Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane:  I sometimes hear from folks who are no longer sure of their romantic feelings for their spouse.  Often, there is no real conflict.  The couple will sometimes get along relatively well, but the real issue is that the spark has gone.  Many of these spouses will freely admit that their spouse is a good person and loyal companion, but at the same time, they are not sure if they are still in love with their spouse.  Despite this though, many of them still want to save their marriages.  And they aren’t sure if this is going to be possible because of this doubt.

Common concerns are things like: “I am not sure if I love my husband anymore.  I feel like we have just sort of outgrown one another.   Or maybe we’ve gone apart.  But I’m not sure if I’m truly in love with him anymore.  Despite this, I do want to save my marriage, mostly because of my children.  But there are other reasons also.   I’m just not sure if I am strong enough to live as a single person.  I don’t want to start over.  I like having the companionship of living with another adult.  At the same time, I sometimes feel as if I am selling myself short.  I feel as if everyone deserves romantic or intense love.  Maybe my expectations are unrealistic.  But regardless of my struggles, I don’t want to get a divorce.  Is it possible to save your marriage when you’re not sure if you’re still in love with your spouse?”  I will tell you my opinion on this in the following article.

I actually believe that not only can you save your marriage in this situation, but you can also get the loving feelings back while doing so.  I’ll explain this a little further in the following article.

Saving Your Marriage Despite Your Doubts Requires A Leap Of Faith, But It Most Definitely Can Be Done:  I believe that it is much easier to save your marriage when you are firmly bonded to your spouse and also physically and romantically attracted to them.  But, if these components aren’t part of the package at first, I still think that it’s entirely possible to save your marriage very successfully anyway.

Sure, it requires for you to almost act “as if” for a while.  What I mean by this is that you have to sort of have the attitude that you’re going to fake it until you make it.  You may not be so attracted to your spouse that you can’t stop thinking about him, but you can look for the positive things that you currently feel.  Most often, you can still look at your spouse and realize that he’s a solid guy who is always there for you.  Maybe you still find him solidly built and having a nice smile.  Whatever you can cling to in order to motivate you to continue to be invested in your marriage, use it.   Because once you strengthen your marriage, I believe that it’s very likely that you will begin to have romantic and loving feelings toward your spouse again.

Decide That You’re Not Going To Evaluate Your Feelings Until You’ve Made A Real Effort Toward Revitalizing Your Marriage:  This wife anticipated that her expectations might not have been realistic.   And she’s right that it’s absolutely normal to lose some of the spark after you’ve been together for a while.  But it’s important to also understand that often the romantic feelings that you are experiencing in your marriage are a direct reflection on the effort that you are putting into your marriage.  I firmly believe that when people express that their feelings are slipping, the first place that you should look for a contributing factor to this is the time spent on nurturing that same marriage.

It’s my experience that once you turn your very concentrated efforts into strengthening your connection with your spouse, you will often also find that you once again start to see the best in them.  And once this happens, you will usually just naturally want to spend more time together.  As a result, you will begin to develop a more intimate and playful relationship.  Intimacy inspires attraction.  And attraction inspires a feeling of “being in love.”

Once your marriage is back on track, suddenly those little things that your spouse does no longer bothers you quite as much.  You begin to think that their mannerisms or habits are cute and endearing all over again.   That’s why it’s so important to not declare that you are no longer in love with your spouse until you have given this process time to work.  Because when it does work, you usually have no doubt about your love for your spouse.

But to answer the original concern, yes, I do firmly believe that it is possible to save your marriage even when you doubt your love for your spouse (and even if he doubts his love for you.)  Because often, when you put more effort into your marriage, you will find that the loving feelings come rushing back. And those attraction and chemistry doubts are no longer present as the result.

In my own marriage, I was always in love with my spouse, but he doubted his love for me.  We went through the process of saving our marriage anyway and the loving feelings returned.  If it helps, you can read the whole story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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