How to Fall in Love Again with Your Spouse in Your Intercultural Marriage
- Marvin Lucas
- Feb 27
- 6 min read
"Love is not about how many days, months, or years you have been together. Love is about how much you love each other every single day." — Unknown
Remembering What Falling Felt Like
There was a time when your heart raced at the thought of them. When everything they said was interesting. When their differences were exciting, not frustrating. When you were falling.
Now you're not falling anymore. You've landed—in the comfortable, familiar territory of long-term marriage. The excitement has faded. The differences feel like obstacles. You're together, but you're not sure you're still "in love."
This is normal. Every marriage goes through seasons where the in-love feeling fades. But in intercultural marriage, you have unique resources for rekindling that feeling—two entire cultural worlds to explore together, forever.
Sharisse and I have fallen out of—and back into—love multiple times across thirty years. Each time, we've used the richness of our intercultural marriage to find our way back to each other.
Here's how you can fall in love with your spouse again.
Understanding What's Changed
Why the Feeling Fades
Familiarity replaces novelty:
The brain's love chemicals respond to newness. As you become thoroughly familiar, those chemicals decrease.
Routine replaces adventure:
Early love involves shared adventures. Long-term marriage can settle into shared routines.
Assumption replaces curiosity:
When you first fell in love, you were endlessly curious. Now you assume you know everything.
Criticism replaces admiration:
Over time, you may notice flaws more than virtues, frustrations more than delights.
Life replaces relationship:
Work, children, responsibilities crowd out the couple connection that falling in love requires.
The Intercultural Dimension
In intercultural marriages, specific factors can accelerate this fading:
Cultural differences become sources of friction rather than fascination.
Bridge-building becomes exhausting rather than exciting.
Identity tensions create distance rather than depth.
Extended family challenges drain energy that could go toward connection.
Strategy 1: Choose to See Again
The Insight
Falling in love involves a particular way of seeing—noticing virtues, finding fascination, feeling wonder. When love fades, you stop seeing your partner this way. Falling back in love starts with choosing to see them again.
How to Do It
Practice daily noticing:
Each day, actively look for:
Something you appreciate about your spouse
Something interesting or surprising
Something beautiful (physically, personally, or characterologically)
Keep an appreciation journal:
Write down what you notice. This trains your attention toward the positive.
Share your noticing:
Tell your partner what you see:
"I noticed how patient you were with the kids today. I admire that about you."
"I was looking at you just now and felt struck by how beautiful you are."
Notice their cultural richness:
Pay fresh attention to what their culture brings to your life:
"I love how your culture celebrates [practice]."
"I'm grateful for [cultural element] that you've brought to our family."
What This Accomplishes
The way you see determines what you feel. By deliberately seeing your partner with appreciation and fascination, you create the emotional conditions for falling back in love.
Strategy 2: Create Novelty Together
The Insight
Falling in love is associated with novelty—new experiences, new discoveries, new adventures. Long-term marriage can become routine. Creating novelty together reactivates the brain chemistry of early love.
How to Do It
Do new things together:
Travel to new places (especially culturally significant ones)
Try new activities
Learn new skills together
Have new experiences
Leverage your intercultural resources:
Two cultural worlds provide endless novelty:
Explore each other's heritage more deeply
Visit homelands you haven't seen
Learn aspects of each other's cultures you haven't explored
Attend cultural events from both backgrounds
Break routines:
Change your date patterns
Alter your daily rhythms occasionally
Surprise each other
What This Accomplishes
Novelty triggers dopamine, the neurochemical associated with excitement and anticipation. Sharing novel experiences together associates those feelings with your partner—recreating the conditions of falling in love.
Strategy 3: Rediscover Curiosity
The Insight
When you first fell in love, your partner was a mystery you wanted to solve. Every conversation revealed something new. Falling back in love requires reclaiming that curiosity.
How to Do It
Ask new questions:
Don't assume you know everything. Ask:
"What's something about you I might not know?"
"What's on your mind that you haven't shared?"
"What dreams do you have that I don't know about?"
Explore cultural depths:
Your partner's cultural background is deeper than you've explored:
"Tell me more about [cultural aspect]."
"What was [experience] like in your family?"
"What do you miss most about your culture?"
Listen as if new:
When your partner talks, listen with the attention you gave them when you were falling in love. Be genuinely curious, not just polite.
Learn something about them weekly:
Make it a goal to discover something new about your partner every week—no matter how long you've been together.
