Why do People Fall Out of Love?

Answer A: It just happens and we cannot do anything about it.

Answer B: that is a myth. People don't fall out of love.

What about you? What do you think?

Let me share to you the real life story of Tino. Do you know him? Neither do I but he posted his life story in a public platform and it is becoming a sensational topic for people who have read it. By the way, the platform where e shared his story is PUBLIC and can even be shared by other people.

Disclaimer: I will try my best to relate his story based on how I understood it but it may not necessarily be what he meant to say in his post. Also, I do not mean to judge his story or anything to that effect but I am writing this because I believe we can learn from his experience (this he also claimed at the beginning of his story).

The story is related in a local language in the Northern part of the Philippines so I will try my best to retell in English using the third person point of view.

Tino came from a broken family. He grew up along with his younger sister on the side of their mother because their father left them for another woman. His father is still living with the other woman and they also have a child of their own.

In this recount of his life, he is telling the readers that he now understood what happened to his parents and how it happened. When he entered college, he decided to live with his father and his new family leaving his sister and her mother. The mother never approved of it but he was insistent. He said that this might be his only chance to find out what indeed happened to his parents long time ago.

At the beginning of the study, he described the kind of life his father and his family are leaving. They are actually well off that they have a 5 story house where the first 3 floors are for tenants while the last 2 floors are where he and his family lives. With his decision to live with his father, he felt a bit of awkwardness toward the father's wife and so he never talks to her except when his answers are needed. That was the kind of life he had there.

One day, his father came home a bit drunk. All of a sudden, the father called him and he started crying. He apologized for leaving them when they were young and started telling him what happened then.

With the father's very long explanation, the reason for leaving them can be summarized into this:

In English, he fell out of love. He had to leave because there was no more love and he was afraid that the love that he felt before will be replaced with hatred because his wife (the mother of Tino) became very hateful towards him when he told her that he no longer loves him. He did not like the regular quarrels. Thus, to end the misery, he decided to leave them.

However, within the explanation, the father mentioned that he met the other woman and and wooed her for a year while he was still living with his wife and children.

Tino then asked his father whether the woman knew about them.

She knew about the family and she rejected his love many times. After a year, she gave in and they started forming their own family. According to the author, as he continued staying with them, he saw how much his father and his new wife loved each other. He even noticed how happy his father was which he believed his father never felt while he was with his mother.

In the end, he understood what happened to his parents and realized that :

He stressed in his statement that NOT EVERTHING THAT SHOULD BE IS RIGHT. That was the story of Tino.

_________________________________________________

After me and some of my friends finished reading the story, we started airing our own observations and sentiments. Let me summarize our common denominator if I can remember them right:

• We are really happy that the writer got the chance to finally get an explanation and perhaps even learned to forgive. We hope that the mother and the other sibling would be able to do the same. After all, everything that happened is all in the past and they need to move on. Moving on they say is not easy if we carry burdens of hate and unforgiveness.

• I don't like to sound insensitive but I and friends believe that there is no such thing as falling out of love. You may not agree and it's okay because we have differing beliefs based on differing perspectives as well. In this particular situation, I guess what the couple (Tino's parents) particularly the father is perhaps not love at all. Because love is a very complex idea, it could be mistaken to anything else. But if love indeed conquers all, then they could have not separated.

• We have also realized that it could be natural for man to come up with excuses to justify his actions. In this case, man can be unconsciously Machiavellian. He believed that, "The end justifies the means."

Well, these are mere thoughts of three middle aged women. You could have yours and you might want to share them too. If so, please feel free to comment down.

Thank you for reading.

Special thanks to my sponsor: @OfficialGamboaLikeUs

_______________________________________

19. Proverbs 3:3-4: "Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man."