What a topic for Valentines Day! Falling out of Love. Someone wrote me to ask about what they called "Emotional Shutdown." There are so many situations that can be described this way, that I asked for more background. The writer used several key (for me) phrases.



This is such a normal situation that I was sure I must have written about it many times, so I was looking for references in the Map of Relationship and elsewhere. But I found that while I had spoken of it clearly, I had not really entered into the experience of it very deeply in my writing.

Yet in the office I often to get deep into this. Since I imagine that most people who come to Marriage Advocates do so cuz the "stuff has hit the fan," they are at that point where What to do when he/she leaves is right up their alley. The experience of often-non-reversible loss of romantic feelings, sometimes described as Emotional Shutdown, is frequently in the experience of their partner. So last night I decided to make this a new topic.

Couple of thoughts first. While this seems a normal, oh almost 100% experience, I find that almost no one expects it. So I think of it as a) a huge surprise and b) the source of a strong sense of betrayal.

I gather this shock is not so common in some parts of our U.S. culture and even less in most of Europe. Many friends from across the water tell me that "everyone knows that romantic love ends." They call it "infatuation." I recall a woman who tried to change the U.S. habit of calling it "Love" and who invented the word " Limerence," a word I like (and often mispell).



I believe that generally in the U.S. marketing people have created the fantasy (cuz it sells products) that this kind of "love" is lasting and eternal if you find the right person and do the right things for and with them, and buy the right products - a.k.a Valentines Day gifts, etc.

Almost all of my work is to dispel this fantasy and replace it with reliable understandings of the dynamics of relationships. (My work is to replace the fantasy of some magical Biological Dream with the reality of achieving a Biological Dream state called Vintage Love.)

If you feel betrayed because that glorious brilliance of being in love goes away, you have a right to that and to a whole bunch of pissed-offness. You were betrayed by those who knowingly or unknowingly kept you blind to what is and will and has happened. Since your Lizard loves Predictive Information, all those people "screwed" you. But then, after you get through processing the feelings of betrayal and anger, now you know. And perhaps you can help others not feel so betrayed. I don't know. It is a tough-sell telling people that "everyone falls out of love". One can sure sound like a "downer." Not my goal.

I can now say a couple of pretty solid things, almost MasterTalk. I really believe this stuff!

• Falling in Love is a profound shift in feelings
• It is not under any conscious control
• The Lizard is the driving agent
• I believe "Infatuation" is a gateway experience to the possibility of obtaining Vintage Love
• In everyone it stops more or less suddenly
• Can seem to fade out or can stop overnight, over dinner, over reading a card
• Rarely can it restart with the same person (tho you can fake it)
• It can easily happen again with another person (affairs)
• It is based on the belief, by the Lizard, that the Biological Dream is becoming a reality
• It stops when the Lizard decides, based on data, "whoops, ain't gonna happen with this turkey"
• Often stops in one person much quicker than the other
• Often stops after an event which solidly reminds the Lizard that "things are not better with this person"
• In most relationships its stopping marks the beginning of the Power Struggle
• Since it stops based on acquiring new data, one cannot go backward and start it again
• You cannot get rid of data - go back to being "stupid"
• You cannot push the Lizard

Let's see how this topic grows.

Here are some questions.

How do you go about validating a person who has "dropped out of love," and is trying to describe the experience by saying, "I don't feel for you?"

How do you validate the person who experiences a partner having gone into "emotional shutdown?"

How do you approach "emotional shutdown" in a way that increases or decreases the likelihood of achieving Vintage Love and shortening the Power Struggle?

Ok, let me be sure I understand what you're saying... this Limerence is rarely re-acquired with someone for whom it's been lost. BUT, it can also be the gateway for Vintage Love if the Power Struggle is engaged appropriately?

Because this shutdown (on my part) is exactly how I feel toward my Ex#2, who is still wanting to make a "go" of our relationship. I can see the potential there if he makes some substantial changes, but I cannot see myself in that Limerence (I like the distinction) with him again. Or with anyone right now, frankly, but that's another topic. (Or is it? When that feeling fades for your partner, does it or can it shut down toward anyone for a time?)

I'll take a stab.



From the perspective of the love partner who is not felt for any more?

In words, I guess by saying, "I hear that you don't feel for me now the same way you used to." Not trying to talk them into feelings or explain why they don't feel the feelings or suggest they do things to regain said feelings?

Perhaps by asking, if you don't feel the same way you felt before, what would you say you feel now?

In action, I guess by the stuff in your writings about not pushing/pursuing them in action or words? Just validating and see if they have SOME connection to you, if not the limerance???



