About Love, Trust, and Marriage

The question from the charismatic kid in the front row surprised me. “But…How do you quit loving someone?” I looked at his face then. Really looked at it. He had been in my class for weeks, and his easy smile and funny comments were not new to me. But this question was different. There was an urgency behind it. It felt personal and important.

 I did not press him, but imagined that he’d had a relationship go bad. Dating is hard. Breaking up with a romantic partner can be an emotional crash that produces acute pain. If only falling out of love were as easy as falling in.

 We use the word “fall” in love, as if it were a mistake, an accident that befalls us as we are going about our lives. And in many cases, I suppose it is. But lasting love is no accident. It is something we actively choose and cultivate.

Love

The experience of love is comprised of three components. We often talk about love as a feeling or emotion. But love also has a behavioral component; when we feel love toward a person, we act in ways that are loving. Also, there is a cognitive component. When we are in love, we think differently. Our thoughts about the object of our love are kinder, more positive.

 We often think we can’t choose our feelings, and to some extent, we can’t. But as we choose to think and behave in ways that are loving, the feelings often follow. This is especially true if we’ve decided–consciously chosen–the path of unconditional love.

 Unconditional love accepts the object of its love exactly as they are. If I have chosen to love my partner unconditionally, then I chose to love him even if he does things that are annoying, inconvenient, or even dangerous. That doesn’t mean that I don’t experience annoyance, inconvenience or alarm. It means I’m measured in how I respond to those feelings. And even though I may not feel loving, I choose to think, act, and be loving.

Marriage Requires More Than Just Love

To be clear, unconditional love, or any kind of love, isn’t enough to sustain a marriage. A marriage is a contract. It is not unconditional. Even if the love between two people within a marriage is unconditional, the marriage itself is not.

 Marriages are based on agreements between spouses, whether those are outlined explicitly or not. Marriages are threatened when one spouse violates what the other (or sometimes both of them) thought was the agreement.

Trust

Infidelity, violence, financial deceit, and a whole host of other issues may arise that break the agreements (and trust) between partners. In other cases, one partner’s change in career, religious beliefs, or even hobbies can expose differences in spouses’ understanding of their implicit agreements. If a sense of betrayal ensues and trust is broken, the couple wonders if they can ever be easy and free with each other again.

 When trust is broken in a marriage; when the foundational agreements are violated, couples often find themselves feeling hopeless. The betrayed partner may wonder how their spouse could have done this thing to them; wonder if their spouse ever really loved them. The straying partner wonders if they can ever be forgiven; if the anger from their spouse will ever end.

 It can be helpful to remember that love and trust are not the same thing. Despite intense feelings of betrayal, disbelief, and anger, echoes of love leak through, an invitation to repair what was broken. The anger and pain from broken trust pushes us to leave. Love invites us to stay.

How Couples Therapy Can Help

Fixing a broken marriage is not easy. Unconditional love is a choice we make, but trust is not unconditional. It must be patiently and painstakingly rebuilt. A skilled couples’ therapist can guide a couple in crisis through the process, building transparency, emotional openness and intimacy, and other components that facilitate trust. A skilled therapist will also make space for both spouses to process the negative feelings that choke out the sense of loving and being loved.

 Deciding to stay when trust is broken is an act of bravery and hope. Couples’ therapists do not set out with the goal to restore the marriage to its former state, but to build something better; a partnership where love and trust are both deeper, stronger, and more enduring than ever before.

Make an Appointment Today

Schedule your initial appointment with a couple’s therapist at Wasatch Family Therapy by texting or calling 801.944.4555 or filling out this form.