There are four different types of love possible between men and women in the middle years. The type they feel for each other depends not upon their ages but upon whether they are married, whether they have children, and what is happening in their occupational careers. The intense feelings of romantic love are dampened by long association. Conjugal love is cooled off romantic love. It is a feeling accompanying a good interpersonal relationship. Couples in a "devitalized" marriage have a somewhat pleasant friendship, but they are emotionally distant. Couples in conflict-habituated marriages retain the marriage for the rewards it brings outside the interpersonal relationship: money, children, social status, a stable environment. The death of romantic love stems from discovering that one's spouse is an all-too-human being, discovering the restrictions on personal freedom imposed by marriage, and discovering that one had expectations for the spouse that are not being met. The engulfing nature of parental roles or the sense of occupational failure can also turn love sour. But in the golden years with the children grown and a reconciliation to the achieved level of occupational success there can be a rekindling of conjugal love. (Author/JEL)