This one's tough. Hand them some kleenex? Heh. Maybe by asking them how it feels to hear that and validate their (presumed?) feelings of hurt, sadness and/or panic?



Well, I guess towards increasing the likelihood of Vintage Love, both sides must somehow feel a decreased need to regain the limerance -- that both sides consciously or unconsciously don't see the presence or absence of limerance as the basis for evaluating the viability of the relationship. ????

Decreasing the likelihood of Vintage Love might be power struggles over the need to regain limerance (bad relationship talks??) or pressure to take steps to try to regain it (gifts, pursuing, suggestions of therapy, retrouvaille, etc.???).

I dunno, this is tough.

This is interesting and sounds like the state my W (STBXW?) is in. Saying she feels broken/not wanting ANY relationship with anyone.

I felt sad to read your post Al. It rings true, but I experience this understanding as a loss of innocence. There is the hope of achieving Vintage Love, but somehow that seems more like winning the jackpot since both people have to be willing and able to "graduate" from university

"I'm hearing that you don't feel the way you used to, the way you want to. Is that right?"

"I'm guessing that you're feeling shocked and betrayed. You weren't ready for this...have I got it?"


increasing likelihood: "you are feeling emotionally shut down, and I know there are good reasons for that. take the space you need. I'll be here when you're ready to talk about it"
decreasing likelihood: "how could you fall out of love with me? tell me WHY? we need to talk about this! we're just going through a rough time"

I think that a lack of understanding of this limerance was a key in my marriage too. We lost that infatuation feeling years ago when we entered the power struggle. Went to marriage counseling, and I think STBXH thought that we weren't recovered unless we found that feeling again. We've been in another power struggle again the last few years. For our 10th anniversary this spring we went back to Italy, where he proposed. He moved out 6 months later - told me that the trip was his last-ditch effort to "find us" again - I think to regain that limerance. I knew at some level that our relationship had grown up past that point (we weren't kids anymore, it was time for grown-up love), but to him if we weren't there then our relationship was not worthwhile.

I wish I had used Flo's first statement - "I'm hearing that you don't feel the way you used to, the way you want to. Is that right?" I think that might have gotten him talking at least.

I made STBXH wrong for emotionally shutting down. I didn't validate his sense.

Me too - I told him moving out was stupid and argued that of course we both had a good time on vacation. I was so shocked to hear that he has experienced it all differently from me I just reacted defensively (another bad pattern).

I think you've got it pretty damn close. I think the goal is to get through the Power Struggle, now that you're in it, as quick as ever you can and move into what I call the University of Life with this turkey. The loss of that Romantic Feeling is normally what happens along the way to becoming a really cool partner, with a really cool partner.

Great wake up. But also, you could not make him wrong. You could tell him he was wrong, but he didn't have to "take it." All you could do was try to make him wrong. That may seem like a slip on your part, now.

But another way of looking at it would be that you gave him a chance to stand up and say, "I am not wrong. I am just shut down."

I cannot be perfect. Sometimes I act like an ass and give my wife a "perfect opportunity" to deal with an ass kindly and firmly.

CR, I just have to laugh. STBXH took us on the last family vacation to cuba, while we were in MC. I think it was last-ditch for him too. He spend a lot of time reading about the holocaust during our vacation. Oh and he invited his parents. Nice. I WAS blind.

Yes, I see that. During that time, STBXH was in a communication lockdown. We talked about him not feeling safe in MC, and I expressed frustration with not knowing how to help him feel safe, and that's one of the areas where we stalled out.

I tried to validate him. I wrote him pages of pure validation come to think of it now. I told him that it was natural, that I felt it too but I chose him anyway because of who he was.

I urged him to think of the things that bind us together, our past/kids/achievements. How all these could not be replaced. I even predicted that he would be facing the same situation with any new woman he would meet, that limerence is bound to die at a point and the issue is how you proceed then, if you still choose your partner.

He could understand that, I felt it, he was listening, he did recognise the process with his past Rs, but living the absolute limerence with his A partner at the same time, didnt allow him to act based on that knowledge.

1,5 years later, he used my words exactly to convince me to try with him again, pointing out the exact same things and even more in one of his letters. That happened after he was faced with the same choice with his A partner as their limerence died very soon after he moved out. His efforts to revive that didnt work out although he did want it to, it would justify the pain he had caused to all of us. The "problem" was, I believe, that when the limerence died, he had no bonds with her. Their secret A was their only bond. He had the "what the f@ck am I doing here?" thoughts often he told me.

