How does one fall in love?

I get asked many questions. Some I am more than amply prepared for and I fire off my answers immediately and there are others that quite simply stump me. The title of my post falls within the latter category. Honestly how do you answer that?

One could say it depends on who is asking. Is it a single or married person, a child or an adult etc. Well I was being asked by a married person. Knowing the way people's mind work, I bet some of you reading this are already thinking uhmm what's up with that? Is an affair brewing? The answers you seek would be No and for those of you who are now thinking how do you know? Come on, cut me some slack! I know. This person was asking only out of a desire to rekindle the love in their marriage.

So, how does one fall in love? In the few minutes of confusion that elapsed before I gave an answer, I hoped that this person's spouse would make use of Valentine's day which is in a few days and go out of their way to plan a suprise big enough to keep that question at bay. By the way, if you are reading this and intend to do nothing for your spouse this weekend think again because for all you know they too are asking this very question.

Anyway, my answer in the end was another question, would it be okay to do a post about it? I figured it would do me some good to think about it some more and then give an answer which would be available to more people.

I have thought about it all day and think I should first of all say how one does not fall in love again. One does not fall in love again by:

• Denying the issues that exist - this only widens the gulf
• Doing insensitive things - this show a lack of grip on one's emotions
• Slamming doors and hurling words a.k.a drama, drama, drama, - this is just aggravating because when all is said and done, not only are you still not in love, you become exhausted

Hopefully, those 3 points serve as a guide and to be frank doing their opposite would help to reignite the love flame. To fall in love again one needs to:

• Find and focus on the good parts of the other person
• Accept that both of you will have differences and agree to identify, discuss and resolve issues
• Listen to yourself and communicate properly
• Listen to the other person and strive to make them happy
• Indulge one another, give gifts for no reason, write notes, send texts (whatever works for you)
• Nurture your relationship, hang out together a lot, go to the movies again, whatever works well for you
• Love first, people respond to love, so love, love love basically act out what you will like to see
• Openly commit to making your relationship the best possible
• Vigorously pray and set goals together, vision always helps
• Erase all previous hurts thereby giving love a real chance to blossom

* If your relationship is so bad that you can not even be bothered with these steps, I suggest you seek professional help with a third party whom you both trust and respect. If you also have any additional tips on how to fall in love, feel free to leave a comment.