Are We Falling Out of Love? (from Help Save My Marriage Counseling Series)

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.  ~Mignon McLaughlin

Before a marriage or relationship ends, one or both partners usually claim that they are no longer “in love”. The passion, affection, and harmony that were once present are now replaced with disagreements, emotional withdrawal and physical distancing.

Relationships grow and develop as partners change and adapt to life and each other. It is an ongoing process. At the beginning of a new relationship, love is intoxicating. Differences and incompatibilities go unnoticed. This highly enjoyable stage of a relationship doesn’t last forever. Soon after the excitement wears off, partners have an opportunity to get to know and accept each other for who they really are. It is at this point that they discover the hard work that happy and successful relationships require.

Every relationship has conflicts. When they arise, a couple’s love and commitment will be tested. The real difference between a successful marriage or relationship and a troubled one is the level of their commitment to work through problems and challenges. Couples who do not stay committed through the difficult times usually end up getting divorced. Successful couples work on resolving their conflicts. They persevere and stay committed to the relationship. If they cannot resolve their conflicts together, they seek help including professional help such as marriage counseling. On the contrary, a relationship with unresolved conflicts grows distant. Eventually, layers upon layers of hurt feelings, insecurities, and unresolved issues develop which lead to more serious relationship problems.

Most couples want their marriages to work. For most, it’s a matter of rekindling their love and acceptance of one another, learning how to resolve conflicts, becoming better listeners, and resolving to stay committed to each other. There is no perfect marriage or relationship. Marriages go through changes and allow partners to grow closer and deeper in love as a result.

Falling out of love usually means falling out of commitment. If you want to fall back in love, it begins with a commitment to your partner. Are you willing to resolve your conflicts when they occur rather than ignore them or allow them escalate? Share your feelings and thoughts with love and acceptance rather than criticism and judgment? Focus on what you like about each other rather than what can be improved? Accept your differences and agree that you can disagree and still love and respect each other? Be thankful for and appreciate your partner? Make time for each other? Show your partner respect and love every day? Get professional help if you need it?

Being in love is one of the greatest experiences in the world. It’s more than a good feeling that eventually fades. It’s an intimate connection with another human being unlike any other. It involves a life commitment that surpasses feelings and reaches deep into the soul where true love resides. This love lasts forever and is unconditional. It is not dependent upon feelings or circumstances. It is eternal and true. It is a love every marriage can experience.

Relationships can be restored. Love can be rekindled. Marriages can be happy and succeed. Sometimes what is needed more than anything else is some insight and a few skills in key relationship areas such as communication, commitment, sexuality and intimacy, conflict resolution, money issues, romance, crisis, cheat-proofing your marriage.

Rather than enduring an unhappy or troubled marriage, or becoming another statistic of divorce, make today a new day of commitment to your marriage! Get some help that can make all the difference and save your relationship today!


Are We Falling Out of Love? (from Help Save My Marriage Counseling Series)
Copyright © 2009 New Day Family Marriage Counseling written by Krystal Kuehn
This article is a part of the Help Save My Marriage Counseling collection by Krystal.

Krystal Kuehn, MA, LPC, LLP, NCC is a licensed professional counselor, author, teacher, and musician. She specializes in helping people live their best life now, reach their full potential, overcome barriers, heal from their past, and develop a lifestyle of health, happiness, and love. Krystal is the cofounder of NewDayCounseling.org, a relationship counseling, family counseling center, specializing in helping individuals, couples and families with professional counseling services for relationship problems, parenting issues, depression, anxiety as well a s substance abuse classes, anger management groups, and more. Krystal is also cofounder of StopSuicideSong.com and BeHappy4Life.com as well as Facebook.com/WordsOfInspiration and several blogs.


