Autopilot Is Killing Your Marriage (And You Don’t Even Feel It)!

On June 1, 2009, the pilots of an Airbus 330 climbed into the cockpit and prepared to take 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on Air France Flight 447.

Once airborne, much of the flying was handled by systems designed to make aviation safer. Airbus aircraft are built with computerized safeguards that prevent pilots from making mistakes.

Hours into the flight, while flying over a storm-heavy area of the Atlantic, tiny ice crystals began to form and clog the small sensors that measure airspeed. This began a chain reaction. The airspeed readings became unreliable. This caused the autopilot to disconnect.

A chime. A warning. A control went back to the pilots.

You would think the pilots would have been prepared, but they weren’t. They had been lulled into a false sense of security.

Feeling disoriented and like they were falling, one pilot pulled back on the controls, placing the plane in a nose-up orientation.

A computerized voice repeated: “STALL. STALL. STALL,” until the plane did just that, falling from the sky and slamming into the Atlantic.

228 lives lost.

Investigators later noted something haunting: high levels of automation had gradually “detached pilots from the control loop.” When the system handed control back, they weren’t ready.

A MARRIAGE ON AUTOPILOT

Autopilot systems are beautiful. They create stability, routine and ease…until they don’t.

And in marriage, when you slip into autopilot mode, you stop actively flying. Then, when the storm hits; a stressful season, conflict, exhaustion, unmet expectations, the system disconnects. And suddenly you have to fly it.

But you haven’t been practicing.

And the voice has been warning you for years: “Drift. Drift. Drift.”

Most Marriages Don’t Fall Out of Love, They Just Stop Paying Attention

Love rarely dies in a dramatic explosion. It erodes in the quiet. You stop noticing the subtle shifts in her tone. You stop catching the fatigue etched on his face at the end of the day. You assume you already know what they’re thinking, what they need, what they’re feeling. Attention is oxygen. When you withdraw it, the relationship doesn’t panic; it slowly suffocates. Not because you don’t care… but because you stopped looking closely enough to show that you do.

The Apostle Paul wrote: “Train yourself to be godly.” — 1 Timothy 4:7

He understands that drift is natural. Intentionality is not.

You don’t accidentally become godly. You don’t accidentally become attentive. You don’t accidentally build a great marriage. You train for it.

Marriage doesn’t thrive on autopilot. It thrives on intentionality and repeated actions. What you do not train for will drift and eventually crash. So…

TRAIN YOURSELF…to pay attention.

Most Marriages Don’t Fall Out of Love, They Just Quit Being Curious

Curiosity is what keeps two people from becoming roommates with a shared mortgage. The moment you think, “I’ve got her figured out,” you’ve stopped exploring. And people are not static. Your spouse is still growing, still changing, still carrying questions and fears and dreams you haven’t discovered yet. When curiosity dies, growth dies. And when growth dies, connection shrinks. The fastest way to lose the spark isn’t conflict…it’s making assumptions.

TRAIN YOURSELF…to ask good questions.

Most Marriages Don’t Fall Out of Love, They Just Choose Convenience Over Connection

Connection takes intention. It takes turning toward your spouse instead of away. It takes putting the phone down. It takes asking one more question when you’d rather check out. Convenience whispers, “You’ve worked hard today. You deserve easy.” But easy rarely builds intimacy. The strongest marriages are not built on what’s convenient; they’re built on small, inconvenient sacrifices repeated daily.

TRAIN YOURSELF…to embrace inconvenience as an act of love.

Most Marriages Don’t Fall Out of Love, They Just Get Busy and Forget to Come Back

Life just keeps accelerating. Work makes greater demands. Kid’s grow and get busy. The calendar fills. You’re pulled in 17 different directions. And somewhere in the swirl of responsibility, you promise, “We’ll reconnect when things slow down.” The problem is, things rarely slow down. Busyness isn’t neutral; it’s corrosive. It takes over your life, but never introduces itself as the villain. It just quietly consumes the margin where affection, laughter, and conversation used to live. You didn’t drift because you stopped loving each other. You drifted because you never circled back.

TRAIN YOURSELF…to circle back quickly and regularly.

Most Marriages Don’t Fall Out of Love, They Just Drift One Degree at a Time

No pilot crashes because of a 90-degree turn. It’s the one-degree deviation, sustained over time, that takes you miles off course. A missed date night here. An unresolved tension there. A small resentment you don’t address. Drift feels harmless in the moment. But left uncorrected, it compounds. And by the time the warning light flashes, you’re far from where you meant to be. Love doesn’t disappear overnight. It drifts, quietly, gradually, predictably.

TRAIN YOURSELF…to make small course corrections daily.

AUTOPILOT ISN’T THE ENEMY

Autopilot isn’t the enemy. Flying your entire marriage on autopilot, with untrained disengagement, is. Storms will come. Fatigue will come. Seasons of stress will come. Turbulence is guaranteed. That’s why you need to keep your hands on the controls. Pay attention to the quiet voice that has been whispering, “Drift. Drift. Drift.” Don’t panic. Just adjust. Gently steer back toward connection. Back toward curiosity. Back toward intention. And don’t get lulled into thinking autopilot is foolproof… because in marriage, it will often fool you first. The couples who thrive aren’t the ones who avoid storms. They’re the ones who stay engaged enough to fly straight through them.

FUEL & SPARK

Q: Where have I quietly slipped into autopilot in our marriage and stopped actively flying?

Q: When was the last time I asked my spouse a question I didn’t already think I knew the answer to?

Q: What subtle convenience is slowly replacing meaningful connection?

Q: What small course correction could I make this week, not dramatic, just deliberate?

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