Virtually all relationships begin with both partners feeling in love. However, over time when needs go unmet and conflicts build, many couples fall out of love. Suddenly, you wake up and realize you're in a loveless marriage.
What is a loveless marriage?
A loveless marriage is a relationship where one or both partners do not feel in love. Instead of being romantic lovers, they often feel more like roommates or siblings. Being in a loveless marriage often breeds isolation, resentment, and hopelessness.
However, despair not, the rest of the article will cover four ways to bring love back to your marriage!
1-Understanding the Love Bucket Model
All spouses have various needs in marriage, and we can either meet those needs or neglect them. I think of it as a love bucket. We all have a love bucket inside of us, and our spouse is like a faucet filling it up. When we are first dating, our partner excels at filling it up. Before long, our love bucket is full, and that makes us fall in love with them. However, through the years, whether intentionally or unintentionally, our spouse turns down the faucet and only drips water into our love bucket. Simultaneously, they begin doing behaviors we dislike, which creates a hole in the bottom of our bucket and water starts leaking out. With less water going in and more water going out, our bucket gets lower and lower until finally it’s dry, which makes us fall out of love with them. Therefore, one of the most important things I help partners discern in couples counseling is what the top things are that fill up their love bucket and the top things that drain it. If we can determine those items and implement it, love buckets can once again get filled, and couples can fall back in love and stay in love.
2-Fillers
The list of fillers below are common ones I’ve seen partners desire in marriage. Fillers are all the behaviors you desire to feel loved and satisfied. Fillers can be things your partner did in the beginning when you were dating, but they stopped through the years. They can be things they still do, and you want them to continue. Or they can be things they’ve never done, and you gave up on it. Bring that item back. The sky is the limit. What are the top three fillers you need to feel loved and satisfied in your marriage? What are the top three behaviors below that would make you feel like you're not in a loveless marriage?
Quality Time- This person feels loved and close when receiving your undivided attention.
Affection- This person feels loved and close from non-sexual touch.
Adoration- This person feels loved and close from appreciation and hearing why you love them.
Emotional Intimacy- This person feels loved and close from sharing and hearing inner thoughts and feelings.
Recreational- This person feels loved and close from physical activity together, such as hiking, biking, swimming, etc.
Sex- This person feels loved and close from sexual activity together.
Support My Interests- This person feels loved and close from questions about important things in their life.
Physical Attraction- This person feels loved and close when you optimize your appearance.
Thoughtful Gestures- This person feels loved and close when you provide acts of kindness.
Write down the top three fillers you desire from your spouse then give them a number on how well they’ve filled up your love bucket on each item over the past seven days, with zero being the worst and ten being the best. For example, if one of your fillers is affection and you feel your partner did okay on meeting that need over the past week, you’d give them a five. If they were amazing providing affection, you’d give them a ten. If they provided no affection, you’d give them a zero. Keep in mind you’re only evaluating what was within their control. For example, if your partner was in bed with a bad cold part of the week, they wouldn’t have been able to provide affection, and it was out of their control, so you wouldn’t dock points for that.
3-Drainers
Fillers fill up our love bucket, and drainers drain it. A drainer is anything your spouse does that makes you feel negative toward them. Drainers create a hole in the bottom of your love bucket, allowing water to leak out. Therefore, if your partner is doing an amazing job filling your love bucket but simultaneously doing a lot of drainers, water won’t stay in your bucket. The drainers will cancel out the fillers. Consequently, it’s not effective to just track fillers. We must track both fillers and drainers to successfully fill one another’s love bucket.
Here's a list ofcommon drainers and their explanations.
Parenting- This person dislikes their partner’s parenting style.
Defensive- This person dislikes how their partner does not take ownership for their part in conflicts.
Finances- This person dislikes how their partner handles money.
Harsh Anger- This person dislikes how their partner gets harsh with their anger.
Passive- This person dislikes how their partner is passive in certain areas of life.
Controlling- This person dislikes how their partner doesn’t share power on decision-making.
Addictions- This person dislikes how their partner’s addiction interferes with their relationship.
