5 Reasons I fell Out Of Love With My Husband Before My Affair

"I Lost That Loving Feeling"

I love you but I'm not in love with you

Part 1: I love you but I'm not in love with you

Part 2: How to fall back in love with your husband

Maybe you are asking yourself this question, why did I fall out of love with my husband? Or you may think not feeling like you are" in love" with your husband is one of the reasons you had an affair. If so I hear you and I can sympathize with what you are feeling because I felt this way also. But if you give me a moment I would like to share with you what I believe is the reason we wonder why I'm not in love with my husband and why those loving feelings fade.

I grew up loving romantic movies of two people falling madly in love and riding into the sunset together living happily ever after. So when my husband no longer gave me those feelings of excitement I thought well this relationship has run its course. And I love you but I'm not in love with you anymore. So I was on the hunt for those loving feelings again. I wanted to "feel" love again. And by chasing a feeling I almost lost my family. Simply on the belief love is a feeling.

But I have come to realize that love has two stages. One, romantic love and two, true love or real love.

In romantic love we look for those balcony moments, those intense stares and Prince Charming coming to our rescue. The wine and dine moments, filled with late-night talks and long walks hand in hand. All of which is nice and needed. But true love is when you are at your worst and you choose to stay faithful in your marriage. True love is forgiving the other when you really want to hold onto those feelings of pain and anger. Its also knowing that when you wake up in the morning your spouse is still there and plans on staying. True love is for better or worse. Its a commitment.

We reduce love to a feeling and think we don't have it when we don't feel it.

We often reduce love to a feeling. So when we dont "feel" love we assume the marriage must be over. Therefore we stop trying. But we have to realize true lasting love is a choice , a decision, we make daily with our minds. When we choose to be patient , kind, and not keep a record of on going wrongs our spouse has done to us then our feelings will catch up to our actions.

We can learn to lead our heart into producing the emotion we want to feel and we do this by our thoughts. As we begin to think on the positive instead of the negative and focus on what we want our marriage to be instead of what it is in this moment.

I'm not saying love is not a feeling. I believe you need both but what I am saying is that love is not just a feeling it is a choice. Because our emotions are fickle. We can feel one way today about something and a completely different way tomorrow. So how can we put our trust in our emotions to guide us with major life decisions like our marriage? Instead of reacting to our emotions we can learn to respond to them instead. After all, our feelings are unpredictable so what really matters is our response to them.

How Did I lose loving feelings for my husband

So you may be asking yourself well how do we lose those loving feelings? My opinion on this is our mind has a big role to play in how we feel about our husband. Since our thoughts create our emotions it's wise to ask ourselves what are we thinking about what our husband does that turns us off so much? If you are curious about how thoughts played a role in your affair check out this article I wrote on 3 ways your affair started in your mind.

For example if you are thinking about how much you hate picking up after your husband or how he doesnt listen to you then chances are you wont like him much by the end of the day and you wont be too happy to see him when he gets home either.

Dr. Patrick Keelan a registered psychologist says "Their perspective of each other stems from the quality of their relationship/friendship." I want to extend that to your perspective of your spouse will stem from the quality of your thoughts. Change your thoughts change your perspective.

How we see our spouse is very important to keeping those loving feelings alive.

Know ahead of time there will be bad days, there will be times when I don't like you but I will choose to love you.

I remember when we were reconciling praying about what went wrong. And I found a bible verse that speaks of the little foxes that spoil the vine. Well, this stood out to me because I knew God was trying to teach me something about what went wrong besides me feeling like I was lonely and rejected. Something in my heart was missing and it was more than just a feeling. Which caused me to jump into an affair, But I needed it to be broken down in practical terms.

Did you know that a fox will burrow under the root system of a vine causing the vine to become weak, making it harder for the grapes to get the nourishment they need to grow. A fox is also nocturnal so they sleep in the day and come out at night. Another thing I found interesting is that a fox will chew up a vineyards water system, making it difficult for the vines to receive water.

In practical terms built up anger will hide while your life is going good but the moment your marriage hits a dark place you will erupt into a spring of emotions and your husband will often ask where did all of this come from? And you are left with more problems to work through than the current argument. So don't hide your emotions from your spouse. Take time to discuss things when you are upset. That is one way to "catch a little fox" trying to destroy your marriage.

Also, bitterness, anger, and resentment will cause your heart to become cold towards your husband, therefore, you won't be able to receive from him the love you need for your marriage to grow and flourish.

This is what I learned

1. My marriage is the vine.
2. The little arguments that never get settled. You know the ones where he asks are you ok and you say" I'm fine", but inside you really are not. Those are the foxes.
3. Its a lack of time spent together. Marriage is alive and should be given attention daily if we want it to grow.
4. Unspoken annoyances that build up over time turn into resentment and over time bitterness.
5. The negative narrative we have about our husband that plays over in our heads like a broken record.

All of these things if allowed to continue over time will choke out those feelings of love. Your true feelings will be replaced with anger and disappointment.

Everyday life is full of little annoyances and trouble but our marriage is like a garden and we are the keeper of that garden.

I want to give you an example of a narrative I had about my husband that buried my feelings for him under a mountain of anger and choked out my loving feelings.

"I don't want to pick up one more dirty sock"

"I am not your mother, didn't she teach you how to pick up after yourself? Why can't you just get off your phone and listen to me? Am I really just a second thought? You must not love me anymore because you never plan dates, I always have to ask you out? I'm so tired of chasing you, what is wrong with you? Don't you ever miss me? Oh and don't correct my son he is mine and not yours. And don't you dare tell me one more time that we are on a budget, I know we are on a damn budget but it takes money to raise a family. Why do you always think you are right? Maybe I'm right sometimes and don't correct my grammar you are my husband, not my 9th-grade teacher. Sometimes it's who!"

This was almost my daily narrative. Do you get the feeling of how angry I was a t him for so many different things. So by the time he got home I didn't even want to look at him much less have sex.

So needless to say when the Lord showed me this it was a big eye-opener. I have since then stopped that kind of narrative. But from time to time I will catch myself thinking this way again and I realize I have some unresolved pain and we need to have a talk.

Final thoughts

We can make love last a lifetime and actually enjoy being around each other. Its when we learn what love really is and stop chasing feelings then we can begin to work towards our happily ever after.

I want you to ask yourself this:

What am I looking for from love? Am I chasing a feeling or a commitment?

For love to be a commitment it first must be a choice.

Love is: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 this is an awesome definition of what love is.

Let me know in the comments if you find yourself having the same narrative as I did and how did you stop it. Also if you are looking for a safe non-judgm