This is taken from Mort Fertel’s advice on Marriage fitness. I thought it worth passing on.

“I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you?”

What does that statement mean?

A person who says, “I love you, but I’m not IN
LOVE with you,” is making a distinction between 2
different feelings. But NEITHER of those feelings
are love!

When a person says, “I love you, but I’m not IN
LOVE with you,” they’re saying that I CARE about
you but I’m not EXCITED about you.

CARING about someone is a good thing. It’s
reflective of CONCERN. But it’s different than
love. I care about the starving children in
Africa, but I don’t love them.

Being EXCITED about someone is also a good thing.
But it’s different than love. I might be excited
to have a relationship with the President of the
United States or a Hollywood star, but that
doesn’t mean I love them.

While someone who says, “I love you, but I’m not
IN LOVE with you” seems to be making a
distinction between “different loves;” in fact,
they are expressing their confusion about what
love really is. And that’s why they’re having
marital problems.

Love is something we articulate in the vocabulary
of ACTION. Love is a verb. It’s not a feeling you
get from another PERSON; it’s an experience you
receive as a result of DEEDS YOU DO for another
person.

And those deeds are not a secret. In other words,
love is NOT a mystery! There are specific things
you can do with your spouse to solve your
problems and build love in your marriage. Just
as there are physical laws of the universe (such
as gravity), there are also laws for
relationships. Just as the right diet and
exercise program makes you physically stronger,
certain habits in your relationship WILL make
your marriage stronger. It’s a direct cause and
effect. If you know and apply the laws, the
results are predictable…you can “make” love.
This is exactly why I created the Marriage
Fitness program. I wanted to offer people a
step-by-step system to make and maintain love in
their marriage. And the program works for any
marriage, even if only one spouse does it.

Very often in the program someone will say to me,
“I love my spouse, but I’m not IN LOVE with my
spouse.”

My immediate response is to ask, “Can you list
for me 5 ways in the last week that you’ve
DEMONSTRATED your love for your spouse?”

I usually hear noise on the other end of the
phone; grunts, partial statements, and gasps for
breath, but none of what I hear ever passes for
an answer to my question.

“I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you” is a
cop out. It basically means that I have no clue
how to make a relationship last LONG-TERM so I’m
exiting to get high from another short-term
romance. But whoever they’re IN LOVE with now
will also eventually hear, “I love you, but I’m
not IN LOVE with you.”

You can check out Mort Fertel at his website http://www.marriagemax.com

Thanks for reading today.