I prefer not to use the phrase “fall in love” because, biblically, love is a choice. However, I’m going to use it in this article because I’m not just talking about general Christian love. I’m talking about romantic love that a man needs before wanting to marry a woman.
While loving someone romantically, like in the Song of Solomon, is not anything less than the love described throughout the Bible, it does involve other variables such as sexual attraction, personal affections, and internal desires.
Also, the first three points in this article relate to any man. But I am talking to Christians, so you will also need the fourth point if you want a biblical marriage together. If a Christian man has the first three points, which are essential, but lacks the fourth, he will still choose to let this woman go.
Therefore, here are four ways a man falls in love with a woman.
1. A Man Falls in Love When the Infatuation Is Replaced with Something Better
When a connection with a woman starts high but only gets worse the more his life gets enmeshed with hers, a man’s feelings fade away. A man pursues a woman into marriage when he is excited about her, but over time, the truth about her turns out to be even better than he imagined.
And I don’t mean that she is more perfect and has fewer flaws than he imagined. Rather, I’m saying that when he gets to actually know her on a deeper level, the messiness of real life with her is better to him than the fairytale he dreamed about when he first met her.
I’m certainly not saying that a man needs to be infatuated with a woman at first. But oftentimes, a man does struggle with this. And yet, he will know it’s not true love. He’s felt infatuation before. He will know this woman is something totally different from what he’s experienced in the past once the infatuation fades but he is even more excited about pursuing her.
Thus, for a man to fall in love, the relationship needs to be imperfect and still really enjoyable. He needs to see her flaws, he needs her to see his flaws, and he needs to see that they are both continuing to have greater and greater affections for each other, even though the fairytale has been debunked.
Romans 12:9, “Let love be genuine.”
2. A Man Falls in Love When the Rewards Outweigh the Sacrifice
When a man falls in love, something happens to him that women will often struggle to understand. While he is happy about finding love, he’s also a bit somber about it. I don’t mean he’s unhappy, sad, or upset. He is excited and thrilled, but there is also a heaviness that comes along with the realization that he has found the woman he wants to marry.
Why? Because he knows what this will cost him. He knows that by loving her, he is also choosing to die for her. It’s a joyful death, but for men, it is still a death. We want to make the sacrifices, we want to lay down our lives for those we love, we want to protect and provide for the woman God has for us, but we also do so while knowing the cost. To have a wife, a man is embracing responsibility and sacrifice that he would not have without her. Again, he’s not mad about this reality. If he didn’t want to sacrifice for her, he wouldn’t. He would know he doesn’t love her. But when he knows he loves her, he is also hit with the gravity of the responsibility that comes along with this love he has found.
You can also see this principle when you look at the motivations for why men and women want good careers. A woman wants a good career so she is not dependent on a man. A man, however, wants a good career so he can be depended on by a woman. When a man and woman marry, a woman does not become responsible for the financial and material well-being of the man. However, the man does take on these responsibilities for the woman. When a man loves a woman, it truly is life-changing in very practical ways. (I know a woman’s life changes in dramatic ways, too, but my goal in this article is to highlight a man’s perspective about falling in love.)
While a lot has been said about a woman’s call to submit to her husband (Ephesians 5:22), let us not forget that God calls the husband to die for his wife (Ephesians 5:25). This is a heavy, beautiful call, but it does bring pain too.
3. A Man Falls in Love with a Woman When There Is a Sexual Desire Expressing His Internal Love for Her
Men can be very sexually attracted to a woman and still not love her. However, a man cannot fall in love with a woman if he lacks sexual attraction for her. In other words, while sexual attraction does not lead to him falling in love with a woman, falling in love with a woman always leads to a sexual attraction for her.
A man can have an internal Christian love for a woman without “falling in love.” But for there to be a romantic love that leads him to want to marry her, he needs to have an internal love that wants to overflow through the sexual outlets God has designed in marriage (1 Corinthians 7:36).
4. A Christian Man Falls in Love When He Feels She Is the Woman God Has Chosen for Him
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, there are different types of love in the Bible. Thus, for a Christian man who wants to obey all of Scripture when seeking a wife, he will know he needs both forms of love. He will need the romantic desire, and he will need the internal decision to choose to love her.
To feel the freedom to fully choose to love her through choosing to enter into the covenant bond of marriage, a man must first know that God is indeed giving him the green light. When a man has the internal peace of knowing that God is leading him to marry this woman, he then allows himself to fully fall in love with her.
Proverbs 14:19 (NLT), “Fathers can give their sons an inheritance of houses and wealth, but only the Lord can give an understanding wife.”
