sasalovesmsma

The "experts" generally find several normal stages of love in a couples relationship. They can be simplified to UP, DOWN, and REALITY.
UP is the initial fun part. Romance, Infatuation, Sex, Sex, and more Sex. We are crazy in love. Our partner is our soul mate. It's destiny. No one understands the two of us. In other words it's everything we ever wanted. If we are lucky, this stage can last for months.
DOWN always comes next. Things are not going as well. There are disagreements. We tend to think our partner was fooling us (couldn't possibly be that we were fooling ourselves). Things get a little rocky, but if we have some maturity, we don't give up hope for the relationship formerly known as "the match made in heaven." This stage can last for many years if we don't wise up.
REALITY is the lifetime (hopefully) of working on a true loving relationship. And it takes work. Sometimes painful work. Oddly, it's not so much the work on the relationship as it is our own work to resolve our personal issues so we can bring a healthy person to the relationship. It seems to be human nature that we will try to change the world (including our partner) to fit our expectations when actually the only thing we can effectively change is ourselves.
The big hurdles to clear are getting over working on our partner and working on our "relationship" (if you can do that without working on the people, please let me know how). We don't want to accept blame. That starts early with "Gee Mom, I don't know how it got broken, must have been Jimmy." But adults who won't accept responsibility for their lives are generally miserable people to be around. Even if we know it's the right thing to do, it's still hard to acknowledge our faults.
There are many ways to work on ourselves. Imago Relationship Advice has a pretty cool program for the people in relationships. I found reading about co-dependency to be helpful. If your partner is out of control (alcohol, drugs, whatever), try Al-Anon for your own sanity. Beware of pop psychology promoting simple programs (to make money). That reminds me of my favorite saying, "For every complex problem, there is a simple solution...that doesn't work."
I wish you real love in your life.