Keeping Love Alive: Why Is It So Hard?
In each relationship, we practice love skills, hoping to get better at loving and accepting love from others. If we all stayed with the first person we ever fell in love with, we'd likely miss out on the person we truly work well with — a potential long-term partner.
At some point, many of us want a safe connection with a person we love. We're ready to settle into the comfort of a coupled life. So why is love so hard to keep alive?
Why is love so hard?
Why does love hurt so much? The love between romantic partners is complex, and many reasons contribute to the difficulty of keeping the bond strong. To know how to keep your love alive, it can be helpful to understand why love is so hard in the first place.
It may be easier to quit than to work on it
It’s not uncommon for people to enjoy the head-spinning experience of falling in love but shy away from doing the actual work of a relationship. This requires focusing on another individual's health, success, and happiness besides your own. As with learning a new activity, giving up can be easier than struggling through the new, hard, or frustrating parts, but if you never move past the first stages to the more established stage of your relationship, you never learn to improve and sustain your relationship skills.
Improving and/or maintaining a relationship requires effort and motivation. It takes energy to pay attention to your partner. Also, relationships can be scary since they're often uncertain; many people may feel compelled to end a relationship before they get hurt.
You might be unsure of what love really means
Love is hard to define. And it seems to mean something a little different to each person. Plus, we all have different love languages. The difficulty in pinpointing what love really is and what to expect from a love relationship may make you uncertain as to whether the person you are with is who you really want to spend your life with. Or you may have difficulty knowing how to tell if another person is acting in a loving way toward you. This is especially true if you didn't get all the love and care you needed as a child.
People can be selfish
Self-preservation is a natural tendency. In fact, it's a biological need. That means you are inevitably selfish in some ways, and so is your mate. Love isn’t easy, and the only way to keep love alive is to give love, and learn to compromise. If you can find pleasure in giving love to your partner rather than constantly seeking love, then your relationship may stand a good chance of thriving.
The stages of a relationship
Love may be hard, but you can make it work. It is an active process; it doesn't happen without effort in the long term. It's helpful to understand the predictable stages relationships progress through.
First is the honeymoon or infatuation stage. This stage is defined by a surge of romantic and (sometimes) sexual feelings. You crave to be with your partner, lust may dominate the dynamic, and you feel “high” from New Relationship Energy (NRE). This stage can last anywhere from a few weeks to a year. Generally, decisions about a future with your mate should be delayed since neither of you will likely be thinking rationally at this stage.
As infatuation decreases, the next stage brings a more realistic assessment of compatibility. Your partner may no longer be on a pedestal, and you can begin to evaluate them from a more realistic perspective. If they are a good match, there should still be plenty of passion and sexual attraction in this stage, but you can at least think clearly as you evaluate your partner’s other characteristics.
If you stay together once the chemistry simmers down, you and your partner might begin to experience power struggles. This is a test of your communication and conflict-resolution skills. As you step back and take a breath, you redefine your roles within the relationship. This can be a stormy stage. Often, couples call it quits during this stage as it becomes clear they are not compatible.
The power struggle stage can last from a few months to a few years.
When couples survive the power and identity struggles, they enter into the long-term love stage. There is a cyclical nature to the long-term relationship. Healthy love in the long term undulates. It waxes and wanes. Couples experience phases of being in love but also experience lulls.
Some days, they may feel like roommates. On other days, they may irritate one another. There may be periods of mediocre sex and even dry spells. Successful couples embrace the highs and lows of this phase to avoid common pitfalls. They savor good times and endure bad times.
Long-term love may be difficult because it means you will need to tolerate periods of not feeling close. There may even be an absence of loving feelings and intimacy for a while. Commitment replaces the feeling of love, and you may be challenged to take the initiative to get back on track.
How do I keep love alive?
Now that we’ve established that love travels through predictable stages, let's look at how you can keep it alive.
- Be active, not passive. Over time, you may become used to your partner and feel safer. Safety in a relationship is good. But it could also lead you to lose gratitude for your relationship and stop doing things to actively be loving. Remember that love is not simply a feeling, but an active process.
- Accept that not everything is in your control. Your relationship will not be a fairy tale. It's real life, and real life comes with pain and struggles. If you accept them at the onset, then you can deal with them in a way that benefits both you and your partner.
- Focus your efforts on what's already good about your partner. Help them succeed where their strengths are. Appreciate those things. You cannot change your partner, so don't focus on the things you wish you could fix, and don't argue about them.
- Keep having sex. Regular sex, if sexual attraction is a part of your relationship, is one of the best signs of a good long-term relationship.
- Pay attention to your health. Do what you can to feel and look good.
- Fight fair. Aim for resolution, not “winning” an argument.
- Be vulnerable and a good listener. Tell your dreams and fears and listen when your partner tells you theirs.
- Do your research if you hit a rough spot. Would counseling or coaching help? What books or blogs can you follow that will help push you through to brighter days?
- Tell your partner what you need. Don't indulge in the fantasy that they somehow know what you want. Get used to simply telling them.
- Manage your stress. You can't be mindful of your own needs or your mate’s if you're mindlessly or robotically going through the motions due to stress.
