What should I do if I think I Am Falling Out Of Love? Learn what it takes to stop Falling Out Of Love, feel in-love again and have a happy relationship.
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Hearing men say, “I don’t love my wife,” is nothing new for me. Not feeling in love anymore and not knowing what to do about it is one of the common reasons men come to Guy Stuff.
Often by the time help is sought the problem has only gotten bigger. Frequently, that feeling of not being in love anymore propels men to make poor choices, like cheating on their wives, and these choices have caused even more problems.
Since we all want to be loved, it shouldn’t be surprising that most of us will look for love somewhere else when we don’t feel in love or loved by the one we’re with.
Many men who don’t feel in love with their wives are afraid to say it out loud to anyone, especially her. Sometimes they won’t even admit it to themselves. Instead, they’ll tell themselves they still love her even though their actions say otherwise.
Feeling like you’ve fallen out of love with you wife affects many men. Here are a couple of examples from men I’m working with.
I have been married to my wife for 27+ years and I now find my wife unattractive physically (body & looks) to the extent that I can't even compliment her in honest. I look at younger lady's with pretty faces, large booty and great shape. My wife knows this and that I had an affair. She was younger, pretty body and I fell in love with her. Now years after the affair is over I still can't love my wife. What should I do? HELP. "- Kevin
Most of the time when men say they don’t love their wife, what they really mean is that they still care for her, even love her, but aren’t “in love” with her.
The
are gone.
In short, they just don’t feel like they did at the beginning of the relationship.
The love versus “in love” battle happens to both sexes and is extremely common.
One of the biggest causes of this struggle is unrealistic expectations of what love looks like in a mature relationship. In all relationships the love changes from what it was early on in the honeymoon or passion stage as the relationship grows and matures.
For men in particular, love is often primarily expressed and experienced through physical affection and sex.
Unfortunately, most middle-aged men expect the sex to be like it was when they were 20, and that’s just not realistic for either themselves, their wives, or most relationships as they mature.
Sex with someone the first few times is new, exciting, and unique. It’s no longer going to be these things after you’ve been together for a while. But the same goes for everything – a new car, house, you name it.
Boredom in a relationship is a common problem that can make a man feel he doesn’t love his wife anymore. Many of us expect the novelty, excitement, and love we feel initially to always be there, but those feelings don’t remain constant in any relationship.
I need help. We have a 1-year old daughter and I'm 5 months pregnant with our second. My husband just told me he might want to get divorced after only 5 months of marriage and that he regrets marrying me because he's not in love with me. He says he cares for me deeply and does LOVE me but isn't "in love" with me. He said it's not my fault and I feel like I have tried everything to be a good wife and mother and it's not working. I don't know what to do, I want him to be happy even if that means he wants to be divorced, but I don't want to put my children through a divorce and I still deeply love him. We're a Christian couple and I keep praying things will work out but it isn't looking good." -Natalie
While unrealistic expectations of what love and marriage are supposed to be like are significant contributors to why husbands say they aren’t in love with their wives, there’s much more to it than that.
Any relationship, especially a marriage, is going to have some history. And with history comes baggage.
The biggest failing in relationships is communication. And as I said earlier, most men who don’t love their wives anymore haven’t told her.
Is it just men who don’t communicate well?
No, of course not.
Almost no one wants to tell someone close to them something as hurtful as “I don’t love you.”
A common pattern in long-term relationships looks like this:
Many partners don’t communicate well and so they avoid communicating at all - especially men.
As a result, big and small issues accumulate, and the effect they have on you doesn’t get communicated. This creates a buildup of negative emotions, like
and as this happens over time it can cause you to feel and tell yourself (and maybe others), “I don’t love my wife.”
Even when issues between couples are communicated, it usually isn’t done very effectively or productively.
There are a variety of reasons for this.
are just a few.
But again, most often issues are just ignored.
A couple once told me (actually, I hear this a lot) they’d gotten past the fight they had the prior week.
When I explored what they meant it turned out nothing had been resolved or done to prevent the same thing from happening again. Some time had just gone by, and they each felt less impassioned about the topic.
This is what most couples describe as – "We resolved it.” When in actuality they really haven’t resolved anything.
Unaddressed and unresolved problems become baggage. And baggage is a big reason why men no longer love their wife.
No man wakes up one day and decides they no longer love their wife, they fall out of love over time.
Love is a feeling that should produce actions that demonstrate it and lets the other person experience it.
Frequently in problem relationships love is said (although often not much), but not shown.
Love should be seen in,
Yet too often many of us get wrapped up in the desire to feel what love felt like at the beginning.
As you can see from these statements the feeling of love is actually developed from actions or non-actions.
Is love a feeling or an action?
It’s both working in tandem.
I am a married man since 2011. I don't know whether I love my wife or not. When she stays with me I have no problem, but when she goes home to her parents leaving me alone, my problems start. I can't live without her even a day. I am thinking about her all day. She says she loves me much more, but I feel she doesn't love me, and doesn't even care about me." -Nirav
Unfortunately, by the time most people (men or women) don’t feel in love they also usually don’t have any motivation left to change anything. And this is a big, big problem because love feelings develop out of actions.
If you don’t have any desire to try, how do you form actions that can produce in-love feelings?
This is why when most men say, “I don’t love my wife anymore” it usually means, “I’m done.”
But it doesn’t have to mean “done”.
Since love feelings ebb and flow about anything, even for a child, they can flow toward you just as well as flow away from you.
