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I’ve often heard people say that falling in love isn’t real love and that all the feelings and perceptions that accompany romantic love aren’t real either.

It’s true, falling in love is something that just seems to happen to you. You get swept up in a kind of infatuation that you have no control over. All of a sudden this person looks and sounds perfect. You project everything good onto them. You feel happier and better about yourself when you are with them than you ever knew was possible. You can’t stop thinking about them when you are apart and start imagining a future with them where you’ll feel this way forever.

But for most of us, those feelings don’t last. So how real could that kind of love have been in the first place?

Someone once described the experience this way. Imagine that you and your partner are walking hand in hand on a path and without realizing it, you both have stepped upon the giant open hand of God. As soon as you are both on God’s palm, he lifts you thousands of feet up so that your next step places you at the summit of the most beautiful mountain. Everywhere you look you see these breathtaking vistas. You are exhilarated by the wide expanse before you and still holding hands, you feel that anything is possible. After walking around up there for a while in that rarefied air you inadvertently step back onto the hand of God and, in an instant, are gently returned to your original path at the foot of the mountain. Where is the reality–at the foot of the mountain or at the summit?

After being married for nearly 30 years and working with hundreds of couples, many of whom express a familiar lament, “I love my partner but I’m not in love with him/her, I’ve seen that romantic love is both a gift and also something that you create by your intention, your words and your actions.

The trick to capturing and making real the love that once swept over you is to continue to do and say the things that felt natural when you were “in love.” Don’t wait until you feel like it. You may not always feel love for your partner but you can always be loving. Here are a few tips for rekindling some of those old feelings:

1. Continue to do and say kind and thoughtful things daily.
2. Focus on what it is about them that you love, respect and admire and appreciate them often for those very things.
3. Discover how each of you like to be loved and give to your partner what feels loving to them.
4. Spend time doing things together. Establish enjoyable rituals that are just for the two of you.
5. Learn how to forgive. This may require coaching to get good at it but the payoffs are huge in terms of intimacy and self-acceptance.
6. Touch and talk a lot (and not just about logistics and schedules).
7. Sleep naked and kiss passionately. You’ll enjoy more and better sex.

While you may not feel swept away quite like you may have in the past, you will experience a deeper, more lasting love for your partner and a surprising uptick in romantic feelings reminiscent of the view from the top.

I’d love to hear how you keep the magic alive. Please share your thoughts and this post.

Happy Valentine’s Day,

-Jim

P. S. After over 30 years of couples seminars, tele-seminars, workshops, etc., I have hit upon the ideal format for conveying the Powerful Partnerships® material in a way that couples can master what they have learned. I now come to your house (have course, will travel) and work with only you and your partner for one evening and the next whole day. The new format includes four 1-hour follow up coaching sessions either in person, over the phone or with Skype. The results have been outstanding. Contact me if you’d like to hear more about it.