So, I believe, when the limerence didnt come back, he approached me. The limerence between us didnt reappear, he went back and forth, I was feing reluctant as well.
I can only pressume the memory of the intense feelings he had just lived were too strong, too recent. Same was valid for me since I had met someone as well by then. I think we both felt we were giving up something.

At some point we did make the choice, based on knowledge and valuing what we have and what we can have, and that happened recently after reconciling more than a year the second time. The fact that we are realistic now, is one of the things that gives me hope.

Something we have both agreed upon is that we always felt we are...family to each other. Years ago I would think that that statement alone meant setlling, killing all romance. But now, I feel good thinking that. We feel we are each other's base, we feel the connection between us beat the efforts to destroy it, it beat both of us and survived. We did all we could to "get rid of each other" and we didnt make it...

And Al, I live in Europe, Greece. We are taught the same BS you are taught. To abandon the idea a R is like in the Hollywood movies, IMO, is a matter of experiences. You learn it the hard way.
Maria

I can't quite work this out. Because I think we've done all the power struggle stuff....and a lot of the time I think we are on our way to vintage love... my H is certainly one of those europeans that denies the existence of romantic and he calls it infatuation and not the real world.

But I don't think I really feel much love for him a lot of the time, sometimes I think I love him. Sometimes I feel affectionate towards him. Sometimes I get the impression he loves me. Most of the time we get on very well.

I want some romance, I want some of the fantasy. What am I going to do with my expectations?

What does Vintage love actually feel like?

Right now, I think it would be sad if we weren't together - a bit for me, but really for the children. It wouldn't be the end of the world.

I guess I have emotional shut down, I haven't felt that I loved J for more than a couple of weeks in about 5 and a half years.

What's the plan?

I'm confused by your question. What's the plan for what?

My general belief is that the plan you are using has gotten you where you are. If you want something new, you are going to have to change your plan.

I'm not sure where you want to be. You sound kinda happy where you are and are willing to be moved where ever life pushes you.

My thought is that expectations get you nothing but trouble. Now, goals.... they can get you all sorts of places.

I'm married to someone who says he truly believes that there's no reason for two married couples not to be in "infatuation" type love forevermore. He doesn't understand my not being able to sustain that.

I feel glimpses of it...coincidentally, when he is consistently not love-busting (to use the MB term) and consistently need-meeting.

Maybe he's got more tolerance than I. I'm no slouch in the love-busting department myself; I've got a ways to go before I can say I'm consistently need-meeting. But yet he says he is still deeply in love with me.

So either he's not telling the truth, or he's achieved some 5th dimension of nirvana.

What are good goals to have to get to the point of vintage love? And what route do I take to achieve the goals?

I think the better question is after you change your plan, how long does it take to work?

How much patience must we have?

Of course in a long marraige the plan you were using was something that you had in place for a very long time.

So I guess after you "CHANGE" it may take quite a while to see results.

Now that's a great question. I asked the same question around 1990. I started searching for answers. Some were available in pieces. Some answers no one seemed to have. So I found the answers I wanted.

All these answers I've shared on my website and continue to share here, now, on Marriage Advocates.

The Route you've asked about is covered in Topic #5 the Road to Love and directs you to read the Map of Relationships. I suggest you read that first posting and go from there.

The Goals, you mentioned, I've written about throughout what I posted in my White Board and on my website. More specifically the goals are to learn the skills of a) SAFETY: being safe and being a source of safety to your partner, b) RELIABLE MEMBERSHIP: regulating the use of time and attention in the relationship so that both are relaxed, c) DIVERSITY: protecting and sharing each person's views, reasoning and beliefs, d) AUTONOMY: protecting each person's right to make decisions for themselves and to be self-responsible, e) PURPOSE: supporting each other to become the person they chose to become. The need to achieve these skills is brought on by what I call the Biological Dream.

I even wrote an article about what Vintage Love looks like, as my wife and I have been there for maybe 10 years now.

Do you need to learn this stuff, these skills? Nope. But I believe that if you want to get to Vintage Love, you are screwed if you miss even one of them.

Good luck with the reading and learning.

OK. Another great question, Rich57. I don't think you need any patience - to start. (By the way, I think Patience is an adult trait so you'll have to learn that anyway.)

I use an image to help people with this question. Tis no harder to fly a plane from Seattle to Portland than to runhave to do that get to be a relaxed, confident, certified pilot leaving SeaTac?

Fortunately there are free classes and free books all over the place which can help you start learning right now.

Good luck with the learning.

I'm in nursing school and we hit Maslow pretty hard. This probably isn't news to you, but I'm starting to see correlations between his needs hierarchy and the plan you're laying out. For each level, you have to be a source (but not necessarily the ONLY source except for sex I'd presume) of those needs being met. If you don't have safety/security, there's no way you can move up to love/belonging.

