Must we stay married when there is no more love?
If a spouse has no more love, should marriage continue?
What should we do when our spouse says that there is no more love?
Of what kind of love are we speaking? Is it a love that is simply sentimental and physical? Or a love more profound and human.
We possess those two kinds of love; it is not always easy to distinguish between them. Romantic love is advertised everywhere; it excites the youth. Such love is easily sensual. Sentimental love should not be despised, but there should be a hierarchy in our loves.
Original sin has thrown our faculties and love out of balance. Love can degenerate into selfishness.
Many marriages break up because love is only sentimental, a fashionable love. It is a 50-50 love, a love that says "I love you if you love me."
Love in a Christian marriage resembles Jesus' love. It is a durable love despite the squalls of life. Unless we commit ourselves in such love, our marriage may capsize in seasonal storms and life could become unbearable.
Such love is the result of a decision. In marriage, it becomes an alliance, a commitment.
In a loving Christian marriage, there is place for the Lord. He feels welcomed. Married love is then cemented by Christ. Christian love can always stand firm.
We read in the Code of Canon Law: "The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of their whole life, and which of its own very nature is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children, has, between the baptized, been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament" (Canon 1055). Christ is the Rock upon which love is built (Mt 7: 24).
Can this love resembling Christ's love disappear? It should not. Christ's love embraces enemies, it transcends the harshness of life, it remains faithful until death.
Christian marriage is not a trial marriage. Total love, the complete gift of oneself, can never be a temporary test. This would be nonsense.
A lady told me about her rediscovered love for her husband. For many years, she did not love him and allowed herself to be seduced by the charms of life. Then, as she came closer to the Lord, she amended herself and fell in love again with her husband.
Your Christian love for your husband must never cease. Your "simply human" love can return.