They aren’t in love with you anymore
Do you feel like your partner is drifting away? It may be time to admit that they aren’t in love with you anymore.
by: E.B. Johnson
Has your partner drifted away from you? Are they disappearing emotionally, or hurting you with small fights? Although we want to hold on to the love we share forever, that’s just not the way that life works out. Even when we start our partnerships in genuine love and respect, things don’t always end in the same way. Are you experiencing a temporary blip? Or is it time to admit the truth? Your partner may be pulling away because they’re not in love with you anymore.
Love is never guaranteed.
When we think of love, we generally think of “happily ever after” and fairy tales. That’s a far stretch from the reality of romantic love in the modern world, though, and miles removed from the experience of loving someone. Love is not easy, and it’s never guaranteed. Even when we manage to make it down the aisle to the altar, that doesn’t mean our partner will always be there — or even that we will love them when we get to the finish line.
Even at the altar, your love is not guaranteed to last forever.
Has your relationships started showing cracks? Is your partner picking fights with you? Are they going out of the way to hurt you or cut you out of their intimate lives? When things go cold in our relationships, we have to be honest about it. Though you might want to hold on for dear life, it could be time to admit that the fairy tale is over. Your partner may be falling out of love with you. If you think this is the case, it’s important to be honest and proactive in protecting your happiness and your emotional wellbeing.
Signs they’re falling out of love with you.
When our partners begin to fade in love, the signs are obvious to see. Has your partner stopped talking? Have they grown cold, distant, or even hostile to you? While it may hurt to be honest, it’s the only way to reach the next stage of the process (and the inevitable healing that’s on the other side).
There’s no dialogue
What is communication like between you and your partner? Are they eager to talk to you when they come home? Do you find it easy to open up to them? Communication is important, and when we really love someone, we do it readily enough. When your partner doesn’t talk to you about what they want or need, it’s a major red flag. You may also notice that your conversations are always superficial and surface level. When you do manage to talk, it feels forced.
You’re not a priority
Making our partners a priority is a must when it comes to building long-lasting and mutually enjoyable partnerships. When your partner stops making you a priority, you have to take note. The effort in the relationship may drop off entirely, and or it may change in all the worst ways. For example, they may start time with their friends over spending time with you. However it happens, it’s become clear that you and your needs aren’t a priority to your partner anymore.
Showing zero affection
Does your partner show you a lot of affection? Do they go out of their way to let you know that you’re present in their thoughts? That they care what happens to you, and they want you to be in their life? Affection is an important component of a romantic relationship. Limited affection and intimacy on any level is always a warning sign we need to pay attention to. Is your partner showing you zero affection? It’s time to confront the truth.
Causing intentional damage
Is your partner hurting your feelings (and your heart) with their words and behavior? Have they started picking fights all the time? Disappearing and leaving you worried and insecure when it comes to their safety and your relationship? A partner who falls out of love may try to drive you away. They can even fight dirty with low-blows, cheat on you, disrespect or abuse you in order to increase the divide between you.
Total freeze out
When our partner falls out of love, the mood goes cold in the relationship. This is a feeling, and spans across several behaviors that show a partnership in trouble. You may begin to feel you’re not really a part of their life anymore. Or, you might find that they don’t try to include you in anything important in their lives. There’s a total freeze out. Nothing is overly bad, but nothing is good either. Your relationship goes into winter mode and the passion begins to die away.
Lacking in formal plans
Part of being a committed couple requires making plans for the future. Relationships work when partners and spouses come together with the aim of working toward similar goals. Have you and your partner stopped making these plans? Do you still talk about retiring together? The trips you’ll take? The family you’ll have? If they’ve stopped making plans with you for the future — it’s a red flag. They may also refuse to make any serious investments together as a couple, and won’t show any enthusiasm for their relationship with you.
Shifting toward conflict
Has your relationship become a turbulent wasteland of conflict and aggravation? You might find that you and your partner are fighting more than ever. You may even fight over the smallest issues or irritations. Does your partner go out of their way to pick fights? Do petty annoyances turn into major hurts and screaming matches? In an effort to push us away, the partner who is falling out of love may choose conflict as the wall to build around themselves.
What you need to do next.
If you’re just waking up to the truth, then it’s important you take steps to safeguard your wellbeing and your happiness. Accepting a drifting partner is the first step. Once we’ve admitted the truth to ourselves, we can confront our partners with it, surround ourselves with love, and begin healing and moving on.
1. Admit the truth to yourself
Our partners make up a core part of the reality that we build for ourselves. The longer we share our lives with them, the more intertwined they become. Which is why it often becomes so hard to see the inevitable drift. For any hope of addressing our issues and finding happiness, we have to first find the strength to admit the truth to ourselves (so we can analyze and move forward).
Take a deep breath — hold tight to your resolve — and admit the truth. Whisper it to yourself. Write it down in a journal. Do whatever you have to do, but say the words that you’ve been dreading to accept. Your partner isn’t in love with you anymore.
Before you can find happiness, admit the truth to yourself. You don’t have to climb up on your roof and shout it to the world. You don’t have to start a group chat and let all your friends know what’s going on. More than anything else, allow yourself to sit with this truth and absorb. Then, embrace your emotions and allow reality to come crashing down around you. Until it all breaks, you can’t put it back together.
