013)

Is this really possible, or is the love just replaced with something else, like a stronger commitment or a stronger friendship?


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## Thorburn (Nov 23, 2011)

I had a professor in grad school. He is from India. They have arraigned marriages. The professor's brother is an M.D. and he said in their culture you don't marry for love, but you learn to love your wife. What is love? Is it that teenage eye fluttering, heart pounding, thing or is it more?


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## Allen_A (Nov 18, 2013)

Daisy10 said:


> Is this really possible, or is the love just replaced with something else, like a stronger commitment or a stronger friendship?


You need to read Fisher...

Helen Fisher: The brain in love - YouTube

Watch that 16 min video...

Emotional attachment comes in three flavors

Lust
Infatuation
Long Term Commitment

She covers all three in detail... infidelity is not discussed much, but after watching you can easily understand exactly what is happening in the brain when an affair starts up.

It is very easy to feel infatuation for one person while feeling a long term commitment for another.. all three are forms of "love".. they are just different, some last a long time, others last only a night...


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## MrK (Sep 2, 2010)

No.


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## workindad (May 7, 2011)

I think it depends on the couple and the circumstances.

In my case, the answer was no. But that does not mean that it is impossible. Just wasn't possible for me.


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## SaltInWound (Jan 2, 2013)

I suppose you could, if you still had feelings for that person and were willing to be vulnerable. I think the risk is too great that the reason for falling out of love will repeat itself.


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## Horizon (Apr 4, 2013)

I'm so cynical at the moment I can't find a way to say yes. Possible I suppose.


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## EI (Jun 12, 2012)

It happened with me and my husband. So, I would say that it depends on the individuals. If it has never happened to you, then the most you can say is that it hasn't happened for you. You can't speak for anyone else. There is a time when I would have agreed with what most of you have said. That was before I fell out of love with my husband, only to fall back in love with a very different kind of man a couple of years later (who just happened to be my husband...... the same man.) The love we share now, far surpasses the love that we shared at any time in the 27 years before our marriage reached the breaking point.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

Yes, you certainly can! It happened to me. We had a very toxic communication patern with years of building resentment. Finally I broke the toxic communication which rebuilt trust again. It was then followed up by courting like we did before we married. It worked for us and it could work for some others too as long as the respect for each other isn't completely gone.


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## Hortensia (Feb 1, 2013)

I can only speak for myself, but once I fall out of love with a man, that's it. Everything about him starts to annoy me. I barely even can think of my exes without a disgusted feeling in my stomach;. once the spark is gone for me, that is RIP for the relationship; that's why I am very careful to keep the passion alive and avoid routine in my M.
But, I'm glad that other couple here did fall back in love. Kudos !


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## soulpotato (Jan 22, 2013)

meson said:


> Yes, you certainly can! It happened to me. We had a very toxic communication patern with years of building resentment. Finally I broke the toxic communication which rebuilt trust again. It was then followed up by courting like we did before we married. It worked for us and it could work for some others too as long as the respect for each other isn't completely gone.


I agree. Ditto. Pretty much the same deal with me and my partner. Enough of the good stuff was still there that we were able to breathe life back into being in love with each other once we started dealing with all the bad, destructive things that had been at work in our relationship. 

I think sometimes people don't realize that it CAN be possible. If enough of the foundation is still there, if you're still connected emotionally, if you do the right things, you can bring it back.


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## Pepper123 (Nov 27, 2012)

*Re: Re: Can you fall back in love once you've fallen out of love?*



Hortensia said:


> I can only speak for myself, but once I fall out of love with a man, that's it. Everything about him starts to annoy me. I barely even can think of my exes without a disgusted feeling in my stomach;. once the spark is gone for me, that is RIP for the relationship...
> But, I'm glad that other couple here did fall back in love. Kudos !


I am this way as well. A good friend of mine refers to it as my light switch.


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## bfree (Sep 30, 2012)

If you think of marriage or any ltr as a living thing then love is the heart. A heart can stop and a heart can be restarted. Regardless of what the more romantic among us say, love is not unconditional. If the conditions change you can fall out of love. If the conditions change you can fall back in love. Love is a choice. A choice that two people make together. It's not some mystical thing that defies explanation. It's actually simpler than many want to admit. If you both choose to love then there will be love.


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## bfree (Sep 30, 2012)

*Re: Re: Can you fall back in love once you've fallen out of love?*



2ntnuf said:


> I always read stuff like that and wonder why two people would want to be together and do all of the things that outwardly express love, if they have no feelings associated with that person. I think that's the, "magic", the feelings. It doesn't happen with every woman I've ever met.


Those feelings you speak of are infatuation, not bonded love.


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## bfree (Sep 30, 2012)

I don't believe that level of infatuation can be sustained long term. I do believe that bonded love needs to be constantly nurtured and maintained. Everyone has needs. As long as both parties are actively attempting to fulfill each other's needs then bonded love remains strong. Insofar as the sexual aspect of a relationship goes, that is also a need and if you are actively fulfilling your spouse's needs then that sexual connection should be a natural byproduct. This assumes of course that both parties are desiring to fulfill the needs of the other. When the relationship dynamics get tilted too far one way or the other problems will ensue. Also I think you are confusing infatuation with boredom. You have to keep things interesting in order to cultivate those attraction feelings. But that's not the same as infatuation.


