YOU’VE LOST THAT LOVING FEELING? How to Make a Love U-Turn…

(Note: The post below is from the book STOP *EFFING YOURSELF, by Dr. Sean Kenniff)

YOU’VE LOST THAT LOVING FEELING?

How to Make a Love U-Turn…

By Sean Kenniff

You have fallen out of love–you are sure of it. You might still love your partner, but you are no longer “in love” with him or her. Looking back, you recall a time when your partner sent your heart and mind racing with excitement. Every moment seemed magical. But now those times have vanished, and it seems like all that passion was just smoke and mirrors, a cruel trick. You still obsess about your partner but now only in a very negative way. You ask yourself over and over, How could this have happened? How did hot and heavy become cold and lonely? Why am I staying in the relationship? Who am I fooling? Am I condemned to a passionless and pointless future?

Signs you may be falling out of love with your partner.

• 1. You are physically repulsed by your partner.
• 2. You cringe before kissing.
• 3. You constantly point out your partner’s faults.
• 4. You feel like a fraud.
• 5. You married for money, sex or security.
• 6. Your basic emotional needs are not being met.
• 7. You don’t respect your partner.
• 8. You no longer care if your partner has sex with someone else.
• 9. You avoid talking about the future.
• 10. You are never happy at home.

Unfortunately, it is easy to fall in love but hard to stay in love. As your relationship changes with time, you must change along with it–and change requires work. If you have not been adjusting and growing within your relationship, now is the time to start. Falling out of love is usually a painfully slow process. So time is on your side.

Here are some tips on how you can make a love U-turn.

Create a Love Concept.

Define what you mean by love. For most people, love is an abstract concept, and writing some thoughts on paper will help you see what you have in your relationship and what you are lacking. Write down an explicit definition of love, the actions that you consider demonstrate love, and all of your other love expectations.

Take a Reality Check.

Compare your love concept to what you read in books, watch on television, and see in the movies. If your love concept is strikingly similar to the dramatic love concept, you have been terribly misled. If books and the mainstream media accurately portrayed the amount of tedium in real-life romances, you wouldn’t read or watch. Make sure you are not holding your relationship up to a ridiculous Hollywood standard.

Identify Changes.

Think back to a happier time in your relationship, and write down ways both you and your partner have changed. Were you more attentive, seductive, and forgiving? Identify ways in which the relationship has fundamentally changed. Are there other obligations interfering with your ability to love each other? Have children entered the picture? Has one partner lost a job or received a promotion? Examine how all of these changes are related and try to figure out some simple solutions.

Time to Talk.

After creating a realistic love concept and identifying changes in your relationship, it is time to have a thoughtful and candid conversation with your partner. Your partner may have similar concerns. And when two people drift away from each other, they drift away at twice the speed. Assure your partner that you are committed to improving your love relationship and keep the conversation solution-oriented.

Act Lovingly.

Love is a feeling, but it is also an action. It is a noun and a verb–and verbs usually imply action. You cannot be passive about love. It will not magically reappear in your relationship. You must give love to get it. Make specific and unambiguous efforts to demonstrate your love for partner at least once a day. Like a bank account, you have to deposit love before you can withdraw it. You must start giving the love you want in return.

Starve Your Resentment.

Don’t focus on feelings of resentment and hostility. When people fall in love, they often develop a positive obsession for their partners, and it creates constant excitement. When falling out of love, the obsession turns negative and becomes constant resentment. You must do your best to block these negative thoughts.

Feed The Positivity.

Do your best to acknowledge the positive qualities of your partner. Identify what is right about your partner and your relationship, and then tell your friends and family about them. You might be surprised at the reaction. They might just tell you how lucky you are. Getting this kind of positive feedback will strengthen your relationship.

Let it Go.

Don’t hold onto past resentments.

Seduce Each Other.

To add some passion into your lives, make sure you are seducing each other on a regular basis. Look your best. Express desire–or fake it. If your sex life has turned boring, be open to spicing it up a bit. Have fun, make love, and hang out like you used to.

What is Missing in Passion, Make Up For With Intimacy.

While you may never recapture the passion you had with your partner in the first years of dating, you should make efforts to become increasingly intimate. Like passionate love, being understood and cherished is also a fundamental human desire. Feed your partner’s desire for intimacy–it is the glue of all long-term love relationships. Concentrate on safeguarding your partner and attending to their emotional needs.

Dr. Sean Kenniff is the author of STOP *EFFING YOURSELF and ETRE THE COW. Click on the book cover above to purchase.

What is Your Love Personality?

