If your spouse says to you, “I love you but I’m not IN love with you anymore” … OUCH! You are experiencing a big OUCH to the Nth degree! Even if you’ve said those words to your spouse, I say OUCH! Those words cause a lot of pain to a lot of spouses. And it causes a lot of pain and huge upsets to a lot of families.
When those words are given, you are either the giver or the receiver of that pain. Either way there are horribly hurt feelings that are involved!
I Love But I’m Not IN Love With You
Tragically, that phrase of loving, but not being in love with the spouse is being said by marriage partners everywhere we turn. It’s like a deadly plague that is pushed out in epidemic proportions. And it’s infecting and killing marriages all over the world. We call it the “in and out of love” sickness. That’s because that’s what it is!
Now, I’m not throwing verbal stones. I have to confess that this same insidious sickness invaded our marriage as well. A number of years ago, I felt the same way about my husband, Steve. I was tired of what was going on in our marriage. As a result, I just wasn’t experiencing the same romantic feelings I once had for him. I concluded that I didn’t love him anymore and that this “love” would never return. All I could think was, I wanted out! So I understand the reasoning involved in saying those words. And it almost brought the death of our marriage.
Thankfully, God intervened and opened my eyes. All was not hopeless. I just thought it was. After some convincing, God then helped me to resurrect a new love—a true love for my husband. We now have a great marriage (with on-going work). And we have a deep, deep love for each other. Years before, I would never have thought that would be possible. But it was.
Because of that experience, I’ve learned a few things that I’d like to pass along to you. Hopefully, it will help in some way. Whether you’re the one who has heard those words said to you, or you’re the one who is experiencing that “lost love” in your heart, I pray you will benefit from what I’ve lived, and learned.
Lessons Learned
Through the things I’ve experienced it has been revealed to me that: We can say the words “I love you” but that doesn’t mean that we understand what is involved in truly loving someone.
Words can be cheap. Love is lived out by our words AND our actions. We can get a type of high from the experience. But when that “high” leaves us, we’re ready to leave and jump into the next emotional high of “love.”
And in the wake of our jumping from one LOVE to the next, a lot of people —especially children, are left behind devastated. Somehow, we need to change this and reach for mature and growing love.
“‘I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you’ is a cop out. It basically means that I have no clue how to make a relationship last LONG-TERM. So I’m exiting to get high from another short-term romance. But whoever they’re IN LOVE with now will also eventually hear, ‘I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you.'” (Mort Ferel, in the Christian Post article, “I Love You But…“)
Love is more than feelings.
Feelings can deceive you. One minute you feel one way and the next you don’t. You may THINK you love. But you could actually be experiencing temporary infatuation, “lust” or a bio-chemical rush that lasts for a season. These feelings are unsustainable in the long-run if you don’t follow through with decisions to help it to grow.
A lot of this is discussed in a Today’s Christian Woman article written by Leon Scott Baxter titled, “We’ve Got Chemistry.” But I’ll sum up a bit of what he wrote in this article (and other talks I’ve heard him give on this issue). He writes:
“Why isn’t my relationship that exciting? The easy answer: because that’s ‘new love.’ That’s fresh love. That’s the love we used to have. Phenylethylamine (PEA) is one of the culprits for the excitement of ‘new love.’ PEA is a brain chemical that acts like an amphetamine (yes, the drug) during the early stages in a relationship. Your body reacts to it like it would an upper. But it’s without the harmful side effects and embarrassment of failing a urine test.
“Another effect of PEA is the release of the chemical dopamine. This little neurotransmitter—a chemical messenger that sends a message from one nerve cell to another in the brain—boosts both our energy levels and our motivation. Why do you think men write love letters and wear cologne and take showers early on in relationships? They’re being flooded with dopamine.”
Another thing that contributes to “new love” is:
“The hormone of desire. That would have to be testosterone. Dopamine is the spigot to testosterone’s faucet; but it’s not a hormone just for men. Testosterone is present in both men and women. It’s released to prepare our bodies for intimacy.”
This particular article (and other talks Leon has given) goes on to talk about “new love.” This is something we all know about. It’s exciting, and causes us to go into a euphoric state, physically and emotionally. I remember when I first thought that I was falling in love with my husband Steve. It was one of the most exciting times of my life. I thought about him all the time. I also overlooked his faults and only saw the “good” in him. It was a lovely time. Who doesn’t enjoy that kind of a ride and want to get back onto it?
