Chapter 4: The Honeymoon Is Over
Martin Rovers wrote this book “for people who want to love and be loved; who want to know where love comes from; how it works; how love can live or die; and especially how to live a fuller loving life with a partner.”
Rovers shows how the families in which we were raised continue to influence our relationships long after childhood has ended. This influence can take the form of deeply felt wounds. When love is wounded, how does love get healed?
In order to help readers grapple with this “woundedness,” he presents a series of individual-focused and couple-focused therapeutic strategies for emotional growth and health. Below is Chapter 4, which walks us through what can happen when we begin the real work of learning to love our partner, faults and all. You may feel that you have fallen out of love with your partner, and if so, then please read below. At the end are an exercise that you can do individually or as a couple, which are aimed to promoting further self awareness and growth in your relationship.
It doesn’t stop there–to continue reading about how to connect further in your relationship, check out the rest of the chapters here.
Chapter 4: The Honeymoon is Over
If love is blind, then marriage is a real eye opener!!! The honeymoon period of being in love, which can last anywhere from six months to six years, is a time when we are blinded to the full reality of who our partner really is. We expect love from our partners and we expect them to soothe and heal our unmet childhood needs and wounds, but love cannot carry that weighted expectation forever. Our partners cannot answer all our needs. Couples counselling and family of origin therapy can help each partner see the bigger picture. The reasons why we fall in love will not always remain the reasons why we stay in love. We begin to “see” that our partner has faults, habits that bug us, and ways that might even turn us off. Faults are exposed; wounds like anger and depression are noticed. There are several reasons why the honeymoon ends and this work phase of the relationship begins. Falling out of love is often as natural and “easy” as falling in love, especially if the couple’s expectations of what love can or should brings is too high. Every marriage is doomed to some disillusionment. “And they lived happily ever after” is one of the most tragic sentences in literature because it speaks a certain falsehood about life and love and sets up expectations that are not at all possible for frail human beings. Marriage counselling is really needed when these disappoints begin to appear.
And so the dance of wounds begins The fight will be to get my partner back to where (s)he was when all was well and love was strong; the fight is to feel those feelings of being in love again, when I was cared for, desired, appreciated, understood. The dance of love is ending and the dance of wounds has begun. Communication begins to spiral in the negative direction, and word leads to heated word, tone brings on angry tone, and look provokes hurtful look. Both blame the other. Rarely does either see their own contribution to the problem, and soon a repetitive, negative communication patterns develops.
People come to couples therapy complaining about their relationship and/or sex life, and how it has evolved from when they were first in love. One of the first red flags in the loss of initial love in a couple relationship is communication. Cognitive behavioural wounds also present themselves.
Change and growth and healing are possible with couples who trust and love and want to change and grow. Coming early to counselling is the best guarantee of success. Marriage counselling or couples therapy can revitalize love.