What This Accomplishes
Curiosity is the posture of falling in love. When you're genuinely curious, you experience your partner as interesting—and interesting is a precursor to in-love.
Strategy 4: Touch Intentionally
The Insight
Physical touch releases oxytocin—the bonding hormone. Early love includes abundant touch. Long-term marriage often loses this, reducing biological bonding.
How to Do It
Increase non-sexual touch:
Hug longer and more frequently
Hold hands
Sit closer
Touch while talking
Be intentional about affection:
Don't let touch become only functional or sexual. Include affectionate touch throughout the day.
Navigate cultural differences:
Touch norms vary by culture. Find approaches that work for both of you while increasing connection.
Reconnect physically when disconnected emotionally:
Sometimes physical reconnection leads emotional reconnection, not just the reverse.
What This Accomplishes
Touch creates biological bonding. More intentional touch creates more feeling of connection—independent of whether you "feel" in love.
Strategy 5: Remember Your Story
The Insight
Your story of falling in love is a resource. Remembering it—together—activates the feelings associated with it.
How to Do It
Tell your story:
Regularly retell the story of how you met, fell in love, and decided to marry:
On anniversaries
To others who ask
To your children
To each other, just because
Revisit significant places:
If possible, return to places from your early love:
Where you met
Where you had early dates
Where you got engaged or married
Look at old photos and memories:
Let yourselves remember what it felt like to be falling.
Include cultural elements:
Your intercultural story has unique elements. Celebrate them:
How you navigated cultural differences
How families came together
What made your intercultural love story special
What This Accomplishes
Memory is connected to emotion. Remembering falling in love can partially re-create the feeling.
Strategy 6: Speak Words of Affirmation
The Insight
Early love is filled with verbal affirmation—expressions of attraction, appreciation, and devotion. These often fade in long-term marriage. Deliberately speaking these words can rekindle feeling.
How to Do It
Express attraction:
Tell your partner you find them attractive. Be specific.
Express appreciation:
Name what you value about them—character, actions, presence.
Express love:
Say "I love you"—but also explain why you love them.
Express in their language:
If your partner's heritage has specific expressions of love, learn and use them.
Write what's hard to say:
Letters, notes, and texts can convey what feels awkward to speak.
What This Accomplishes
Words shape emotion—for both speaker and hearer. Speaking love helps you feel it; hearing love helps your partner feel loved.
Strategy 7: Invest Time
The Insight
Falling in love took time—hours together, focused attention, priority given to each other. Falling back in love requires similar investment.
How to Do It
Protect couple time:
Regular date nights, getaways, and couple rituals.
Be fully present:
When you're together, be actually together—not distracted by devices or tasks.
Prioritize the relationship:
Let your spouse know—through time investment—that they matter.
Include cultural richness:
Use your couple time for culturally meaningful experiences.
What This Accomplishes
Time investment communicates value. When your partner feels valued, they're more likely to be open to reconnection. And time together creates opportunity for falling in love again.
When Falling Again Is Hard
If these strategies don't create the change you need:
Examine obstacles:
Are unresolved conflicts blocking connection?
Are there trust issues that need addressing?
Are there individual factors (depression, stress) affecting your ability to feel?
Address underlying issues:
See our guides on conflict resolution and rebuilding trust.
Consider professional support:
A therapist can help you navigate obstacles to falling back in love. See our guide on when to seek therapy.
Your Action Plan
This Week:
Practice daily noticing and appreciation.
Ask your partner at least one genuinely curious question.
Increase intentional physical touch.
This Month:
Plan a novel experience together (culturally rich if possible).
Retell your love story to each other.
Write your partner a letter of affirmation.
Ongoing:
Maintain practices that create connection.
Keep investing time in your relationship.
Use your intercultural resources for ongoing novelty and richness.
The Love That Keeps Returning
Sharisse and I have fallen in love more than once. The first time was easy—everything was new, exciting, effortless. The subsequent times required intention—choosing to see, creating novelty, reclaiming curiosity, investing time.
But here's what I've learned: falling in love again can be even richer than the first time. You're falling for someone you actually know, not a projection. You're choosing love, not just experiencing it. You're building something that has weathered time.
Your intercultural marriage gives you unique resources for falling in love again—two cultural worlds to explore, forever. Use them. Let the richness of your differences become the fuel for renewed passion.
You fell in love once. You can fall again.
For more on rekindling romance, see our Complete Guide to Rekindling Romance, cultural date night ideas, and emotional reconnection.
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