We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we,          changing, continue to love a changed person.  ~W. Somerset Maugham
 It is impossible to fall out of love. Love is such a powerful emotion, that once it envelops you it does not depart. True love is eternal. If you think that you were once in love, but fell out of it, then it wasn't love you were in. There are no 'exit' signs in love, there is only an 'on' ramp. ~unknown

The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but musst live with a character. ~Peter De Vrie


New Day Counseling is a family marriage counseling center that provides professional counseling services for the entire family. We help parents, children, teens, families, individuals and couples. We offer couples therapy / marriage counseling, child therapy, adolescent counseling, anxiety counseling, depression counseling, divorce counseling, grief counseling, porn addiction counseling, substance abuse counseling. We also offer groups for anger counseling. Go to NewDayCounseling.org today for more information or call us at 248-649-8050. We are here to help, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Put an end to anger problems & regain control over your life today. Anger management classes help for personal, court, and business. For more info go to newdaycounseling.org or call 248-649-8050 to register today. * Anger management classes and/or individual anger counseling can be extremely supportive and helpful in equipping us with many tools for a better life.

Are you experiencing addiction or substance use that is impacting your daily life? You are not alone! There are many people struggling with substance abuse and addiction! There are also many people who recover and live a drug free lifestyle. Come join our 6 week substance abuse group to discover the pathway to freedom! One Day at A Time! For substance abuse classes and/or individual substance abuse counseling, call or visit us today.

Learn to handle & stabilize your emotions, lessen depression, and improve your relationships by learning coping skills, de-stressing techniques, and ways to change negative thought patterns with Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Call 248-649-8050 to register for DBT ADULT DEPRESSION & ANXIETY SUPPORT GROUP

Love and Logic Parenting Classes help you with the most important job there is! You can learn practical tools & techniques for effective discipline, better communication, appropriate boundaries, healthy decision-making, & respectful adult-child relationships. Workshops are available at New Day Counseling in Troy. For more information or to register online go to: Love and Logic Parenting Class or call 248-649-8050.

Self-Esteem Group for Teen Girls (ages 13-17)
Teen girls learn to feel empowered, gain self-awareness, develop positive coping, and improve daily problem-solving skills. Through G.I.R.L.S. (Girls in Real Life Situations) counseling curriculum, group discussion, and fun activities, girls will learn more about themselves and be better equipped to handle Real Life Situations. Call 248-649-8050 today to register. For more information, visit newdaycounseling.org.  We also offer individual teenage counseling.

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What Happened to Our Vows? (from the Help Save My Marriage Counseling Series)

Passion can never purchase what true love desires:  true intimacy, self-giving, and commitment.

When people make a promise to us, we usually expect and hope that they will keep it. Especially when it is from those we love and care about. We want to trust them and have the security of knowing that we can count on their word.

How about in marriage?  Do people stay committed to their promises?

Think about the marriage vows couples make to each other. Vows are promises. They usually include notions of affection (promises to love and respect one another) as well as faithfulness (promises to remain true and to stay together).

The following is an excerpt of marriage vows made by so many. I am sure they will sound familiar:

To have and to hold, from this day forward,
for better for worse, for richer for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish, till death do us part.

Why are vows hard to keep sometimes? It is because relationships are hard work! When difficult times come (and they will), when feelings or circumstances change, there is one thing that will keep a couple together and that is their commitment to their marriage.

The real difference between a successful marriage and a troubled one is the level of each partner's commitment to work through problems and challenges. Couples who do not stay committed through the difficult times usually end up getting divorced. Successful couples work on resolving their conflicts. They don’t give up; they stay committed to the relationship.

If they cannot resolve their conflicts together, they seek help such as marriage counseling. They work on keeping their promises.   Let us look at some of them again:

They promised: For better or for worse. So when it gets worse, they work together to make it better.

They promised: For richer or poorer. So when financial problems arise, they work together to pull out of them.

They promised: In sickness and in health. If sickness or tragedy strikes, or when they grow old, they cope with the challenges together and support each other in any way they can.

They promised: to love and to cherish. They can do this when they understand that true love is more than a feeling. It is a commitment.

And finally, they promised each other: Till death do us part. That means that they will remain faithful, resist temptations, and stay committed to their marriage for as long as they live.

