It's happened to most of us: suddenly falling out of love with someone.

He hasn't changed; she isn't doing anything different. "I still respect you and like you," we say sadly. "I think you're a wonderful person. But I just don't feel it any more."

"It" being that exciting, desperate mix of need, desire, passion, thrill.

The problem is, that truly-madly feeling isn't really love at all. It's a mix of attraction and lust designed by evolution to impel us to mate with a species-appropriate and healthy partner in order to perpetuate the species. According to anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of Why We Love, attraction, lust and love take place in different parts of the brain and are ruled by different neurochemicals.

Psychologist Offra Gerstein recently wrote an excellent article explaining all this, which you can read online at SantaCruzSentinel.com.

Better, she gives advise on how to move from truly-madly into deeply-in-love, the deep and amazing bond of oxytocin.

She writes,

Abandon the notion that the initial "in love" state can or should last in its original form. Trade it for intermittent closeness, tenderness and bliss you can create.

View the change of attachment from "in love" to loving as a healthy and sustainable state of interacting with your mate. Most likely, your partner feels the same about you, which is ideal.

Good advice for all of us to remember in our sex-crazed culture.