Yesterday Jerry was on the phone with a colleague when the man told him that he'd recently gotten divorced, after 29 years of marriage.
"He said they fell out of love," Jerry reported over lunch.
"Oh, for God's sake!" I snapped. "What kind of reason is that?" Major irritation attack.
Maybe I'm defensive because I haven't managed to stay "in love," by my definition, for 36+ years. We were in love, and it was really, really fun. Intoxicating, exciting, consuming, all that. After while, it went away, and we got on with being married.
We still find each other adorable. We have fun. We love each other. We give each other Valentine's Day cards. But to characterize what we have as "in love," feels frivolous. Very Beginner. Getting divorced, on the other hand, is serious.
But when I looked for validation online: forget it. "Falling out of love," is now a primary reason given for divorce, ranking above financial worries and physical abuse, according to an article in Psychology Today, "Are You Falling Out of Love? A Quiz on 10 Warning Signs," (here if you care to take the quiz). In it, author Susan Heitler writes,
"Falling out of love involves a gradual loosening of pair-bonding energies focused on your partner, and the reinvestment of these energies elsewhere." According to Dr. Heitler, falling out of love can involve not seeing your partner as a truly good person, not having fun with your partner, violating trust. These are the serious problems that she says contribute to "falling out of love."
I took the "self-quiz," and found out that apparently I am still in love, because I had a very low score (high is bad). I had Jerry take the quiz, and the same thing happened.
Is it just a matter of definition? Maybe. But the whole in-love, falling-out-of-love, soulmate thing feels so shaky to me, so temporary, that I wish Susan Heitler and Jerry's colleague would just forget about it. Call it something else, something with the gravitas it deserves.
Even, "a gradual loosening of pair-bonding energies focused on your partner, and reinvestments of these energies elsewhere," feels more real.
I'd love some feedback on this.
 |
| We do give each other Valentine's Day cards. |
2 comments:
I agree with you, it should be called something else. Yes, we "fall in love," nobody "falls out of love." People just
stop loving each other and it's a gradual process. I liked that quiz. What did they say?, "couples who play together stay together"?
Side bar: Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch has a Barbara Pym shout-out.
Ann, thanks for the feedback. Definitely couples who play together, stay together. (For us that's travel, walking, and being irreverent.)
Want to read Tartt's book but is it only in hardbound now? Allergies make it hard for me to get library books without sneezing!
Post a Comment