Other “Contributions” to Feelings of Love
Other chemicals within us that contribute to the feelings of “love” that Leon Baxter talks about are Endorphins:
“They are the neurotransmitters our brains release to reward us for good behavior. When we win, laugh, exercise, have sex, or fall in love, endorphins are released. They’re the reasons why we want to continue winning, laughing, exercising, having sex, and falling in love. Endorphins motivate and energize us. They make us feel happy and alive. Additionally, they allow us to cope with stress easily.”
There’s also, Serotonin:
“It’s a neurotransmitter that women produce during the ‘romantic love’ phase. Serotonin eases women, relaxing them, allowing them to feel comfort, contentment, and optimism. But that’s only true if their husbands give them the opportunity.”
Two other chemicals that contribute are:
“The cuddle chemical …a pleasant side effect of increased serotonin is the release of oxytocin. This little bugger is just phenomenal. It’s been called ‘the hormone of love,’ and ‘the foundation of romance.’ It’s even called ‘the key to lasting relationships.’ And, get this, it affects both men and women. Not bad, eh?
“Oxytocin lets us bond with the ones we love. Instead of insomniac thoughts of our love interest, we feel peacefully warm, loving, and affectionate toward him or her. The release of oxytocin is often triggered by touch. This includes a hug, back massage, even a gentle brush on the neck. But the hormone can also respond to other types of cues. This can be a whisper in the ear, a song on the radio, or a pleasing fragrance. When oxytocin is doing its job, we feel the need to romantically or intimately touch the one we love. And this in turn, releases the flow of the hormone in your mate.”
New Love
When you look at all of this going on within our bodies, it’s no wonder why “new love” can be exciting. We’re on a bio-chemical high — one that scientist believe starts to dissipate “somewhere after one-and-a-half to four years.” It’s a time when “the body grows used to these natural stimulants that bombard our systems during ‘new love.’ When that happens, love changes.”
It has to, our bodies couldn’t take the continual high. But much of this chemical stimulation can still be experienced, plus new, more satisfying feelings can be lived out with your spouse, if you do the things that triggered the Oxytocin, and seratonin and such, that we first experienced when we “fell” in love. We’ll talk about that a bit further down in this article.
I didn’t realize this when I first fell in “love” and eventually married Steve. It’s easy to see as I look back that my “love” for him was probably based more on a bio-chemical attraction than anything else. I can totally relate to something that relationship expert Pat Love, explained about this type of “love.”
She wrote:
“‘Love at first sight’ can happen, but most often infatuation begins with fondness or comfort in each other’s presence. Later there comes a flush or a quickened heartbeat upon encounter, or maybe a heightened energy when you are together. As the infatuation continues, separation from your love creates a great deal of anxiety. When not together, you daydream about reunion and anxiously anticipate the next encounter. To comfort yourself, you might replay former encounters in your mind. You may sleep with a shirt left behind, or listen to a song that reminds you of him or her. Perhaps you’ll listen to an old message on your answering machine. As the relationship takes on special meaning, you long for further contact and spend time and energy scheming about ways to get together.
“…When the lover’s affection is confirmed, daily priorities get reordered. The workaholic misses deadlines. The penny-pincher blows a paycheck on plane fare. Sleep is sacrificed for [times together]. Long phone conversations and/or e-mails abound. Both people have a remarkable ability to emphasize what is admirable in the other partner. They may even feel compassion for negative traits to the extent of turning them into positives (‘He is so honest, he told me all about his affairs’).
“The brain is an incredible creation; it begins working long before your birth and doesn’t stop until you fall in love.” (Pat Love, from the book, “The Truth About Love”)
After the Infatuation Passes
Can you relate? I sure can! Not only can I relate to the fluttery feelings that infatuation brings, because I sure experienced that with my husband Steve for a long time, but I can also relate to the brain stopping —both during the infatuation stage as well as later as I lived out my own definition of love.
