Читать книгу The 100 Most Asked Questions About Love, Sex and Relationships - Barbara Angelis De - Страница 13

I’ve been married for twenty-eight years, and for the last ten, I’ve felt numb toward my partner. We’ve discussed divorce, but neither of us really wants to go out and start dating at this point in our lives. Is it possible for us to fall back in love again, or should we just accept the fact that our marriage is over?

Yes, it’s possible to fall back in love again, or more accurately, to break through the numbness you are both feeling and rediscover the love that is still there underneath. If you’re a couple (and I’d bet anything you are) who never worked on maintaining the intimacy in your relationship, avoided major confrontation, suppressed unpleasant emotions, and didn’t talk about your feelings, then of course you are feeling numb. You’ve spent years becoming experts at numbing yourselves to the little things, and now you’re wondering where the love went. It may still be there in hibernation, underneath all the other frozen emotions.

It sounds to me like you are both not only numb to one another, but numb period. You aren’t interested in dating or starting your love life over again, and I’ll bet you feel kind of tired and blasé about everything. This could be a major turning point in your life, a moment where you look at one another and say, “I’m tired of feeling this tired of everything …-I’m tired of feeling numb … I’m ready to make some changes.”

The first step is to break through that numbness by confronting some of the issues that are sure to be lurking beneath the surface. You won’t be able to do this on your own—you’ll need help, and I suggest you find a well-trained therapist or marriage counselor who has an excellent reputation for helping couples in trouble. If you don’t get the results you want, try someone else, read books, attend seminars, etc. You won’t be able to tell if your marriage can be saved until you try everything. Then, if you decide it’s over, you can do so knowing you made every attempt to resurrect the relationship.

Here’s something to give you some hope: I’ve personally worked with thousands of couples who believed they were on the verge of divorce, who, after giving their relationship the attention it needed, fell back in love again; every week I receive letters from couples I’ve never even met, but who share this same kind of success story with me. So it’s not just possible—it’s happening all the time, and I pray it can happen for you too.