What is Your Love Personality?

by Sean Kenniff, MD 

   Finding your perfect mate may come down to ‘chemistry’ after all-the chemistry inside your brain according to a new relationship theory. Dr. Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist, has studied brain responses to relationships for decades, and she says there are four distinct personality types based on your brain chemistry.

The Builder: Builders are fueled by the feel-good brain chemical serotonin. Serotonin is the same neurotransmitter that is believed to be critical in alleviating depression. Builders are calm, orderly and managerial in their approach to love. Although they can be pleasingly social, sometimes they are criticized for being humdrum homebodies. Builders are reliable, stable and consistent, but they can be a bit predictable and lack some spontaneity.

The Explorer: Explorers are governed by the novelty-seeking brain chemical dopamine. Imbalances of dopamine have been connected to heightened impulsivity, risk-taking behaviors, drug addiction, delusions, and even schizophrenia. Driven by dopamine explorers constantly seek excitement in relationships. Sometimes they move from relationship to relationship once the monotony sets in. Explorers are highly spontaneous and often fun lovers, but they become bored easily and are often criticized for being flighty.

The Director: The male sex hormone testosterone is thought to predominate in the brains of directors, but both men and women can fall into this personality type. In studies testosterone has been associated with aggression and competitiveness. In relationships the testosterone-driven directors are focused, rational, daring and direct. They are logical lovers, but at times they can be coldly analytical, bossy and controlling.

The Negotiator: Negotiators are governed by the female hormone estrogen, but both men and women can fall into this category. Estrogen has been associated with mothering behaviors, emotional connectivity, and selfless reasonability. Negotiators are socially skilled, idealistic peacemakers and they often find themselves at the gravitational center of relationships. They are empathetic lovers, and willing to compromise on almost every issue. 

So what types make the best matches? 

Explorers: Explorers often want to date themselves and they should. The other personality types are often frustrated by the explorer’s flights of fancy, irrationality, and unwillingness to commit to long-term relationships. So explorers should seek other explorers to keep fueling the excitement. Explorers can sometimes ground themselves by dating builders, but they run into trouble by dating directors. The no-nonsense approach of the director leaves explorers feeling confined or trapped. 

Builders: Builders value loyalty, consistency, and thrive on routine. Dating another builder is the most common and it may be the most successful relationship strategy. Two builders together often form a stable family unit, guided by shared goals and teamwork. Builders can sometimes ground an explorer, but the builder’s love of routine can often clash with the explorer’s love of novelty.   

Negotiators and Directors: Directors often need a negotiator to temper their frank, methodical approach to romance, and negotiators often benefit from the stronger backbone of directors. However negotiators, given their pleasing nature, can suit just about other personality type. Directors, on the other hand, find it very difficult to date anyone without good negotiating and peacemaking skills.

Having a Mid-Life Crisis in Your Thirties? It’s a ‘Thrisis’

  Men in a mid-life crisis are easy to spot. They’re Botox-blasting, cash-flashing, tanning, toning, wig-wearing late-forty-somethings driving sporty cars and cruising for sporty younger women. But today psychologists are seeing a new phenomenon; an early mid-life crisis that strikes both men and women equally, and in their thirties–It’s called a ‘thrisis’.

   Dr. Mitchell Spero, a licensed psychologist and director of Child and Family Psychologists, says people in the throes of a full-blown thrisis usually fall into two main camps.

“There are those who have had a prolonged adolescence by going to school and entering the workforce later in life,” Dr. Spero says, “and then there are those who had children earlier in life, maybe even too young, and now they are dealing with marital stress or divorce.”

   Spero says combine years spent in college, grad school, with the current economic downturn and adolescence has extended into the early twenties. That leaves many thirty-somethings struggling for independence while they’re still entangled in the parental safety net.

   “They want to be independent, but they are actually pseudo-independent. Their parents still must help them out in some way,” he says. For many that is a source of great internal frustration and it is easy to come unbalanced.

   “People in their thirties are often trying to balance child rearing, career advancement, all the financial pressures, leaving your parents, and in some cases losing a parent — at the same time,” Dr. Spero says.

   Unlike a mid-life crisis, where the angst is driven by the ghost of glory-days past, those in a thrisis worry about an uncertain future and unsatisfied expectations.      

   “Adjust expectations for yourself and for others, and don’t forget to adjust the time frame,” Dr. Spero says, “It’s OK to accomplish some of these things in your forties. Live in the present without blaming those of the past.” -Sean Kenniff, MD

-Dr. Sean Kenniff is a neurologist and health journalist in Miami.

-Dr. Mitchell Spero can be reached at Child + Family Psychologists at 954-587-7520, or 954-349-2777, or visit his website www.childandfamilypsychologists.org