Now that is a huge commitment with some very serious promises! I really believe that most couples want their marriages to work. Sometimes what they need more than anything else is some insight and a few skills in key relationship areas such as communication, conflict resolution, money issues, sexuality & intimacy, romance. I know that professional marriage counseling can be of help in many cases.  It can help couples to develop some insight and understand,  gain necessary tools to improve communication, restore love and respect, increase intimacy, and strengthen the marriage bond.

I hope to encourage you to stay true to your commitments. If necessary, get some marriage counseling help, make needed changes, learn more. Remember, your level of commitment will affect the quality of your marriage.



Passion is the quickest to develop and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still.  ~Robert Sternberg

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.  ~Mignon McLaughlin


What Happened to Our Vows? (from the Help Save My Marriage Counseling Series)
Copyright © 2009 New Day Family Marriage Counseling written by Krystal Kuehn

New Day Counseling is a family marriage counseling center that provides professional counseling services for the entire family. We help parents, children, teens, families, individuals and couples. We offer couples therapy / marriage counseling, child therapy, adolescent counseling, anxiety counseling, depression counseling, divorce counseling, grief counseling, porn addiction counseling, substance abuse counseling. We also offer groups for anger counseling. Go to NewDayCounseling.org today for more information or call us at 248-649-8050. We are here to help, and we look forward to hearing from you.


Put an end to anger problems & regain control over your life today. Anger management classes help for personal, court, and business. For more info go to newdaycounseling.org or call 248-649-8050 to register today. * Anger management classes and/or individual anger counseling can be extremely supportive and helpful in equipping us with many tools for a better life.

Are you experiencing addiction or substance use that is impacting your daily life? You are not alone! There are many people struggling with substance abuse and addiction! There are also many people who recover and live a drug free lifestyle. Come join our 6 week substance abuse group to discover the pathway to freedom! One Day at A Time! For substance abuse classes and/or individual substance abuse counseling, call or visit us today.

Learn to handle & stabilize your emotions, lessen depression, and improve your relationships by learning coping skills, de-stressing techniques, and ways to change negative thought patterns with Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.  Call 248-649-8050 to register for DBT ADULT DEPRESSION & ANXIETY SUPPORT GROUP

Love and Logic Parenting Classes help you with the most important job there is! You can learn practical tools & techniques for effective discipline, better communication, appropriate boundaries, healthy decision-making, & respectful adult-child relationships. Workshops are available at New Day Counseling in Troy. For more information or to register online go to: Love and Logic Parenting Class or call 248-649-8050.

Self-Esteem Group for Teen Girls (ages 13-17)
Teen girls learn to feel empowered, gain self-awareness, develop positive coping, and improve daily problem-solving skills. Through G.I.R.L.S. (Girls in Real Life Situations) counseling curriculum, group discussion, and fun activities, girls will learn more about themselves and be better equipped to handle Real Life Situations. Call 248-649-8050 today to register. For more information, click here. We also offer individual teenage counseling.



 
 
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When There is Hurt and Distancing in Relationships (from Couples Counseling Series)

If someone were to throw a punch at you, you would most likely try to protect yourself from getting hit. And if you were to feel the heat of a flaming fire, you would keep yourself far enough away to avoid getting burned. Self-preservation comes naturally as no one wants to experience pain or injury. So threats to our well-being motivate us to distance ourselves from anything with the potential to harm us. It is a necessary and reasonable response in many situations.

Relationships are no different. When we feel hurt or unloved we pull away from people in our lives. We distance ourselves in an effort to protect ourselves from more pain and injury. We may do this in a number of ways. It is often very subtle to start. We might keep ourselves busy and away from the person(s) who hurt us. We might not open ourselves up to sharing what is on our minds and hearts anymore. We might withdraw our warmth and affection. We might stop investing our time in giving and nurturing the relationship.

In all this, what we are actually doing is crying out, “You don’t care about me.” “I don’t feel you love me.” “I just want to know I am important to you.” “If I pull away, will you then hear me and notice me?” But often we do not recognize that our acts of self-preservation can end up pushing others further away. They may begin to feel you do not love or care about them as well. So the emotional distancing pushes you even further apart.