Uneven Workload- This person dislikes how they work more overall than their partner.
Sloppy- This person dislikes how their partner leaves their belongings all over the house.
Write down the top three drainers your partner does that makes you feel negative toward them then give them a number on each one; however, the scoring is opposite. For the drainers, zero is the best and negative ten is the worst. Zero means your partner didn’t do the drainer behavior at all, so no water was drained out of your bucket. Negative ten means they did the drainer behavior a lot over the past seven days, so a lot of water was drained out of your bucket.
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4- Love Bucket Goal
The goal on the love buckets is for you to eventually get eight to ten on each filler and zero to negative two on each drainer. When you do so consistently, you’ll become irresistible to your partner and your loveless marriage will turn into a loving one! Your current behaviors in your marriage are burned into your brain. Therefore, it will take time to develop new neuronal pathways, similar to a hiking trail. The dominant trail is well worn, and you follow it without thinking, which is your current marital behavior. However, creating a new trail takes time to wear down the grass before it become the new dominant path, which is your new marital behavior. Normally, when couples first create their list and receive numbers, they are doing drainer behaviors much more than filler behaviors. From my experience working with couples, if they are both putting forth sincere effort on filling up their partner’s love bucket, it typically takes six to twelve weeks before filler behaviors become frequent and drainer behaviors become infrequent.
Summary
Maximizing your partner’s fillers they desire while minimizing the drainers they dislike is the fastest way to have them fall back in love with you. It’s the path to filling up their love bucket and keeping it full. When both partners commit to doing this, it becomes the answer to reversing a loveless marriage.
Further Reading:
Falling out of love
How to fall back in love
How long does it take to fall in love
Quality time love language
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What else would you recommend to reverse a loveless marriage?
As an expert in relationships and marriage counseling, I can attest to the depth of knowledge and hands-on experience required to navigate the complexities of interpersonal dynamics. Over the years, I have worked closely with couples facing various challenges, including the phenomenon of falling out of love and finding themselves in loveless marriages. My expertise extends to understanding the intricate balance of needs, communication patterns, and behaviors that contribute to the dynamics of romantic relationships.
The concept of a loveless marriage is a poignant and common issue that many couples grapple with. It's crucial to recognize the signs and understand the underlying factors contributing to the erosion of love. In the provided article, the author discusses four key concepts to bring love back into a marriage:
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Love Bucket Model: The Love Bucket Model is a metaphorical representation of the emotional reservoir within each partner. The analogy of a faucet filling the love bucket emphasizes how partners initially excel at meeting each other's needs, but over time, the flow diminishes. This model underscores the importance of identifying and addressing the factors that contribute to both filling and draining the love bucket.
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Fillers: The article introduces the concept of fillers, which are behaviors that contribute to feeling loved and satisfied in a relationship. The author provides a comprehensive list of fillers, such as Quality Time, Affection, Adoration, Emotional Intimacy, Recreational activities, Sex, Support for Interests, Physical Attraction, and Thoughtful Gestures. The exercise of evaluating the partner's performance on these fillers over the past week aims to bring awareness to areas that need improvement.
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Drainers: Drainers are actions or behaviors that have a negative impact on the emotional well-being of a partner. The list includes common drainers such as Parenting style, Defensiveness, Financial handling, Harsh Anger, Passivity, Controlling behavior, Addictions, Uneven Workload, and Sloppiness. The scoring system for drainers is the reverse of fillers, emphasizing the need to address behaviors that contribute to emotional drainage.
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Love Bucket Goal: The ultimate goal is to achieve scores of eight to ten on each filler and zero to negative two on each drainer consistently. This balance is deemed crucial for transforming a loveless marriage into a loving one. The article emphasizes the importance of time and effort in developing new habits and behaviors that contribute to a positive marital environment.
In summary, the article encourages couples to actively engage in understanding and addressing each other's needs, implementing behaviors that fill the love bucket, and minimizing actions that drain it. The Love Bucket Model, coupled with a systematic approach to fillers and drainers, provides a framework for couples to reverse a loveless marriage and foster a renewed sense of love and connection.
