“I will always love you. But I’m not in love with you anymore.” You might one day hear those words spoken by the very person you’ve seen yourself spending the rest of your life with. As sad as it might be, falling out of love happens.
Someone who loves you will show all sorts of signs of affection, make you a priority no matter what, ask you about your day and make plans for the future. Someone who has fallen out of love is emotionally and physically closed off, doesn’t give you the time of day and even starts treating you disrespectfully. To keep you from experiencing it or feeling the shock of hearing hurtful words from the person you love, read on to know how to identify the subtle signs that your significant other is not in love with you anymore.
1. He wants space
Remember those days when you wanted to spend every second together, feeling like you can’t keep your hands off each other? That’s called the honeymoon stage, but in time, the honey is slowly replaced by routine and even worse, by your partner’s need to have more time for himself.
In some cases, he might take some hours or even days off. He might still hang out with you but reduce the number of hours spent together and acting like he’s doing you a favor. If you guys live together, he might make it a habit out of coming late from work. At the weekend, he starts making plans that no longer include you. He comes up with all sorts of excuses like “I’m really stressed out from work” or “I have to solve some things with X”, but after a while, there’s only one conclusion: there’s something wrong with the connection between the two of you.
2. He doesn’t do things for you anymore
At the beginning of your relationship, he would go to the moon and back to make you happy. But when someone is not as interested in you as he used to be, he stops doing things just to make you smile and show you that he cares.
If your partner is not in love with you anymore, he will tend to become more selfish and focus on the things that bring him pleasure and satisfaction. You will notice he is more distant, both from an emotional point as well as a physical point of view.
3. He sees your future together in a negative light
Men are usually problem-solvers, or at least that’s what they like to think about themselves. When there’s a problem, they go into solver mode and don’t stop until they come up with a solution. This is also valid when it comes to their romantic relationships.
A man who cares about the future of his relationship will do whatever he can to fix a conflict and make things right with his lady. This includes asking for the advice of his friends, something that men rarely do. On the other hand, when he is no longer in love with you, his approach to fixing things will be one of resignation and complaint instead of love and hope.
If you hear him saying things like “Is this all worth it?” or “I’m just not happy anymore,” it might mean that he has fallen out of love and does not exclude a future in which the two of you are no longer a couple.
4. He doesn’t care about staying in touch anymore
Communication between you is not what it used to be. From easy, natural conversations, you’ve now transitioned to tense and awkward moments none of you know how to deal with. He used to be interested in what you do during the day, flirt every chance he got and now he is withdrawn, absent or ends the conversation abruptly.
It’s not unusual to stay in touch a little bit less as the relationship progresses, especially when you live together. There’s won’t be as many flirty text messages and endless phone calls as in the beginning but falling out of love means losing interest in staying in touch whatsoever.
5. You handle conflict differently
When people are not in love anymore, they tend to process conflicts and disagreements differently than before. It’s normal, some would even say healthy, for couples to fight every once in a while as people have different conflict styles.
Some fight like there’s no tomorrow one minute only to make up and swear to never fight again the next minute. Others have arguments once in a full moon, but they want to solve their problems together. When a couple is in a functional relationship, life’s arguments are dealt with together. When they fall out of love, they also fall out of any desire or attention to handle their disagreements.
Some might avoid arguing altogether, agreeing and settling instead of speaking their minds. Others might abruptly start a fight just so they could find an excuse to leave and have some time all by themselves. Rather than working towards fixing your relationship, your partner will minimize every complaint you might have and act like nothing’s wrong.
6. He stops reacting to your requests to connect
Every couple has their own ways to connect like texting about your lunch, sending flirty pictures, sharing funny stories, touching each other in a certain way etc. According to relationship researcher and marriage counselor Dr. John Gottman these are called “bids.”
As explained by Gottman in his research, people who lived together had a positive reaction to the other person’s bids. 86 percent of the time, partners were excited to connect and strengthen their bond any way they could. On the other hand, only 33 percent of the time, people who eventually ended up divorcing had a positive response to their partners’ bids to connect.