Puts another light on my relationship with ex#2. (And Ex#1 for that matter.) I haven't felt safe with him for at least 8 years. I don't know how he could even become a place of safety for me again, but that's what would have to happen for things to move forward with him again. Hmmm.

I liked Maslow, but do not use it - his Hierarchy. I think he developed that back in the days of what I call self-psychology. I was lucky in that when I started to dig deeply into psychology and couples (me and Sandra) it was the early 90's when Relational Theory was being introduced. (Links to Study)

The structure of the Biological Dream is not a developmental hierarchy, but rather a practical priority hierarchy. (It is fun to think of it's role in Child Development.) One does not need the next level after the last level is satisfied. You need (unconsciously) all levels at once. (The Anna Karenina Principle) True I find it of use explaining both the normal regressive behavior we all observe, and in finding useful responses to couple's troubles. It is certainly helpful in providing a practical explanation of the Falling in Love and Falling out of Love phenomena. But I find it most useful in defining, achieving and maintaining Vintage Love.

Seems normal that if someone is "attacked" at the Diversity Level, they may respond by feeling overwhelmed (Reliable Membership Level) or by feeling their survival is threatened (Lizard level).

The productive response would be to the level they find themselves at. I.e. don't respond by sharing more data (Diversity Level) to a person who is overwhelmed (Reliable Membership level). Give them space and quiet time. Don't respond to a person who seems panicked when you walk away (Reliable Membership level) by silence. Tell them when you plan to come back. etc.

If they seem to be reacting at several levels, respond at the lowest level. When in doubt deal with the Lizard first, then Connection, and then talking and sharing, hearing, understanding, Validation and PreValidation.



What I was looking for in the 1990s was a new way of looking, a new light, that would suggest what I could do to get my "Romance" to come back. I found it. The experience I get is, "Hmm, I wish I known that before." up to "Omigod!!! I wish I had know that before."

Your description of your relationship sounds like a normal Door #2 couple. No more battles, but then again not the excitement and romance either.

What always interests me is "what the heck brings you out of sleep and to Marriage Advocates?" Most people in Door #2 are so passive they do nothing. The fact that you are here suggest exciting things about you. My guess it that the powerful attraction of the Biological Dream is not dead in you and you are starting to go for it again. Wheeee!

In my case, I am here because I am vascillating among a number of thoughts:
1) a deep fear that I pulled the trigger too fast on my DV #2, and that Ex#2 is really the right person for me
2) that Ex#2 isn't the right person for me AS HE IS, as evidenced by the history and the level of pain I've been through
3) that Ex#2 might never be able to be the person I need him to be
4) that if Ex#2 is not the right person for me, there's too much patterning between #1 and #2 and unless I want to go through this pain and divorce #3, I need to figure out:
a) what needs changed in me so I make better choices and have better and healthier boundaries
b) how to tell BEFORE I end up married to them that they are in fact the person I need them to be (whether that's Ex#2 or DH#3)

I'm in this really scary middle ground right now, and feel like any step I take will be the wrong one, especially when one of my prime thoughts is that I already took a horrible one and as such am just on the edge of tumbling down the precipice.

Wheeeee.

Great thinking, AC. This is the kind of situation I've done all my digging and discovering and sharing for. Tis a horrible paralysis kind of spot. Gotta make a decision, but want it to be right. Aaaargh. So I put off doing anything hoping someone somewhere will give me the right answer.

I recall for years talking of putting on my headstone, "At least he tried to do the right thing."

I've given that up. Too passive. Too much time lost. Here's a bit from a business paper I wrote on the subject.

Sometimes something does seem to happen that makes these decisions easier. I've certainly seen it. But I don't count on it. And we are getting older - the clock is ticking.



Now remember, you are in a world where you always fall in love with the most wrong person you can find, you always fall for your current worst nightmare, and that is normal - the way the design is made. Just what is "wrong" in trying to find Vintage Love by whatever stumbling method you choose?

My comfortable and comforting belief is that any decision I make will be right: I will either have a nice day or learn something. Either way I win. (Haha! I am also used to the idea that any decision I make is wrong the minute I tell my neighbor about it.)

Perhaps you can see now why I think that an affair (a stumble) is sometimes one of the most brilliant things to do.


Go 4 it.

Al,

I am certain that those folks who actually reach Vintage Love don't want to leave it, and that it feels fantastic. But it sounds as though it's all about comfort and not very much about passion.

Is there passion in Vintage Love?