Falling in love can be a beautiful thing, but when rejection or a breakup occurs unexpectedly, it can be very ugly and hurtful.

People are more interested in the romantic, adventurous, exciting and more superficial aspect of love than in its depth.

Because we feel lonely and sometimes desperate to be in a relationship, we are too quick to allow people into our hearts who don’t always deserve a place in it.

Why is it that one day we can’t imagine living without a person, and the next, we’re questioning if we were ever in love with him or her in the first place?

Love is a complex and volatile sentiment, but true love doesn’t fade. Yes, it might become weaker, fluctuate, you might even want to take a break from it for years at a time, but if it is indeed true love, it will always be there.

I like to think of love as a group of layers.  The outer layers are the more fun, romantic, adventurous, exciting and more superficial ones.  The inner layers are the more overwhelming and profound layers – the ones that require actual work, dedication, and commitment from the people in «love».

Most people prefer and choose to linger in the outer layers.  When making the natural transition into the inner layers of love, some want to run away because they realize they are not truly in love, and they don’t want to engage in extra work.

Some people make the transition into the inner layers voluntarily, and somewhere along the way they realize they are not in love anymore, but they either have children, a business together, personal interests, mutual friends, or they are just comfortable and scared of making a dramatic move in their life and, because of these and other reasons, decide to stay in the relationship even if they are not in love or happy anymore.

Have I ever been truly in love?

Based on the soul-searching, psychotherapy, research, and reading I’ve done in the last two years, I can say yes, I have been in love only once in my life when I was very young.  This probably explains why it has been «easy» for me to fall out of love in the last 15 years when I unconsciously favored the outer layers of love and remained in love limbo.

I’ve done a pretty decent job so far solving most of the pieces of what happened to my view of relationships as I got older and moved abroad.  I need to continue figuring out and understanding the rest of the puzzle pieces.

How do we know if we are falling out of love?

Some clear signs are lack of enthusiasm about your partner, or when you find yourself having second thoughts, and questioning many aspects of the relationship.  Maybe you’re falling out of love just because you shouldn’t have been in love in the first place.

Emotionally smart individuals are able to coax emotions in order to place themselves in a position of control when trying to fall out of love.

As I was reading a few things online, I came across some interesting strategies that can help people fall out of love.

Rezzan Hussey, blogger and writer, claims that falling out of love is a skill that can be mastered by anyone, and it only requires a little dedication and patience. She suggests 10 easy and basic steps which will help you to digest rejection and be prepared to fall in love again.

What I gather from her theory, and taking into consideration some of the characteristics of my personal experiences with love and relationships, I can identify three very helpful tips when trying to get over a love mishap, moving on, and give love, true love, another chance:

  • It is what it is.  Stop over-analyzing and over-thinking the situation.
  • Get a life!  Keep your mind busy with work or a hobby.
  • Stop idealizing the past!  Bear in mind some of the bad traits of the person you were «in love» with.

It takes a brave person to fall truly in love but, in my opinion, it takes a braver person to decide to fall out of love when his or her relationship is no longer right, healthy, or fitting.