As the hurt deepens, your needs for love, attention, and affection go unmet. When this happens it is common for people to try to meet their own needs. They divert their energies and attention to other things such as work, hobbies, parenting, socializing, shopping, and an entire host of addictions. Pulling away and distancing in relationships causes disconnection. Without connectedness relationships do not work. That may explain why many give up on their relationships. As a result, feelings of hurt, betrayal and failure keep them from believing that restoration is possible.

But there is a healing balm that can heal every wound. It soothes the sting of burns and takes away the pain. It comforts broken hearts and revives hope again. It provides a place of refuge where you feel safe and secure to share and give of yourself all over again. Where it flows in abundance, there miracles happen. It is the greatest gift of all. It is what relationships are meant for. It is the gift of love.

Love, along with honor, commitment, and healthy communication restores brokenness. If you have pulled away from a relationship in an effort to protect yourself from getting hurt, will you allow love to break down the walls you’ve erected? Will you make a decision to not accept failure for your relationships? Will you begin to draw close to others and communicate your feelings and needs to them?

Today can be a new day to build and enrich your relationships as you begin to draw near to others in love, grace and forgiveness.


* Couples who are experiencing hurt and distancing in their relationship and want to restore their love and communication may benefit from couples counseling where they can gain insight and better understanding of themselves and their partner, develop better communication skills, resolve unhealthy patterns and recurring problems, gain more respect and trust, and draw closer and more in love with one another.




When There is Hurt and Distancing in Relationships (from Couples Counseling Series)
Copyright © 2007, 2011 NewDayCounseling.org All Rights Reserved.


Sometimes it is the person closest to us who must travel the furthest distance to be our friend.  ~Robert Brault


Sticks and stones are hard on bones
Aimed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything
But silence breaks the heart.
~Phyllis McGinley


To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship. ~Doménico Cieri Estrada


There are times when two people need to step apart from one another, but there is no rule that says they have to turn and fire.  ~Robert Brault


When negative feelings are suppressed positive feelings become suppressed as well, and love dies. ~John Gray

Sometimes two people need to step apart and make a space between that each might see the other anew,
in a glance across a room or silhouetted against the moon. ~Robert Brault




Krystal Kuehn, MA, LPC, LLP, NCC is a licensed professional counselor, author, teacher, and musician. She specializes in helping people live their best life now, reach their full potential, overcome barriers, heal from their past, and develop a lifestyle of health, happiness, and love. Krystal is the cofounder of New Day Counseling, a family couples counseling and child adolescent counseling center and BeHappy4Life.com, an award-winning self-improvement and personal growth site where you can find hundreds of free resources, online workshops, video presentations, insights, and inspiration.




New Day Counseling is a family counseling center that provides professional counseling services for the entire family. We help parents, children, teens, families, individuals and couples. We offer couples therapy / marriage counseling, child therapy, adolescent counseling, anxiety counseling, depression counseling, divorce counseling, grief counseling, porn addiction counseling, substance abuse counseling. We also offer groups for anger counseling. Go to NewDayCounseling.org today for more information or call us at 248-649-8050. We are here to help, and we look forward to hearing from you.



Put an end to anger problems & regain control over your life today. Anger management classes help for personal, court, and business. For more info go to newdaycounseling.org or call 248-649-8050 to register today. * Anger management classes and/or individual anger counseling can be extremely supportive and helpful in equipping us with many tools for a better life.



Love and Logic Parenting Classes help you with the most important job there is! You can learn practical tools & techniques for effective discipline, better communication, appropriate boundaries, healthy decision-making, & respectful adult-child relationships. Workshops are available at New Day Counseling in Troy. For more information or to register online go to: Love and Logic Parenting Class or call 248-649-8050.



Self-Esteem Group for Teen Girls (ages 13-17)
Teen girls learn to feel empowered, gain self-awareness, develop positive coping, and improve daily problem-solving skills. Through G.I.R.L.S. (Girls in Real Life Situations) counseling curriculum, group discussion, and fun activities, girls will learn more about themselves and be better equipped to handle Real Life Situations. Call 248-649-8050 today to register. For more information about this teen group, click here. We also provide individual teenage counseling.





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