After the infatuation stage passed, I think my love for my husband evolved into something that was based more on how he made me feel. As long as he made me feel good about myself and our relationship, I was “in love” with him. But when the everydayness of marriage and circumstantial storms invaded our lives and many conflicts between us arose out of it all (plus, the fact that Steve and I were very young and immature), my “love” seemed to disappear.
As authors Dr Les and Leslie Parrott wrote in their book I Love You More:
“Without love there would be no wedding, and certainly no marriage. Love is the catalyst for commitment. Love is what insures that every marriage starts out good. But sooner or later every good marriage bumps into negative things. And that’s what honest couples discover —that love, no matter how good, is never enough.”
And it sure wasn’t enough for us —at least not the type of love we had for each other, based mostly on feelings. I may have loved Steve in my own way, but it wasn’t the sustainable love that would hold our relationship together when problems clouded over our feelings.
It was at that critical fork in the road in our marriage that God revealed to me that:
Love is both a noun and a verb.
In other words, “love” names and states your feelings (as a noun), but it is also something that demands action (as a verb) to help it to be and stay real.
Yes, I did many things for Steve (and complained about many of them when it seemed too one-sided), but I didn’t get the concept that my feelings wouldn’t always be pronounced or even evident at times, which would make me want to continue doing things for him.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 is one of the many places in the Bible where we can see that God points this out to us. Every “love is” that is mentions in those Bible passages, such as “patient“, “kind“, “does not envy“, “is not rude” etc, puts a verb to it. That doesn’t mean that love is ONLY about actions, but it’s a very important part of it. We sometimes forget that.
What IS Love?
“While someone who says, ‘I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you’ seems to be making a distinction between ‘different loves;’ in fact, they are expressing their confusion about what love really is. And that’s why they’re having marital problems and maybe even an affair (because who are they IN LOVE with?).
“Love is something we articulate in the vocabulary of ACTION. Love is a verb. It’s not a feeling you get from another PERSON; it’s an experience you receive as a result of DEEDS YOU DO for another person. And those deeds are not a secret. In other words, love is NOT a mystery! There are specific things you can do with your spouse to solve your problems and build love in your marriage. (Mort Fertel)
Noun and a Verb
God taught me that I had to put feet to my faith to grow true love for my husband. Love is both a noun and a verb. I still needed to be loving in my actions, even though I wasn’t experiencing the feelings of love. As I did that, eventually the feelings did come along for the ride. I decided to do things for Steve, “as unto the Lord” and trust God for the result. I needed to exercise mature love. This is the type of love that Jesus showed us “while we were yet sinners” as He died for us on the cross.
“Most people think that the FEELING of love comes BEFORE we express love —and in the beginning of a relationship, that’s what happens. You fall in love and THEN you do acts of love. Your feelings inspire your actions.
“But mature love asks more of you. To create a strong LASTING marriage, you first CHOOSE LOVING ACTIONS. Your feelings will follow. After all, you don’t jog two miles or skip dessert because you feel healthy. You feel healthy because you jogged two miles and skipped dessert. So too, when it comes to your marriage, YOUR ACTIONS CREATE YOUR FEELINGS!” (From the article “Change the Momentum of Your Marriage” by Mort Fertel)
I’ve learned that you can learn to love the same person all over again with intentionality and God’s help.
I really didn’t think my love would come back for Steve. It’s something God had to work on in my heart and I had to trust Him for. It’s all a part of the faith-walk we are on this side of heaven. I’ve talked to many others who have found themselves in the same place with their spouses. They thought the same thing. But I did what I needed to do, and they did as well. As a result, our marriages got back onto the right track as a result.
It doesn’t happen this way for everyone, but I’ve seen that it happens more than we could imagine as we trust God to help us to live as we should, no matter what we see going on at the time.
A Journey
For me, it was a journey that God took me on to learn what real love was all about. I needed to learn more about God, whose very name means LOVE. If He couldn’t teach me how to love and be one who is more lovable, who could? I got into the Bible and learned more about God’s ways. Then I learned more about my husband, and worked on my own issues. I became intentional in living out the principles of love I was learning even before I had the feelings I desired. It was a difficult journey but one worth taking.
I can relate to what author Nancie Carmichael wrote:
“Marriage can be better than ever, if we will do what Jesus says. We can be very complicated when it comes to restoring love. We wait for ‘feelings.’ But we don’t need to wait for the feelings of love —we can “do” love. Jesus says that we are to do what He says. What does it mean to ‘do’ what He says?
