LOVE IS A CHOICE

Romantic relationships are hard work just like any relationship. We have a way of talking about romantic relationships that we don’t in any other relationships in our lives. We talk about lust, being in love, love at first sight, falling IN love, falling OUT of love, and not being in love anymore.

“I am falling in love with you.”

“I have fallen out of love with you.”

Falling by definition is the act of “moving from a higher to a lower level, typically rapidly and without control.”

Did you read the last two words of that? WITHOUT CONTROL.

Control by definition is “the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events.”

We talk about love like it is just something happens to us, the primary ways that we have been taught to talk about, look at and express love imply that we have NO CONTROL! No wonder when things are not right in our relationships, when they aren’t going well, we lose hope and start giving up on our relationships because our words tell us, we do not have any control of what is happening.

If you are in a relationship that you have used the words, “I am falling out of love.” or “I have fallen out of love.” I want you to stop RIGHT NOW and ask yourself, where is your control?

What would it change in your life to say out loud to the person you committed your life to say, “I am choosing not to love you.”

Choice by definition is “an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities.”

There are really only two choices:

Choose to work on being in love.

Choose to work on being out of love.

Both take time, commitment, up’s and down’s, hurt feelings, good times, passion and CONTROL. This is not a consistent path you will feel the ebb and flow of love through your relationship but getting on the same page as your partner and working together is the best way to continue to choose to love your partner for the long haul.

Reaching out for couples counseling can be the first step to learning the control that you have in loving your partner.

Written by Chantel Landeros, MS, LMFTC
Thrive Marriage & Family Counseling