Children can love. But what children do is take warm, pleasant, affectionate feelings and do actions that align with those feelings. When a child feels good toward you, they act good toward you. That feels like love.
Most adults do it the same way. Early in a relationship, you have all kinds of warm feelings for your partner, so you just line your actions up with your feelings. You don't have to put a lot of effort in. You're being loving, and it's easy.
But as the relationship goes on — or anytime your partner isn't doing what you want — you have to deal with a harder question:
How can I love in the absence of that pleasant feeling?
That's the part children are way less capable of doing than adults. Acting loving when you're not feeling love is a developed capacity. It doesn't come automatically.
When Biology Stops Doing the Work
When we're falling in love, our biology is doing so much work for us. It's pushing us toward kindness and caring and being concerned about our partner. But those feelings fade after a while. The chemistry of new love peaks somewhere in the first two to three years, and then it goes away. Permanently.
I got married right at the two-year point of my relationship. That's right when things started to fall apart. Right after we got married, we faced these intense challenges of not knowing how to love each other as adults. We had known how to respond to the amazing feelings we'd had, but those feelings went away pretty quickly after we got married.
Then we were stuck in this swamp: I want to love you. I want to create a good relationship. It just seems impossible.
The Shift That Has to Happen
At some point, when the hormones wear off and you can't rely on biology, you have to shift from your actions being driven by feelings to your actions being value-driven. This catches most people by surprise. Even if you've had multi-year relationships before, if this is the first time you've really committed — married, moved in together, decided "you're my person" — it's going to play out differently than it ever has before.
Ironically, it's the security of the commitment that makes the biological help fall off. Your body stops working as hard to keep you together because you've already decided to stay.
Why You Have to Be Okay First
As a child, I didn't have the kind of secure base from which you can love in an adult way. As an adult, if I want to really love my wife, I have to create a secure base to start from. I have to feel like I'm going to be okay.
In the absence of that feeling, there's very little chance of me reaching out to her with kindness and generosity. When I feel like I'm not going to be okay, I'm living with an idea of scarcity. There's not enough love to go around. There's not enough safety. So I'm not going to reach out generously and offer love — it feels like a scarce resource.
If I'm fighting a bear, I'm not worried about how the bear is feeling. If I'm fighting with my wife, I'm also not worried about how she's feeling. I'm just thinking about protecting myself.
This is why so much of adult love is about you, not about your partner. You have to be okay enough to be generous. You have to feel safe enough to take care of someone else.
The Three Pillars of Adult Love
Decency
Holding a standard for how you treat your partner that doesn't depend on how you feel about them in the moment. You don't snap, mock, withdraw, or punish — not because you're a saint, but because that's who you've decided to be.
Courage
Stepping into the hard conversations instead of around them. Telling the truth even when it's going to land badly. Letting your partner be upset with you without trying to manage them out of it.
Focus
Putting your energy on what you can actually control — your own behavior, your own contribution, your own growth — instead of trying to engineer your partner into the person you want them to be.
What This Looks Like in Practice
- Treating your partner kindly during a stretch when you don't feel particularly fond of them
- Holding eye contact and listening when you'd rather walk away
- Apologizing without waiting for them to apologize first
- Doing the small generous thing even when you're keeping internal score and "winning"
- Telling the truth gently when lying would be easier
- Choosing to give the benefit of the doubt — even when you're not sure they've earned it
None of this is about being a doormat. It's about being the kind of adult who can love on purpose — not because you happen to feel like it, but because you've decided that's how you want to live.