Falling Out of Love

One problem that couples can experience is when they feel the spark between them has died. Perhaps they feel like they’ve just become friends or as many people describe it - like they’ve become flatmates living under the same roof. Some will describe it like they’ve fallen out of love. They may still love their partner but just not be in love with them.

It is important to differentiate having fallen out of love from simply the ups and downs of attraction and connection that occurs in any relationship. It is normal to go through periods of feeling less attracted or close. It is also normal that the feeling of love changes over time - the intensity of the first few months when you first fall in love is not the same as five years into a relationship. However, what some people describe is different - is like when the fire has gone out completely.

I refer to the complete falling out of love as detachment. Detachment will usually affect the couple’s sex life as the desire to have sex will dramatically reduce when someone has fallen out of love. For some it disappears completely. Detachment will also often lead to infidelity or depression. When we are in love, we will still feel a spark with other people but it is easy to not act on that as we have that spark and a lot more back at home. But when we don’t have that feeling in our relationship it can make it all the more harder to resist that attraction for someone else.

Detachment can happen to one person or both. It is often caused by one person not having their needs met over a long period or from a very painful event that was not repaired. Detachment is not a conscious decision but rather something that happens unconsciously. It is our body’s way of protecting itself - when we are in love with someone we feel everything so strongly and it is very hard to walk away from the person. Detachment lessens the impact of the partner’s behaviour on us and it makes it easier to leave a relationship.

If a couple suspects that they may have detached, a therapist can carefully explore that possibility and then work with the couple on what to do. It is important though that the therapist understands what detachment is and how to assess for it as not all couples counsellors will understand what detachment is, how it functions, and the implications of it.