2. Surround yourself with loved ones
There’s no denying how dear the support of our loved ones can be. Cherished friends can make the different between surviving and thriving, and they can also help us to rebuild our image of self. If you’re confronting the loss of your partner and your relationship, leaning into people you can trust could be crucial. Surround yourself with loved ones and remind you that only one love is gone from your life — not all of it.
Reach out to a handful of people that you trust and let them know what’s going on. Open and be honest. Let yourself cry. Let yourself rage. Let them see all the pain that you’re in and then let them scoop you up and comfort you through it.
When you’re ready, allow them to pull you up and inspire you again. Listen when they remind you of all the wonderful strengths that you have and remember that person for yourself. Allow their reflection of you to become the reflection you see when you look in the mirror. This is how you will find the strength to move forward and deal with the pain you never thought you’d have to face.
3. Have a serious conversation
After bracing yourself for everything that’s coming (and surrounding yourself with people you trust) you have to sit your partner down. This will be the hardest part of your journey, but the most important too. You and your partner need to be honest with one another and yourselves. Then, no matter what you decide to do, you’ve got to work together as a team to process what’s coming down the line. That’s how we remain civil and depart from our lives together without causing even more damage and heartache.
Sit your partner down and have the conversation you’ve been dreading. As far as you are able to, leave your emotions out of it. Simply explain your experience and the doubts that you’re having. Use concrete examples of your partner’s behavior, but don’t use blaming language or lower yourself to petty accusations.
Take this moment to say everything that you need to say. If you’re hurt, tell your partner that you’re hurt, if you’re angry — allow yourself to be angry. You need to hold respect and civility always in sight, though. Don’t use inflammatory language and don’t escalate things unless you want to make it worse for yourself (and everyone else too). Be an adult, even if it’s the most painful thing you’ve ever done. Show them respect and through that respect demand that they respect you with the truth.
4. Invest in some quality distraction
With your new reality out in the open, you’re going to go through a lot of emotional ups and downs. You and your partner will have to have more conversations and work to figure out what comes next. This takes a little of time, though. During that time you’re going to hit major highs and major lows. Your world will feel upside down. In order to survive and get back on your feet, you need to give yourself some distractions and a chance to connect slowly with the brave new world that you’re entering.
You don’t have to rush into your new life. Your relationship didn’t get started overnight, and it won’t end overnight either. Give yourselves time to detach and do it by leaning slowly into distractions that remind you of the life that’s still out there to live.
Invest in some quality distractions. Branch out. Get back in touch with your passions. The ending of a relationship is really difficult to navigate, but it’s not the end of our lives. As a matter of fact, it can be considered a new beginning. The exit of someone who doesn’t love you leaves room for all the right people to walk in. You can get back in touch with your interests, your social groups, and fill your life up with all those things that bring you joy again. Now’s the moment. Get distracted and fall in love with yourself.
5. Allow yourself time to grieve
The loss of a relationship is a death, although we’ve been conditioned to see it as anything but. When your partner’s heart changes against you, you lose a core piece of your life. Your friend is gone, the future you thought you would have is gone. It’s a big change and one that’s tied to our emotional wellbeing. There’s no simple “bouncing back” from something like that. You have to give yourself time to grieve and allow yourself to mourn the future you thought you were going to have.
Give yourself as much time and space as you need to grieve your partner and the loss of your relationship. The breakdown of your love life is a death of sorts. Allow yourself to be sad. Allow yourself to be angry. Allow yourself to feel all those negative feelings you’ve been avoiding all along.
Healing from the dissolution of a relationship isn’t an easy or one-size-fits-all solution. It takes time, and it takes confronting your pain in some really raw ways. What’s important is that you give yourself a time limit, though. If you lean too far into the darkness, it can take hold and possess you. You don’t want to be stuck in the past’s pain if you plan on building a better future for yourself and your partner. Give yourself time to grieve and be compassionate and understanding with yourself while you do.
Putting it all together…
Falling out of love is a hard thing to accept, but it’s a reality of modern romantic life. The things our partners need and want change. Likewise, we change too. Sometimes, our relationships don’t pan out. Our partners discover different facets of themselves and realize that we don’t hold a fascination for them like we used to. Has your partner fallen out of love with you? It’s time to admit the truth so you can take action and move forward.
Admit the truth to yourself before you do anything else. Look at their behavior and look at how it’s affecting you. Don’t look away. There’s no changing when our partner falls out of love. All we can do is brace ourselves and prepare to process. Surround yourself with loved ones and use this to reaffirm your confidence. Shift your perspective and see what’s happening as a change, rather than an ending. When you’re ready, sit your partner down and have the hard conversation you’ve been dreading. Make some plans and approach one another with honesty. Then, give yourselves some distractions as you move on toward the next horizon. Be compassionate with yourself and give yourself time to grieve. The ending of a relationship is never easy, but it can often bring about more beautiful futures than we could ever have imagined.
- Sailor, J. (2015). A Phenomenological Study of Falling Out of Romantic Love. The Qualitative Report, 18, Article 37, 1–22. doi: 10.46743/2160–3715/2013.1521