“It means to be kind to one another. It means we will lay down our lives for each other —which could mean truly listening to one another. Also, it means we speak the truth in love to each other and treat each other as we want to be treated. These are not dramatic, new ideas. But love never fails. It bears fruit. The amazing thing about Jesus is that feelings follow actions.” (Nancie Carmichael, from the web site article titled, “Fall in Love with Your Spouse Again”)
Something marriage expert, Mort Fertel says applies as well:
“Just as there are physical laws of the universe (such as gravity), there are also laws for relationships. Just as the right diet and exercise program makes you physically stronger, certain habits in your relationship WILL make your marriage stronger. It’s a direct cause and effect. If you know and apply the laws, the results are predictable —you can ‘make’ love (from the article “I Love You But I’m Not In Love With You“).
I realize by saying all of this, that I may be “preaching to the choir.” You may be “doing” and “making” love until you’re ready to fall apart with no end in sight. And you may be exhausted barely hanging on.
Your Journey
I have to say that I don’t know the journey you are on in all of this. And I truly am sorry for your pain. It may be that you need to keep asking God to show you how to endure without seeing an end in sight. I’ve seen this happen before. I’ve actually been there before in other prayer areas of my life.
I’m reminded of Noah and Abraham and Joseph and Job, from the Bible. They probably saw no end in sight to their situations. But eventually they did see a positive answer to their toils and their prayers.
Not Giving Up
I think of missionaries who will go years and years without a single convert. Then eventually, because they kept going on and didn’t give up (despite continual discouragement), they saw a glimmer of hope. And hope was renewed; and prayers were answered.
I’m also reminded of the many gold miners in the United States, years ago, who gave up JUST before they would have struck gold. History records how close they came to victory. But someone else received the benefit of their labor instead. That’s because they gave up JUST before the going got good.
What I Can Tell You
I can’t tell you if that is the journey you are on or not. But I do know that it tells us in the Bible “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).
And I can tell you that Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
It also says in the Bible that “those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
God is Here for You
I can’t tell you that the “rest” or the renewed “strength” you will receive, or the “harvest” will come in the way that you expect. God’s ways can’t be boxed in and predicted like that. But just as Elijah found out, God is there for us, even in a whisper (see 1 Kings 19) or a completely different way.
When we trust him and “lean not upon our own understanding” as we’re told in Proverbs 3:5-6, He will make our “paths straight” for the journey we are on. HE will “not leave us or forsake us” (see Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13:5), even if others might do so.
He might be quiet for a while for whatever purpose He may have, but you can be assured that He loves you and is closer than you think.
Don’t Have All the Answers
This article cannot give you all the answers. I don’t have them. I’ve learned a lot through the years about love and marriage and not giving up and persevering beyond the strength I thought I had.
Some of you may have to live out tougher love than you ever thought you would or could. How I wish I could change that for you. I know the type of pain that involves and it’s worse than one can often describe. If you believe this might be the case for you, the following Crosswalk.com article may help you better understand this concept:
• ASK DR DAVID: True Love Requires Tough Love
Again, we can’t give you all of the answers within this article. But in my research, I’ve learned a few additional things from other marriage educators and authors. I’d like to pass them along to you. It may be the reason you are to read this article, to gain a clearer understanding of your situation. Eventually the Lord will reveal more to help you in the future.
When a person says, “I love you but I’m not IN love with you,” not only is it emotionally traumatizing for the person on the receiving end of those words, but it’s also confusing. “Where did their LOVE run off to?” And “how can I make sense of all of this?” And “what do I do about the love I feel for my spouse now that he/she says ‘I don’t love you?'” can be a few of the many, many questions that come up.
Other Issues
The spouse who is delivering this horrible message to the other spouse is actually wrestling with other issues:
“The excuse ‘I’m not in love with you anymore’ is nonsensical. Let me tell you why. There is no such emotional condition as falling out of love; it’s a justification for doing whatever you are planning on doing. It’s a way to let your spouse down easy.
“What you’re really feeling and should be saying is ‘I don’t want to love you anymore.’ It usually means that the attitude towards your spouse and marriage is not what it once was. Perhaps you are talking yourself into having an affair or perhaps you have already had an affair.