You don’t have to keep count of the times you’ve been ignored by your significant other, but if you never receive any feedback when you try to establish a connection, it’s most probably because he is not in love with you anymore.
7. You feel like walking on thin ice around him
The partner that used to shower you with compliments and love is now “showering” you with negative and disrespectful remarks. They might not seem like that big of a deal most of the times, but your subconscious knows better.
He might start seeing only the bad parts of your relationship, constantly comparing it with what other couples have. He might even start comparing you to other women. All of a sudden, your once-cute silliness and childishness are now irritating and annoying in his opinion. In fact, everything you’re doing lately seems to be annoying.
The calm and loving partner that approved and supported everything you did has been replaced by an irritated, discontent partner who is constantly making you feel like walking on thin ice whenever you two are together.
8. He’s become very protective with his phone
When he’s not with you, communication is difficult if any, as it is no longer a priority for him to keep in touch with you. On the other hand, when he’s with you, he seems to be in a constant mood to chat with other people on his phone or do all sorts of other things except spending quality time with you.
If he’s talking to other women, he will surely not want you to find out, which is why he takes his phone with him wherever he goes, be it to the kitchen to grab a sandwich or to the bathroom for a quick shower. Flirting might seem harmless, but it can damage a relationship even more so than it already is. Whatever he might be doing, if he protects his phone like Froddo protected the ring in LOTR, then something’s up.
Check out: 18 Social Media Habits That Are Still Considered Cheating !
9. He’s stopped communicating with you
If your partner has stopped being as open as he used to be about his feelings, thoughts and plans, and you’ve let it pass, thinking it’s just a phase, it might turn into something normal. Before you know it, you will know nothing about what happens in his life and eventually be excluded for good.
If you don’t try to talk things out and have an open conversation about what’s going on with him, with you as a couple, don’t be surprised when his future plans no longer include you. His reluctance to tell about his life, even about the less important things, is a sign that he no longer sees you as someone worth spending time with.
10. He seems bored with you
One of the worst feelings in a relationship is not feeling good enough for your partner. If you’re constantly trying to do things just to keep your significant other interested in you, only to hit a brick wall every time, you have a problem.
If your partner always seems to be bored of you, of your presence and your conversations, it might be a sign that his mind is elsewhere – his friends, another woman – anything seems more interesting than you. The fact that he doesn’t say anything or acknowledges his behavior in any way is only making things worse.
If he seems to be completely disinterested in what you have to say or do, consider it an indication that he’s fallen out of love with you.
11. He’s always looking for a fight
It’s normal in a relationship to have different opinions. You cannot always be on the same page, but when this happens more often than not, it might be a serious sign of trouble. If you can’t manage to have a decent conversation without ending up screaming and fighting, there might be an underlying issue other than the one you’re currently fighting about.
He might constantly make you feel nervous and tense, troubled by the fact that something you say, no matter what it is, can turn into a huge argument. The fact that he’s always trying to pick fights might be a sign that he has deeper issues that annoy him but does not want to fix them anymore.
12. You suspect he’s cheating
A woman’s intuition, especially when it comes to cheating, is rarely wrong. Just the fact that you suspect something is a sign that he’s got other things, or people, on his mind instead of your relationship. At least on an emotional level.
Whether it’s his overprotectiveness over his phone, text messages, phone calls or constantly working late, the things he does get you to believe that he’s cheating. When you ask him about it, he will avoid the question, lie or simply call you crazy. But you know him, so you know when he is lying.
Is there something you can do if your partner doesn’t love you anymore?
We’ve been told that when someone is not in love with us anymore, then it’s simply time to move on. But what if you’re not ready to do this? What then?
Luckily, it’s not always game over when people fall out of love with each other. It’s actually quite common as no relationship is perfect. Ask any married couple and they will tell you that their love story had its ups and downs too.
The idea is not to force your loved one to reconnect with you and pay attention to you as they used to do it in the beginning. That’s because when you start doing more, your partner will automatically start doing less. And that’s exactly what you don’t want.
Work on yourself and try to be open with your partner, even if at times, it feels like talking to a brick wall. In the end, if things don’t work out, you’ll at least know that you did whatever was in your power.