It takes effort though. Time just isn’t enough. And the right kind of effort is required. But first that problem with motivation must be addressed.
This is one of the many things I do in my counseling work with men – help them develop the motivation to try and then teach them how to direct their efforts in the most effective ways possible, which can look different in each relationship.
Feeling like you don’t love your wife is sadly pretty common. And don’t fool yourself guys, women often feel like they don’t love their husbands anymore too.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, these feelings are part of a normal cycle within long-term relationships. The problem is that “I don’t love my wife” is often a misinterpretation of what you’re really feeling.
Men who say, “I don’t love my wife anymore,” often mean that the love has changed and they can’t see what it looks like now.
Remember,
If you’re not careful and fail to make the effort to correctly understand what you’re feeling, appreciate the changes, and work to keep love and the relationship strong, you may end up making devastating mistakes.
Is it possible for "I don’t love my wife” to be turned back into “I love my wife.”?
Yes. Absolutely.
Have you felt this way yourself? Or has your husband told you he’s no longer in love with you? Would you please share a little about what that’s been like for you?
Editor's Note: This post was originally published October 08, 2020 and has been updated with new information for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
What should I do if I think I Am Falling Out Of Love? Learn what it takes to stop Falling Out Of Love, feel in-love again and have a happy relationship.
You have this nagging feeling that your husband is no longer in love with you. Learn what to do next
Many husbands (and wives) are not "in love" with their partners any longer.
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Hello
My husband left me for another woman as he said he no longer loves me the same.
My love for him has only grown and our physical relationship was great even after 32 years of marriage.
It’s very confusing and hard to accept as I love him more now than I did before.
I feel that some people’s love is not strong enough or mature enough to keep the love alive.
I have suffered a Great Depression from the loss of his love.
I now know, if I ever meet someone new, that he will have to have a mature love for me and accept me for who I am as I did for my husband and my love grew and his did not.
Thank you
I’m a wife that fell out of love with my husband many years ago and this is why..
1) as soon as we married he stopped trying in the relationship
2) his mother became his priority not us not our child
3) sex always had to be his way nothing new zero romance
4)even after I put up with everything he still cheated
5) he thought being a parent is just for a woman and left most of the parenting to me
6) super impulsive no stability
7) he lied too much
8) his anger
9) he hated to see me express any other emotion than happiness
10) his porn addiction and masturbating were more important than sex with his wife
Yes...They are selfish children, maybe narcs...who knows. But it is hard to admit that they never, no never, no never truly loved you. They are incapable, emotionaly bereft of true sacrificial love. Just learn from it. Let him go.
A man or woman who loves and respects them selves will love and respect others. He showed by his behavior he was not capable of having a real marriage, just a facade.
You beg for fidelity, integrity, truth, respect. You give it to themmm...
but they breadcrumb you..so you will stay hanging on to any hope...while they just keep a keeping on... No a person who love you in no way would ever think to do these things. And frankly yoo many make excuses for bad behavior..Im not talking about saying domething in the heat of the moment, or forgetting to do something you said you would do, or not pickingvup after yourself, or gaining weight...Im talking marriage wreckers, Porn , constant lying about little things big things, not putting your spouse above ALL OTHERS , never admitting your faults to one another, and then forgiving eachother, cheating, drugs , gsmbling, drunks...these ruin a marriage and the family.
Men like this look for women that are kind, forgiving and faithful...so they can look respectable...while acting otherwise...
What if I never loved my wife in the first place?
How could this happen? I met my wife when I was going through a traumatic breakup. I jumped into this new relationship to avoid dealing with the pain of the breakup and never properly grieved the loss of that first relationship. This new relationship was clearly a rebound relationship. This relationship was driven not by love but by my neediness. I was very ambivalent about the relationship from the start. There was no honeymoon period—our first year together was very chaotic. So why did I stay? I settled for this relationship because I couldn’t face the prospect of being alone. Instead of facing the fact that this was not a relationship for the long-term, I tried to convince myself that my wife was ‘the one’ even though I knew in my heart of hearts that she wasn’t. Our marriage was miserable. There was no emotional intimacy, and our sex life was dismal (e.g., we haven’t had sex in over twenty years and if was pretty bad before that). But it is not a matter of getting back what once was, it was never there.
Claude, Thank you for your honesty and sharing your story. You're far from alone on this one. Now the question is what do you do about it - accept the relationship the way it is, leave, or do something to see how it could possibly get better? I always recommend people at least try the last one with some professional assistance. -Dr. Kurt
First I found out about the emotional affair, then he coldly told me he did not love me. He was so cold and unemotional. He has already decided he was having a new life with his new love of his life. Turns out he was scammed by some person who looked 23 and sexy. He lost his mind and threw me and our life away. Now he knows he was scammed and said he loves me. How do I forget him looking me in the eye and saying he did not love me?
I've been with my partner for 6.5 years. Our sex life dropped significantly after a few months. I tried to tackle this at the time and felt dismissed by her reaction. She stated that limerance had ended and that it will happen when it happens, essentially seeming uninterested. Since then her perimenopause has really kicked in. She's gained weight, is more tired etc. She's in bed at 8.30pm exhausted and certainly not interested in intimacy. We are up at 6 am to two demanding young dogs. To add to this I have zero interest in sex with her now. We bicker at each other Frequently. We've had couples counselling but I wouldn't say it's really made a difference.
Currently she's the one telling me she misses sex and I don't have any appetite for her.
I do wonder frequently if I should leave her.