But the reality is that marriages do break down, the marriage loses the thrill it once had. The couple believe they're are no longer in love, they made a mistake and they are entitled to call it quits. But how do we know what love is, and thereby when we aren't 'in love'? Is it because we have been in love before and so when we are not in love we know or do we know because of what our friends have told us. For many neither is the case. Our understanding of love is 'coloured' by what we see in magazine, what we read in books, watch on tv or at the cinema. From the media we learn that when we have made the right choice and we get married we are always in love, there is an excitement and energy. So when we are not in love we know, it must have been a mistake so we leave. In time many of us find a new love with whom we 'fall in love' and the thrill returns but before long that thrill will go.
In marriage, as in every aspect of life, there is thrill at the beginning but it doesn't last. Think of when you go on holiday and you fall in love with the destination and think what a thrill it would be to live there, when you move there the thrill is short lived and in its place there is a 'quieter and more lasting kind of interest'. Lewis suggests that in marriage we should also realise that the initial thrill is only for a time and that if we submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest there will most likely be new thrills in some quite different direction. Allow the initial thrill run its natural course and die away; go on through that 'period of death' into the time of quieter interest and happiness that follows and you will find that you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. Lewis warns against trying to make thrill your regular diet or trying to prolong the thrill artificially. In time they will get weaker and weaker and fewer and fewer and you'll get bored and disillusioned.
