Nothing is wrong with falling in love. It is one of life’s greatest and most transcendent experiences — in which you feel utterly lifted out of yourself and as close to union with another person as many of us ever feel. The potential difficulty is not with the experience of falling in love; it’s with what you may do with it.

Falling in love is a set of usually very powerful feelings. It is the nature of all feelings to come and go — even feelings, like infatuation and falling in love, that you might like to hang on to forever. Feelings are like clouds. They appear, grow, decline, dissolve — into other feelings. Neither feelings nor clouds hold steady. Left to themselves, feelings always change.

No problem if you know that feelings are transitory. However, if you make decisions — especially big ones, like getting married — on the basis of feelings alone — not good. Especially if you hang on to those “loving you so much” feelings as your expectation of how it is supposed to be with you and your partner — especially not good.

In my counseling practice, I have more than once heard one partner say to the other, “I still love you, but I am no longer in love with you” — and then proceed to make “not in love with you” the reason to leave the marriage. I have even heard that said (and done) when the couple had children.

Falling in love is a free gift, meaning that you don’t have to pay for it. It may, in fact, be Nature’s way of getting the sexes together and, thus, continuing the race.

While falling in love is a free gift, standing in love is not. It has to be earned — not unpleasantly necessarily, but earned nevertheless. Once the falling in love feelings have past, you keep love alive through action — through behaving lovingly to your partner.

The transition from falling in love to standing in love involves moving from a primary reliance on feelings to a primary reliance on action. Now you have to do love, not just feel it. We explore that transition in the next post.

Question: Do you remember when you had to behave lovingly in order to keep the feelings alive? Tell us about it.

I’m starting an online learning community about love. Would you like to join? All it takes is an interest in how love works between partners, a desire to behave more lovingly yourself and a willingness to add your voice.

“Adding your voice” means any or all of the following:

• Adding your comments to the posts here
• Emailing me with questions and subjects on which you would like me to blog
• Participating in the podcast that I share weekly with my wife — i.e., contribute to the conversation as a call-in or leave your messages in the chatroom
• And/or adding your voice to the Twitter and or/Facebook conversations.

Paying attention to love and striving to do better at loving would seem to be a natural for anyone who is married or in a serious relationship and wants the relationship to succeed. It is really hard for a relationship without love to succeed.

I’m convinced that people participating in a learning community can learn better and contribute to a good learning experience for others better than simply listening to the so-called expert without participating. Each of us has something useful to contribute — thoughts, ideas, convictions, questions, even some wisdom — because we have all loved someone and all had our own unique experience doing so.

We need to hear from you — whether or not you are responding to this post soon after it was written or happened on it months later. Many of my posts will be meant for doing, not just reading. Like the two previous to this post on the feelings that we associate with loving someone — try the exercise, then share your experience. We will all benefit — including you — when you do.

Love is a rich emotion. The more you contemplate love — and feel love — the richer it becomes. This post continues the list of love’s feeling states that began in the previous post. As you read, see if you can recall a moment when you had the feeling that is described. See if you can feel it again now.

• The laugh. What you and your partner share when you are amused together, by something that was just said or perhaps by a sudden admission one of you made that made an argument comical. Shared laughter is an expression of a particular kind of common experience: We are together in amusement. Laughter lifts the relationship.
• Gratitude. Your partner has gone an extra distance for your benefit or made a brave admission that you would find hard to make. Your heart goes out to your partner in gratitude for the depth of that person’s caring or vulnerability. The feeling is one of being deeply touched — moved in your heart.
• Just doing my part. The behavior that goes with this feeling is easy to describe; the feeling itself is not. “Just doing my part” occurs when you are helping out, doing your chores and in other ways lightening your partner’s load. You could be doing all that without actually thinking of your partner at the time, but if you are, then the accompanying feelings are likely to be “ordinary,” as in simple, affectionate, appreciative, low-key.
• Yes with trepidation. You are likely to have these feelings when something your partner has done in the past leads you to be wary of that person. Time has passed. Your partner has made amends and asked for your forgiveness. You have given it. Now you both want to put the past behind you and embrace the present and the future. And yet… Doubt lingers and especially fear. The feeling is hope, love and determination mixed with fear. It’s a complicated feeling.