Online therapy for couples
Some couples need help from a therapist in order to navigate the difficult times in their relationship. But making time for an in-person session can be challenging, especially when both partners work full-time. This is where remote counseling from platforms like BetterHelp comes in. Online therapy is not only more convenient. It also offers lower pricing than in-person therapy because online therapists don’t have to pay for costs like renting an office.
Online therapy is a new and exciting way for couples to receive counseling. A qualitative study found that clients considered the experience to be overwhelmingly positive, commenting on how immersed they felt in the therapeutic process. Some couples reported that feeling more “distant” from the therapist also made them feel more in control and comfortable. Ultimately, couples felt that the online process enhanced the therapeutic alliance, which is the single greatest predictor of therapy success.
Takeaway
Online therapy can be an exciting option for couples wanting to improve their relationships, especially as it can be difficult to find time in two busy schedules for in-person therapy. BetterHelp’s licensed therapists have helped numerous individuals and couples with relationship issues. Answer a few quick questions to get started.
Why is it so hard to maintain love and mental health at the same time?
It can be difficult for romantic partners to maintain love over the long term due to life stressors, poor communication habits, incompatibility in terms of core values, or shifts in life goals or priorities over time. Many people may also find it difficult due to unrealistic cultural expectations related to what a healthy romantic relationship should feel like or look like.
In terms of mental health, it can sometimes be hard to find enough time to devote to both self-care and a romantic relationship. Or, some romantic relationships can be directly harmful to mental health and the rest of overall well-being.
Why is my love life so complicated?
Dating and romantic relationships can be complicated. Society, culture, and families often instill narrow or rigid expectations for them, which can put pressure on those involved. In addition, virtually everyone has some type of challenging emotional history they bring to the table. Navigating individual differences, past experiences, and expectations and balancing them with broader cultural messaging about relationships can make forming a romantic or sexual connection with someone quite complicated.
Why do I struggle so much with love?
Most people will struggle with love to some degree at some point, because loving another person can be difficult. The experiences, traumas, attachment styles, and expectations that individuals bring to a relationship can complicate the way they interact with each other. As such, many find it difficult to build healthy and loving relationships—especially those who haven’t yet been able to engage in deep work to address their own challenges and wounds. If you’re looking to examine the root causes of your relationship struggles, working with a therapist may be helpful.
Which type of love is harder to maintain?
No matter which type of love you may share with someone, various aspects of life can make it hard to maintain. Life stressors and changing priorities could impact romantic relationships, family relationships, and friendships in various ways, so there may not be one type of love that’s harder to maintain than another.
How rare is true love?
The answer to this question depends on how a person defines “true love.” Some people in the world expect it to involve some degree of perfection and “happily ever after” results, which can be rare. Others believe that it involves finding someone with whom you align on core values and long-term goals (like relationship style, marriage, children, location, healthy habits for minds and bodies, etc.) and then putting in the work to build a strong connection. While you may have to be lucky on some level to find a compatible potential partner, the other components of true love may not be as rare as people think.
What is real love like?
While some believe real love is a feeling, others believe that it's a commitment to loving actions. In general, many people agree that showing real love involves a commitment to personal growth and working on the relationship together, cultivating strong communication, and having the patience to try again when stuff goes wrong in their connection or their lives together.
Why do I struggle to maintain a relationship?
If you find that you struggle to maintain relationships even though you want to, you might look back at what your parents or the culture taught you about relationships over the course of your upbringing. For example, some people learned that bonds with others must be perfect to be worth investing in, which is not usually the truth.
You might also look at your personal history with relationships. Past abuse or other trauma could affect how you engage with others today, causing you to feel fear and walk away at the first sign of potential abandonment—like when healthy conflict arises, for example. While you may not be able to forget your difficult past experiences, a therapist may be able to work with you to better manage their effects on your life today.
Why do I fall in love so often and love so hard?
The tendency to love people intensely and often isn’t necessarily a problem unless it’s causing issues in your life. If you fall in love often and experience negative outcomes as a result, it could be that you tend to move too fast and could benefit from setting boundaries the moment you feel yourself wanting to repeat old patterns. You may also have low self-esteem or an insecure attachment style, which could lead you to rush into relationships or commitments that end up being the worst for your well-being. Working with a therapist is one way to address these.
Why do I struggle to stay in love and continue to feel love?
There are many reasons a human being may have trouble staying engaged in loving relationships that are romantic in nature. Some examples include being aromantic, having an insecure attachment style, or having unrealistic expectations for relationships. If you can find love but encounter problems with how you feel or act as a relationship progresses, it might be a good idea to talk to a therapist.
Why is it so hard to get over romantic love?
Many people have a hard time getting over a romantic relationship that has ended, especially if they believed it was with the right person and supposed to work out. If you had been dating the person for a while, your daily lives were likely significantly intertwined, making you feel their absence strongly in the weeks and months following the breakup. It's also common to have a deep sense of “what if” in your body, which can lead you to spend a lot of time ruminating on what the relationship could’ve been and why it ended. That said, it is possible to heal from a breakup, and many people are able to do so by getting emotional support from friends and/or a therapist.
- Previous Article
- Next Article