“The person who says ‘I’m not in love with you anymore’ is searching for a feeling. The marriage has stopped giving them a feeling they want and expect to have.'” (Angie Lewis from the Beyondprose.com article titled “I Love You But I’m Not In Love With You Anymore)
As I said before, feelings can come and go.
“A person who says, ‘I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you,’ is making a distinction between 2 different feelings. But NEITHER of those feelings are love! When a person says, ‘I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you,’ they’re saying that I CARE about you but I’m not EXCITED about you.
“CARING about someone is a good thing. It’s reflective of CONCERN. But it’s different than love. I care about the starving children in Africa, but I don’t love them. Being EXCITED about someone is a good thing. But it’s different than love. I might be excited to have a relationship with President of the United States or a Hollywood star, but that doesn’t mean I love them. (Mort Fertel, in the Christian Post article, “I Love You But I’m Not In Love With You.” …You can also receive Successful Marriage Tips via the email, on his web site.)
Again, there is a difference in feelings and the label we can put upon the term “love” but true love is more than having feelings for a person. There is more required to truly live out a “life of love” as we’re told in Ephesians 5:1-2, “Be imitators of God, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Do What It Takes
IF eventually, your spouse will listen to reason, and will put effort into making your marriage work once again, you both need to do what it takes to bring love back into your everyday lives with each other.
“The key to love is attention. More specifically Brett Williams, the author of You Can Be Right or You Can Be Married: Love-Based Solutions for Couples
, believes that love is the free gift of our attention. ‘When couples are dating they bring all kinds of attention to each other on a daily basis. As a result, their love is never stronger. But after the vows are given, the pair stops pursuing. Their attention is instead turned toward their careers, their new family, and taking care of the home. This is when their love becomes starved for attention. And this is where the feeling of closeness begins to wane.’
“’Intuitively everyone understands this relationship between love and attention. This is so much so that the words are used almost interchangeably. Therefore in order to reconnect they need to bring attention to one another. What they need is a weekly date night.
“’A movie and dinner is not going to cut it. The way couples typically date brings very little attention. For the dates to be effective in creating closeness they must follow the principles that govern love/attention:
1) Attention is drawn to novelty
2) Energy grabs attention
3) Attention comes in three forms
“’A great date will contain variety, vitality, and attention in a style the other person wants.’”
Romantic Ideas
To obtain ideas to get you onto a good footing to grow your love, please visit the Romantic Ideas topic. We recommend you glean through and use that, which will help you to grow your love for each other.
Lastly, on this issue, here’s a portion of what Pastor Mark at Mars Hill Downtown Bellevue said in a sermon titled, “Friends with Benefits.” It’s something for you to prayerfully consider:
“People may fall out of repentance, but they don’t fall out of love. God tells us we can love our enemies. How? Because love doesn’t begin with or emanate from us; God is love. Even when we’re not feeling particularly friendly toward our spouse, we can still love them with the love that God gives.”
Wish
I/we wish new and true love could be infused into your spouse’s heart for you. We also wish love could develop instantly in your heart for your spouse! Unfortunately, learning to love again and anew, takes more than hopes and wishes. It takes intentionality to learn what God can and will teach to those who are willing to participate.
Steve and I can’t do much more for you than what we offer in this article and on this web site. But what we can do is point you to the One who can renew your hope. We encourage you to believe that this is not the end of the world for you. The Lord can bind up your broken heart and bring healing. He can help in ways you may not be able to imagine.
In Closing
I would like to share something with you that is written in Stormie Omartian’s book, Praying Through the Deeper Issues of Marriage
You can’t MAKE your spouse participate in your marriage in the way he or she should. But you can ask God to keep your heart, mind and focus centered on doing things His way. You can ask Him to give you peace of mind in the process.
When you don’t feel in love, here’s a prayer:
“LORD I COME BEFORE YOU. I cast all my cares at Your feet, knowing that You care for me (1 Peter 5:7). I thank You that Your plans for me are for a good future filled with peace and hope (Jeremiah 29:11). Help me to remember that no matter what is happening in my marriage, You will never leave or forsake me.
