When my first marriage was breaking up, we figured we’d give couples counseling a shot. After all, what was going on just didn’t make any sense. How could my wife of five years (partner for ten) simply not be in love with me anymore? That doesn’t just happen.

When you wake up covered in snot, you go to the doctor and get antibiotics (or at least you go to Walgreens and get Nyquil. When you’ve twisted your ankle, you see your podiatrist who tells you how to treat it. If your heart stops pumping blood, there’s a surgeon who can restart it, or even give you a brand new one.

So if your heart stops loving, there must be someone who can fix that too. Right?

I discovered that $100 an hour could buy a lot of things. What it bought for us was a Beverly Hills therapist who would tell us it was fixable; who’d give us a course of treatment. Spend x amount of time together, say these words to each other, stop saying these other words, stop asking these questions, do these activities, and do all that for long enough… and our relationship will be cured. Or dead.

A few months later, I finally came to terms with the fact that it had long since died, and we buried it.

…which, I was surprised to discover, actually was a fix.

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Candorville’s Top Ten List for Why You’ve Stopped Being in Love:

10. You’ve met someone else who revives the dancing butterflies you thought were long dead.

9. Your partner’s let themselves go. If they don’t care, why should you (fixable)?

8. You’ve grown apart, and aren’t the same two people who once fell in love

anymore.

7. You’ve met someone else who makes your toes go numb.

6. You and your partner stopped doing the things that made you fall in love in the first place (fixable).

5. Children (fixable after 18 years).

4. They’ve met someone who made their toes go numb.

3. Their friends and in-laws are all horrible and they’ve started to remind you of them.

2.They frame you for a crime you didn’t commit (or report you for a crime you did).

1. You were never in love to begin with. You should’ve just been friends.