Personal Reflections on Why it Takes Married People so Long to Fall in Love

My grandparents on both sides didn’t seem to like each other. They lived under the same commitment, but seldom touched, and rarely shared a common word. I never noticed it as a kid, but now that I’ve been married for awhile, it’s getting clearer how two people who’ve lived together for so long can grow to be so far apart.

Things changed just before they died. There was something about the impending end of love that drew them close, despite the decades they spent in a relationship that was less than intimate.

It’s a common thing.

We meet. We fall in love. We can’t stand to be without the other, snog like jr. high-ers every time we get alone – which is tricky for us Christian folk who believe that all hanky-panky should wait until things are a bit more formal. Then to the wedding and into the life we’ve been dreaming of.

It’s exciting – everything’s new. Our family, usually, is happy, supportive. We move in together, buy some cheap furniture, maybe a pet.

But we’ve got some decisions to make. Who cleans the house? Who takes out the trash? Kids? Careers?

Who’s the boss?

We don’t see eye to eye on everything, and begin to feel like we’re not valued by this other person. Can we trust them to honor what’s most important, to honor us?

We’re on different planets when it comes to parenting, finances, home cleanliness, etc. Marriage requires us to compromise in places that ain’t comfortable. Many times we feel forced to live under the other person’s values at the expense of our own.

If this was all there was to the business end of marriage, most of us could manage. But there’s more.

We’ve got some personal things to navigate – emotional garbage/baggage that we carried long before our union; things that our significant other seems to regularly rub their finger in. It makes us angry.

Most of us have no idea what’s under the hood. It took me 18 years to get a clue here. I have some trauma from long ago that my wife frequently stirs up. She’ll do something that comes part and parcel with her persona, I’ll get upset, and make the choice to stuff it or let fly, usually in ways that are filled with angst and my trademark lack of emotional maturity.

In my inability to understand what’s really bothering me, I blame everything on her. If I could understand what’s driving my anger, that most of it isn’t her fault, I wouldn’t get nearly as angry.

For the vast majority of us, our anxiety and/or chronic anger might be occasionally lit aflame by the relationship, but the pain that drives it all was set in place long before the marriage.

If this was all there was to the business end of marriage, most of us could manage. But there’s more.

We live in a culture that doesn’t value commitment. “Get rid of that toxic relationship” we like to say, having no idea why the relationship has gotten toxic, or how our own, personal toxicity is involved, or how to detoxify. If the relationship causes pain, it’s bad. Get out. Forget humility, forget compassion. Forget strength and all the other things that are required in a good friendship, and how exercising these makes us stronger, happier.

Or, if you don’t want to get a divorce for whatever reason, just keep your distance, live the rest of your life in an “OK” marriage, constantly dreaming about a better one.

For all of us, marriage requires a ton of work/courage/humility/faith/trust to navigate the issues mentioned above, and all the other complications that I don’t have time to write about. We all face a mountain of things that seem hell-bent on driving us apart. Half of us won’t make it through. Many who stay married won’t enjoy the relationship.

Every year I sit with 1-2 married couples and try to help them work out their stuff, which is a little silly because I’m still trying to work out my stuff. But in each of these encounters I’ve come to notice something.

It takes a long time for married people to fall in love. And that should surprise no one because the difficulties of marriage, or any close relationship, are legion. We’re committed to be sure, but the fondness that we shared early on is quickly snuffed out by self-defense, bitterness, unforgiveness, suspicion on multiple levels, lines-in-the-sand, etc.

There are things that are more important than the relationship – personal things: plans, values, hopes, boundaries. Because these are so personal, we feel that giving them up for the other person is unhealthy, like we’d lose a part of ourselves if we were to compromise. We feel resentful that we have to “negotiate” such a core part of who we are.

So we live in one of two extremes. We force our agendas on the other, or we stuff it all and act like everything’s fine. Either way, we live in a relationship that’s less than close, and have no idea how to juggle the things that are most important with the importance of our relationship..

Until something bad happens, like death, or impending death, or grave illness, or anything else that might result in the permanent disappearance of our spouse. When that happens, there’s a great flip-flop of values. All of a sudden, magically so, all we can see is this other person. All we want is to be together. Close.

This suggests that the things we value so much more than the relationship aren’t so important after all. We can let them go, or find some other way to carry them and simultaneously invest heavily in our relationship.

This is easier to manage in cultures that don’t revolve around material possessions, or fun experiences, fancy clothes, the latest fashions, personal space, individualism, etc. The more we have access to, the more we “need,” and the less likely we are to trade all this stuff for friendship. If I lived in a grass hut in Africa I wouldn’t feel like a piece of me was missing because I didn’t have a water feature and a couple of bonsai trees.

I’d be less likely to live with the “me-first” attitude that’s become so prevalent in our sacred wealthy Western culture.

Regardless of what might be driving a wedge between us, we’re compelled to ask some difficult questions about what we need, what we don’t need, and what’s best for both of us. We’re supposed to be in love. We’re supposed to enjoy each other’s company, look forward to being together. If we’re consistently not, there’s something wrong.

I’m not talking pie in the sky, hearing violins play every time my wife walks in the room, or the stupid, sappy love stories that infest so many of my streaming video accounts. We do live in reality.

Happy marriages are, at times, boring.

What I’m casting vision for is a relationship where boredom and annoyance aren’t the norm: a friendship that we value more than most of the other things in this world.

But that kind of marriage requires change. And we’re Americans, we’re all about personal change as long as we’re not the person who needs to change.

It’s easiest to blame everything on the other person. If they could just change X, or simply get off my case, I might have a bit more fondness for them. It’s not “my” problem, or “our” problem. It’s their problem. When they find a way to work out their shit we can get back to loving each other.

If you’re reading this, thinking, “Yeah, I’m not in love,” you’re not alone. But it’s likely that you haven’t landed in the wrong relationship, or run into some kind of trouble that’s beyond your ability to navigate. Chances are that you’re married, and you’re being called into something deeper, something better

Disappointment is the mortar of a good life. We can’t live the life we’re dreaming of without the cosmos throwing up barriers, redirecting us to something better than the mud pies we’re too often contented with.

Are the unsavory aspects of your marriage keeping you from happiness? Or are they driving you towards it?

Are you bored? Out of love? Spend some time thinking about the things that aren’t right, make a short list, and go to work. Be as honest as you can. Get a therapist. Talk to friends. Avoid the temptation to sit your spouse down and outline the myriad ways they suck. Work on your stuff, the ways that you’ve contributed to a relationship nobody wants to be in.

You won’t be bored for long.

I don’t know anyone who’s in a good marriage who didn’t have to walk through a mountain of trouble to get there. I have no idea why marriage has to be that way. But when we find ourselves no-so-in-love with someone who lives under our roof, co-parents our children, and has pledged to be by our side till we die, it’s usually because we’re not dealing with things that require immediate attention.

We’re compelled to sit down as a couple, talk about what’s wrong, or not working well, and tackle these things together. When we do, we draw closer. Our problems are more of an opportunity for intimacy than they are trouble. But if we only see them as trouble, they can only be wedges that drive us apart.