Maybe it was love at first sight, like something out of a fairy tale.
The choirs of angels sang and the fireworks went off, and you lost your heart to another.
Maybe you had been friends for years and years, and never noticed your feelings were changing toward the more romantic until it was too late and the both of you braved that fateful and oh, so awkward Conversation.
How do you know if this is it? Is this your happily ever after? The person you are destined to spend the rest of your life with? That would be nice, wouldn't it.
Of course, there are always the nagging what-ifs, the dangers of jealousy, cheating, curiosity, boredom, changing feelings or just falling out of love over time.
That initial surge of romantic love we feel at the onset of a relationship is mostly biochemical.
This is the body's way of getting us to mate and proliferate the species, and it usually goes away in 1-3 years.
Many relationships don't even last that long, or end in a spectacular explosion of screaming and restraining orders.
If however you have the good fortune (not to mention the communication and initial good taste) to make it through the danger zone, what comes next? Suddenly you wake up and find the person who serenaded you on your apartment balcony (was that the downstairs neighbor's beagle providing backup?) or who surprised you at work by sneaking in as the package delivery lady with a box full of pastries is suddenly just 'that person you sleep next to at night' or 'the other parent of your children'.
That fire is gone, and all of our society and our media are constantly telling us we need to get it back at any cost.
Wait a minute, hold the phone.
Yes, relationships continue after this period, but they're different.
There is more a sense of attachment and comfort with your SO than a passionate, burning flame of desire.
This is another product of millennia of evolution to keep the species going.
Once there are children, they have to be taken care of, right? They need to be raised in a loving home and instilled with proper morals and values and all that jazz.
This is the phase where your hormones slowly back out of the mix and logic and higher brain function slowly comes back into play and if you've made it into that stage, great for you! Congratulations, you're doing okay today.
Keep it up as long as it makes both of you happier than not.
The thing is, people change.
Sometimes you really do just fall out of love, for one reason or another, and sometimes no amount of 'rekindling the fire' stunts, couples therapy, or good old straightforward communication will put things back together again.
(Though if you've spawned, there is certainly incentive to hold things together, at least until college.
) The great thing is, once you separate your finances and arrange visitation rights with the kids (yes, I know I'm making light of a very difficult period in one's life but there are plenty of articles about that already), you can go back out and maybe you'll find someone else who fits the bill for the new, older and wiser and more liberated you.
It will all happen again, you'll get that rush of romantic love, and then it will go away.
Where will you be then?