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## LostViking (Mar 26, 2013)

I'm finding it very difficult to not fall back in love with my first ex-wife with whom I reunited earlier this year after twenty years of separation. She has really gotten her act together and is a completely different person emotionally and mentally. But she is also still as attractive as she was way back when we were briefly married. 

We see each other occasionally whenever she is here in California and we usually spend a weekend together goung out and enjoying eachother's company and also having hot, wall cracking sex. She has expressed a desire to R with me many times, but I have put her off. 

Slowly though she is breaking down my defenses. But I'm still very wary of her. I don't know what her lifestyle is really like when she returns home back on the East coast . We text and e-mail each other daily, and she claims she only dates men occasionally. But of course, I have to take her word for it. It could all be lies and she could still be a permiscuous wh0re like she always was. But I don't think so. That lifestyle tends to wear a person down and manifest itself in their appearance and health. She looks healthy and vibrant and happy, so I don't think she's passing it out for free like she used to when we were married. 

But when we are having sex or enjoying romantic moments, it is very hard to keep those old dormant feelings of love and affection at bay.


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## bfree (Sep 30, 2012)

2ntnuf said:


> I've highlighted what I thought agrees with my thinking so we are closer to the same page.
> 
> This boredom you speak of is something I didn't think about. Boredom can be present. It will reduce desire and love of all kinds. It can place us in a kind of funk that will permeate our desire to actively work on the love that requires meeting needs that lead to sex in a relationship.
> 
> Boredom enters all relationships. How do you keep it from creeping into a marriage and taking over? This would be essential to falling back in love and keeping what you've worked to accomplish.


Since the big things are fairly obvious (vacations, restaurants, movies/plays etc.) I'll tell you the little things that I do to keep things from getting stale.

I'll come home from work, tell my wife she has 30 minutes to get ready to go out. She might complain, she might ask where we are going, she might say she isn't going. Doesn't matter. I stick to my timetable and tell her I'm going with her or without her (I know she'll go because people never want to be left behind.) Inevitably she gets changed and is ready (almost) on time. At that point it really doesn't matter where we go because I've already got her worked up and wondering.

If we plan on going somewhere I might change my mind and head somewhere else. After a time she'll notice our destination has changed and ask where we're going. I won't tell her but ask her to guess. If she happens to guess correctly I'll change the destination (not telling her of course) to make sure its somewhere she wouldn't expect. This keeps her engaged and interested.

Sometimes I'll buy her something I know she'll like. It doesn't have to be anything expensive, just something I know matches her taste. But I won't just hand it to her. I make a game out of it. I might put clues on sticky notes all over the house leading her to its hiding place. Or I might write a riddle that she has to solve in order to find her gift.

Here is the big thing. I never do anything that I am expected to do. I never do anything because she orders me to. I do what I want because I want to. If I rub her feet its because I know she is sore from working all day. If she asked (i.e. demanded or expected) me to rub her feet I'd tell her to rub them herself. I don't buy her things that she blantantly tells me she wants (unless its months or even years later.) I make sure to know her tastes and pick things out that I know she'll like but has probably never seen. I don't buy her flowers for her birthday or mother's day but I might have flowers sent to her office just because its Thursday and I feel like doing it. I believe that a man needs to be reliable and a woman can count on him. But there's a difference between reliability and being predictable and tedious. Those are not qualities that women tend to find attractive.


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## ThePheonix (Jan 3, 2013)

Hortensia said:


> I can only speak for myself, but once I fall out of love with a man, that's it. Everything about him starts to annoy me.


I think 95% of the time, that's the way it is. I had a couple of women tell me they knew there was no going back when they started to hate the way their husband smelled. Based on my observation, I'm among the last to tell guys to fight for their marriage. Generally they're history.


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## HeartInPieces (Sep 13, 2013)

Daisy10 said:


> Is this really possible, or is the love just replaced with something else, like a stronger commitment or a stronger friendship?


I believe that there is always a chance to fall "back in love" because if it was love that you were truly in in the first place, it never dies and therefore, there is always a chance of finding love again. I believe that people do not necessarily fall out of love; however they lose the love that they once had. Finding that love again can be the tricky part.


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## Horizon (Apr 4, 2013)

bfree said:


> If you think of marriage or any ltr as a living thing then love is the heart. A heart can stop and a heart can be restarted. Regardless of what the more romantic among us say, love is not unconditional. If the conditions change you can fall out of love. If the conditions change you can fall back in love. Love is a choice. A choice that two people make together. It's not some mystical thing that defies explanation. It's actually simpler than many want to admit. If you both choose to love then there will be love.


And not to be confused with lust - lust is not a choice.


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## bfree (Sep 30, 2012)

Horizon said:


> And not to be confused with lust - lust is not a choice.


Don't I know it!


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

LostViking said:


> permiscuous wh0re .


You make "permiscuous wh0re" sound like a bad thing...

Yet you reap the benifits they have to offer.

Now back to point. 
I think one can fall back in love. And since this is posted in the CWI section then even after infidelity one can reconnect after betraying their spouse.

But the reality is often the one betrayed can never forgive or trust again. A consequences the wayward faces when they risk everything for lust and/or infatuation they have found when reconnecting with an exlover.

Speaking as a betrayed spouse..isn't regret awsome? LOL


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