Of course, there are more feeling states of love than these that occur to me and that I describe in the previous post and in this one. Try this: In the comment space at the end of this post, add to the list with other feeling states that you associate with love and your own tag for each.

Catch the Every Day Love Podcast No. 9 on The Feelings of Love, November 3, 7 PM

Imagine that you want to make a large and magnificent painting that you are going to call “The Feelings of Love.” You study the pallet of potential colors, because you want the colors of your painting to represent faithfully as many feelings as possible that could be associated with loving your partner.

I’m a word person, not a painter. So instead of colors I’m going to try the assignment with words. Here are some tags (some word colors) I have come up with for different feeling states that I associate with loving your partner. A number of them could apply to loving anyone who is really special to you.

• The glimpse. The feeling of being so close to your beloved that you and that person are nearly one being. This feeling gives a glimpse of transcendence, in the sense that you are lifted out of yourself when you have it.
• The rush. The rush that sweeps you off your feet when you feel absolutely captivated by the person you love. The rush is often very sexually passionate. You want to get to bed with your partner and stay there making love until you have melted into each other.
• The touch. Touches that communicate sweetness, fondness, sympathy, encouragement. A touch on the cheek. A touch on the shoulder. Holding your partner’s face in your hands. Sleeping touching each other.
• The ache. An ache in your heart. It can be so big that it leaves you unsteady on your feet. An ache that you feel when a child that you love is very sick and suffering. A memory ache for someone who is gone from your life that you suddenly remember as if that person were really here and, at the same time, you know that s/he is gone forever.

My list of feeling states that have occurred to me today continues in the next post.

Try this: In the comment space at the end of this post, add to the list with other feeling states that you associate with love and your own tag for each.

Catch the Every Day Love Podcast No. 9 on The Feelings of Love, November 3, 7 PM

“Love“ is such a familiar word, but what does it actually mean? The problem with defining “love” is that the word is used so commonly and for so many different things and conditions that it is very easy to get lost when you want to find the core meaning of “love.”

“Love” is what people declare about their feelings for God, the marinara sauce in a favorite Italian restaurant, their children, the pretty dress seen at the mall and even cold beer on a hot summer day. Is all this really “love”?

In pursuit of  love’s meaning, we need to make a distinction between loving feelings and loving behavior. They mean something different, although neither does well without the other. For now, let’s stick to feelings.

In common usage, love turns out to be lots of feelings, all masquerading as “love” Here are a few examples:

• Dependence: “I love you, baby. I can’t love without you.”
• Sexual passion: “Oh I love you so much!” said during “love“ making.
• Appreciation: “I just love your flower garden.”
• Infatuation: “I’ve met the most wonderful man. I just love him.”
• Receptivity: “Thanks for the invitation. I’d love to go.”

The more feelings and sentiments we call “love,” the less the word means. “Love” as the common name for everything from desire to gratitude is just that — common. “I love touching you.” “I love your apartment.” “I’d love to talk more, but I’ve got to go.” So what?

Most likely this vague, covers-everything, ordinary something is not the love you have in mind when you describe loving your partner, your kids, or a good friend. Okay, tell me about it: What are the real feelings of love that you have when you think about the people that you really care about?

Being a couples therapist for almost 25 years has taught me a lot about what really matters for the success of marriage and committed relationships. One of the biggest success builders is — valuing love, knowing how to behave lovingly, and doing it regularly.

On the other hand, people who stress getting the love they feel they deserve and pay minimal attention to giving love themselves take energy from the relationship, rather than give it. It is in the nature of people to flourish when they are loved and to languish when they do not get the love they need.

As a couples therapist, writer about marriage and relationships and family person with a wife and children, my commitment is to promote the way of love to those who care about relationships and want to make their partner relationship better.

I also want to share an important approach to commitment that I have been working on — learning how to love with joy and abundance, rather than with  duty and obligation.