“Lord, I confess as sin any time I have felt hopeless about my situation. Your Word says that ‘hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when desire comes, it is a tree of life’ (Proverbs 13:12). When time passes for so long and I see no change, I feel heartsick and hopeless. But I confess any hopelessness I have to You. You have said that whatever doesn’t come from faith is sin (Romans 14:23). It reveals that my faith in Your power to change things is weak. Please help me to not hesitate to hope again out of fear that I will be disappointed. I commit to trusting in You at all times. I pour out my heart before You, knowing You are my God of refuge (Psalm 62:8).
Heavenly Father:
“Help me to become a child —entirely dependent upon You. I know that this is the safest place I can be. I pray that You would ‘search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting’ (Psalm 139:23-24). Enable me to become all I need to be.
“In the midst of challenges in my marriage I say, ‘Be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by’ (Psalm 57:1).
“We may suffer at times in this marriage because of things one of us has done or not done. Yet I know that You are ‘able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us’ (Ephesians 3:20-21). I will be strong and take heart because my hope is in You (Psalm 31:24).
“Thank You that You put my tears in Your bottle (Psalm 56:8). I pray that You would give me ‘beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness’ (Isaiah 61:1-3). Make me to be a pillar of righteousness for Your glory. Help me to not cease my ‘work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.’ I know You can change everything in my life (1 Thessalonians 1:3). In Jesus’ name I pray.”
Cindy Wright of Marriage Missions International wrote this article.
Filed under: Save My Marriage
An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a co-worker who was doing a little research on this. And he actually ordered me dinner because I found it for him…
lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanx
for spending time to talk about this issue here on your blog.
Please say a prayer for me! My wife has told me that she is not in love with me anymore! I think she is seeing someone else and giving him a lot of her money! I feel so helpless as she keeps her cell phone away from me and is always angry with me even when I’m nice to her! After 23 years she is like another person! Please give me strength, God! I’ve always been a faithful husband and treated her great but I hurt my back and was laid up for a while and she got lonely. I’m in a lot of emotional pain right now! Please, I need all the prayers to help me get through this!
Hi Bro… God can do a lot for you… if you just keep praying for all good things for her (and her lover) …God will do the right thing for you, but your heart will surely be at peace… God bless you, Malou
Thank you! I found out that my wife was texting what she thought was a younger man but turned out to be a scammer! He took her for 65 thousand dollars! I’m so angry, but more at the scammers! God will surely send them to hell! I joined a church to help me get through this and help me get closer to God. The funny thing about all of this is the church I joined sends missionaries to your country to help people with medical care and other things. Thank you and take care my friend.
For 8 months my husband would go to work and then go to shop. He didn’t come home til 1 or 2 in morning every single day. I would call and beg him to come home. He still wouldn’t. He said I fussed at him for everything. So I left my husband and was planning on going back the next week. My daughter had some trouble with her child’s dad. She called cops and made him leave. So I had planned on staying for 30 days and return home. In that time, I knew he had been doing drugs and been going thru health issues. And then he told me he wasn’t in love with me. I told him you can’t just throw 29 years away. He said it’s over.
In our first 10 years we both cheated. The last 19, I haven’t cheated. I’m not sure he hasn’t. We’ve had a lot of heated arguments. In those I would tell him that I hated him and I didn’t love him. Those words have come back to haunt me.
I’ve begged, pleaded and about had a nervous breakdown. I told him I would go to counseling, get a job, and do whatever it took. I just wanted to try. He still insisted that he wasn’t in love with me. He told me he was pushing me away before I even left. I told him I was sorry for everything I had ever said or done to him. I needed him to understand this. He also said in time maybe he could love me again. But how can he while we are apart?
Tomorrow he will find out results from tests he’s had. He said he doesn’t want pity from me or anyone else. I said it’s out of love and if you are sick, then I want to be there for you. We talked and I mean we really communicated. We had never done this before. I said well, if we did then we probably wouldn’t be here.
I am asking for any advice and prayers for us. I really do love him with all my heart. It’s hard to see my life without him.
My husband and I are a young married couple. He’s 29 and I’m 25 and we’ve been married for 2 years now. We have 2 children together, which were my first but he has 5 kids in total of which the 3 come from 3 different mothers… I love my husband but I don’t think I’m still in love with him. We’ve been together for almost 11 years. We are high school sweethearts. Please advise. I’m mainly thinking of my kids but this marriage has gotten so selfish, I don’t even feel like a part of his life anymore.
