“Am I no longer in love with my partner?”

The arrival of children changes the couple’s relationships and only when love is true do they survive this stage of life. In the following video, Laura Gutman responds to a reader, offering her her vision of romantic love, what are its foundations and its main enemy, which is none other than our own childhood.

I think we are not the same ones who fell in love once. Now I don’t know who he is, but I don’t know who I am either. I wonder if it makes sense for us to be together just because we have children together and once we were certain that we loved each other, which I no longer have.

A MISCONCEPTION

What we call falling in love is most of the time a great deceptionbecause loving the other is a capacity with which we were born, however, since we were not loved enough when we were children, we are still demanding love, so we hardly love the other.

What does happen to us is what we call butterflies in the belly, which has to do with sexual attraction. That instinct, I like that, I love it, I want it… That’s real, and if we succeed, then we call it falling in love. And here I think there is a big misunderstanding.

After that falling in love and that attraction that lasts a certain time, not very long either, we have to start to see if we like the same things (no), if we have dialogues (no), what is his family like (a disaster), if he has children from his first marriage (I don’t even want to see them), if one is vegan and the other a carnivore, if he likes them horror movies and me romantic ones… But since sexual attraction is high at first, we say we’re in love and at a given moment we decide to get married, get married or move in together. Or not, but one fine day, from so much attraction, the woman becomes pregnant and then we decide to go live together.

that is, that couples are assembled in a rather deceived way. Sometimes with more attraction, with more enthusiasm, but there are also couples who start out without much attraction and without much enthusiasm, sometimes even more by mandate, because it suits me, because it is what it is, because… Not all couples start like this, but at best, yes.

FULFILLING THE INNER CHILD

So, when I say I fell in love, it’s not that I decided to love him. The thing is I fell in love, and I love it, and I like that he takes me for a walk, I love how fun it is… I am feeding my inner boy or girl. We are both filling ourselves with someone who gives us something that does us good. Almost like a mom. Since mom didn’t fill me up, now I’m with someone who, in addition to loving me, fills me up on something. In other things no, but it doesn’t matter.

We all say to that “I fell in love”, but it is very distant from “I love him”because if I love him, I love him to accompany him, I love him to support him, I love him to facilitate situations that are more difficult for that person and are easier for me, I love him because I want to love him, I love him because then I make my love for the other…

GIVING WITHOUT EXPECTING ANYTHING IN RETURN

Love is something that is built little by little, because I feel like it. Loving him is from me to him, it is not from him to me. Love is a construction. Loving the other is a resource that I have. love him and love him and help him flourish, to use all his resources for the good of another neighbor. It is supporting him, it is accompanying him, it is being available, it is opening up like a flower to give with a fully open hand.

That is love. Said like that it seems romantic, but in reality there are very few of us who are in a position to lovebecause for that we have to have been loved when we were children, and since most of us were not loved as we in our original design would have needed, we reached adulthood still wanting to make amends and fill us up, which prevents us from having the capacity to say: “I don’t need anything, it’s all for the other”.

TRUE LOVE NEVER ENDS

For this reason, when a question like this comes up, the answer is: “You never loved him and he probably never loved you, but you both compensated each other.” What happened? Well, one day the children arrived and what he compensated me and the other compensated me, now he is no longer here. So, it is not true that we used to love each other, because love is something that one fertilizes and builds every day. True love never ends, what does end is sexual attractionbut they are two different things.

Sexual attraction is short, but love can last a lifetime because I fertilize it. If there was sexual attraction and there was no construction of love, when the attraction ends, everything is over. On the other hand, if the sexual attraction ends in the terms in which it appears at the beginning, but there is nourishment of love, the couple can continue, because sexuality can also work in love. Of course, it is not the same at the beginning as after, but it can work in love.