Is love a feeling or a choice? It’s both.

There’s a myth out there that relationship happiness is contingent on finding “the one” or finding our “soulmate.” Unfortunately, this myth can make people in relationships miserable. The belief creates doubts when our present relationship hits a trouble spot. In a disagreement, we may believe that we’ve chosen the wrong person or that better love is out there somewhere else with someone else. Because of these beliefs, many people give up on a relationship and become part of America’s $50-billion-a year divorce industry. With 2,400 divorces processed by courts in the U.S. every single day, it’s clear that plenty of people are calling it quits. But are they quitting too soon in the hope that they’ve just chosen poorly this time and true love is right around the corner?

For your relationship to be successful, it’s important for both you and your partner to recognize that love is an emotion AND a choice. Love is something we feel but that makes it subject to all the other things we feel in our day-to-day lives. Life is full of things, inside and outside of our relationship, that can cause stress, anxiety, anger and sadness. In these moments, we’re going to feel the strongest emotion, especially if it is an emotion that is designed to protect us. That means that protective emotions like anxiety, anger and sadness will always outweigh positive emotions in our brain. If you’re sustaining a relationship on merely the emotion of love, you’re going to struggle after the honeymoon phase. Love must also be a choice you have to make. It’s in the moments of stress or frustration, that you sometimes have to remind yourself that you love your partner and that you are making the choice to act with loving intention - in spite of what you might be feeling in the moment.

The presence of anger or sadness over time can easily cloud our mind with negative feelings about our partner. When those negative feelings and thoughts are repeated, they become stronger in the brain. The repeated firing of negative emotional circuitry in the brain makes those negative pathways easier for the brain to follow. In a way, we end up training our brain to respond negatively to our partner’s actions. In the end, we end up basing our emotion of love on the other person’s actions or words, which are often a result of their current circumstance or even a result of them subconsciously reflecting what they feel from us.

So how do you stop the spiral and get back to being in love? It takes practice. In the quiet moments, you can look at your partner and let yourself feel love for them. Begin to train your mind to create positive emotion when there is no other emotion present. In the same way that your brain will automatically train itself to find the protective emotions of sadness, anger and anxiety, you can begin to establish a default brain state that is based in love, happiness and peace. It isn’t a one-time training session. It’s a daily commitment. It’s a choice you’re making to say, “I choose to love you.” Just like going to the gym or studying material for an exam, the more you commit to the daily learning, the better the end result will be for you.