Ralph Brewer explains what it means when a spouse says "I love you, but I'm not in love with you." The phrase usually signals the marriage has become a comfortable friendship, often because a new attraction elsewhere has reignited what's missing at home. Desperate gestures rarely work; accepting the reality and letting go is often the healthier path.
Chapters
Daniel from Facebook says, I would like to think that I am a patient guy. I've made a lot of changes in my life so far. I got the I love you, but I'm not in love with you in April. Ooh, ouch. I took a look at myself and I made changes with my weight. He's down 60 pounds so far. Jesus, Daniel, are you okay? That's a lot. Um, good for you, buddy. And my— in his thinking, he's saying my thinking in general Good. Uh, self-reflection of where we started to drift apart, so forth. Um, she said that she thought about separation in April when it all spilled over, and then we talked at Halloween and she said her feelings hadn't changed. Should I just walk away? Well, Daniel, um, what I'm about to say sounds very, very cynical, negative. Um, this does not apply to 100% of the situations like yours. It doesn't. But it applies enough to enough of them that, um, what I'm about to say should be a giant, like, red flag kind of warning, warning, warning to you. And that is this, um, whether it comes from a man or a woman, to hear the whole "I love you, but I'm not in love with you," um, sometimes, dare I say usually, means one thing. Can anybody guess what that is? Maybe you want to beat me to the punch here in the comments. Um, by the way, please like this live stream if you could, please. It helps spread the word. Um, and that is, um, let me just preface it with this: when you're in a relationship with somebody for a long, long time, um, what typically fades in that relationship are those puppy love, honeymoon, in love, crazy lustful feelings. That dissipates with time. It takes work to bring them back, bring it back in bursts, you know, date nights, time away from the kids, those little, um, loving romantic things you do for each other every now and then, staying in shape for each other, all that stuff. And I outline a lot of this in The Dead Bedroom Fix. Um, but, uh, naturally with time you become more comfortable with each other. You become a couple of friends, dare I say roommates. If you got kids especially, your job is to help keep this little human alive, and it's very, very easy to drift apart romantically, unfortunately. Uh, what a lot of people find is that they're just drifting in this world of comfort and domesticity and no passion, no eroticism, that's for sure. And then someone comes along and makes them say, oh, I'm feeling feelings again that I haven't felt in a long-ass time. And it could be something as simple as a coworker. Let's have coffee. Sure. And you get to talking to him or her and you're like, I really like this person. They're very, very interesting. I remember when I used to have conversations like that with my husband or my wife and, ah, yeah, we really clicked, me and this person. Let's do coffee again tomorrow. And as we know, it doesn't take long to go from that to texting to meeting up, and away you go, start forming a relationship. The old extramarital affair happens quite a bit. Um, what that does is it sparks feelings in— oh, that's those old in-love feelings. I forgot about that. And dude, there's nothing more addictive than that, like nothing. And your brain is just flooded with chemicals. Nature takes over and says you're supposed to be bonding. And basically what nature is saying is procreating, making babies with this person. That's why it floods you with all this really feel-good stuff. And, um, you quickly kind of forget about the other person romantically, for sure, maybe even completely. And you look over at that person and say, you know, I love you, but I'm not in love with you. Oof. Like I say, that's not every case. It could be just, you partner have done something or continue to do something or have always done something that just keeps pushing me away romantically. And you know what, you've done it for the last time, you've pushed me away. I love you, but I don't, I didn't live with you. If it helps to, for men to build a conception of how this could work in our world, let's say you have a wife who's just very depressed and she can't get off the couch. And she's now 400 pounds and she says to you, "You know, we haven't had sex in a while. We should go to the—" I don't know why I'm talking that way. "You know, we haven't had sex in a while. We should go to the bedroom." And you look at her and go, "Um, you know, I love you, but I'm not in love with you in that way anymore. I'm sorry." Same kind of thing. So Daniel, my first extremely negative knee-jerk thought on all this is, you sure there's not somebody else, buddy? Somebody to suddenly come to you with that and then follow that up with, nothing's changed, still have those same feelings. Yeah, she dumped you, sucks. What you do with that information is up to you, buddy. Do you say, I'm gonna try and hang on harder? I'm gonna try and pursue more? No, no, no, let me show you how I'm the prize here and you need to stick with me. Look at my weight loss. Look at all these things I'm doing for you. I bought you flowers, haven't done that forever. You know the little, I heard some other author called it the pick me dance, like pick me. You know those like South American birds in the nature shows where they fluff, it's always the male by the way, fluffs their feathers creates this nice plumage and the visage, or whatever the term is, that the female sees. And the female goes, "All right, I'll allow you to mate with me now. I'm impressed with your plumage there." He's doing a little pick me, pick me, not that other bird, pick me. And a lot of men in this kind of situations do that. Pick me, pick me. But almost invariably, dude, doesn't work. If anything, it just shows a level of desperation. A level of not putting emotional unintelligence, if you will, because in her mind she's like, I've just basically dumped this dude. I told him I don't want him. I don't like him in that way anymore. I love the guy because, you know, we made kids, we've been together forever, but as far as being in love, I mean, what more can I do? And this guy just keeps chasing me. And in your mind, and you're hurt, very hurt, and very understandably hurt mind, you're thinking this will actually win you points, that you will appeal to her empathetic side and her romantic side, and she'll suddenly wake up and realize, you know, I forgot how much I love this guy and all the stuff we've been through. Doesn't work. The old adage, if you love them, let them go. If it's, if it was meant to be, let the bird fly. If the bird comes back to you, then you can work on things together. The irony is that if you do let her go and she does come back, from what I've seen, 9 times out of 10, the dude says, I don't want you anymore, bird. Now that you're gone, I've gotten used to you being gone, and now I think clearly, and I realize what the hell was I doing hanging on to that bird for so long? That was stupid. So let her go. It's best for her. You know, play the— you can play the part of the loving adult in this. I can see you're not happy with this wifey. I'm not going to hang on to a person that's not happy in a situation. Go. I wish you all the best. I love you. That's why I married you. But I'm not gonna hang on to somebody. I'll be fine. You know, I'll cry myself to sleep over a few nights, and I'm, don't tell her that, and I'll curl up in a fetal position and wonder what's gonna happen with my life, but in the end, there's a logical part of me that realizes I'll be fine. And you will. One way or the other, Daniel, you'll be fine.