I have been confiding in God and asking for his help to rekindle our romance of 16 years and our marriage of 12. This article has encouraged me to keep the faith. Thank you.
My husband says he loves me but he’s not in love with me anymore, what do I do?
Thanks for the article and the prayers…it was very insightful. I have been struggling for a long time now on what’s next in my marriage. I am leaning on prayer, journaling, and honest communication with my spouse but I’m still so uncertain. Through church, reading books, and reading blogs, I am learning that desire in the early stages of a relationship is what lights the flame and duty in a marriage keeps the flame going. I also read in a book written by a marriage counselor that in order to save your marriage couples felt as though they had to get the ‘in love’ feeling back.
My challenge is that I never had the deep connection with my spouse. I was never in love and lacked the romantic desire from the beginning of my marriage. We met and I became pregnant within the first year of our relationship. We waited to get married and then had additional children. So I am strugging with the comittment I made to my spouse and now my children.
I’m trying to open my heart to falling in love but it’s not happening. We became very distant over the last few years and over the last two years, I prepared myself to move on and end my marriage. I was very surprised the feeling was not mutual. Now that I’ve communicated that to my spouse, a lot of changes have been made on both parts but yet I don’t have the desire to be intimate. I feel as though it is not fair to either person because intimacy is important.
How long do I continue to try and see if ‘in love’ can come? It’s like I’m married to my best friend but at the end of the night I want to go to my own room. It’s such a difficult situation to be in and the guilt of breaking the family unit apart is gut-wrenching. Any comments are welcome.
We can all thank the liberals and the anti-men for this! Not to mention the anti-Christians and all the other who want to get rid of God’s people in our country! It’s too easy to lie cheat and discard your spouse like yesterday’s garbage! Maybe someday people will wake up before it’s too late to screw up their lives!
Thanks, I enjoyed reading your article. I’ve heard those dreaded words “I love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore” and it’s quite painful. I’m in the midst of these issues. We’re separated and live in different states and now that my feelings for him are clearer than ever and our son needs us, he’s decided to move on and has just begun dating someone. We have a 4 yr old son that misses him. I want our family back together. I’ll pray and continue to work on myself and become a better person.
I’m a 28 year old female and I’m not married but in a serious relationship that is only a few months in. I cycle through feelings of falling in and out of love on a daily basis. My boyfriend is the all around best man I’ve ever had in my life and it’s bewildering to have these bouts of coldness, hardness, and indifference come over me when I ask myself the question of “do I love him?” These are the things you wrote that helped me the most:
” Love is both a noun and a verb. “Love is something we articulate in the vocabulary of ACTION. It’s not a feeling you get from another PERSON; it’s an experience you receive as a result of DEEDS YOU DO for another person.
I learned that sometimes, even though the feelings of love were not there, I still needed to be loving in my actions and eventually the feelings would come along for the ride.”
Hello and thank you so much for this article I truly wish every married couple will read this and take it to heart. Please I would like to share a bit about my situation and possibly here any comments.
My wife and I have been together for 15 years and we have 3 children together years are 8, 8, & 7 I also have a 16 yr old from a previous engagement (never married before). About 6 years ago I had an affair and it lasted about 3 months while I was traveling for work. She didn’t have to snoop around about it; one night I told her and I apologized and promised to never do it again (I knew in my heart I couldn’t live a lie and couldn’t lie to my wife or God).
While we tried to reconcile and I was still lost she went to counseling through her work at the time (she is a nurse) and she asked me to go and I stupidly said no – I still had too much pride and I guess I was not broken enough to see the light, since then she has chatted with a few guys online or through text 2 times which almost ended us because she did start getting feelings for those other guys.
Over the years we have had a fight about once a year where she is ready to leave and brings up my affair as ammo against me and it kills me every time. Currently she says she loves me but not in love with me and wants to separate. She really seems determined this time and has been chatting with a few other guys on facebook and other games through facebook she was trying to hide it from me but I searched her phone and found “I love you babe” “I love you too baby; I can’t wait to hear your voice, it so soothing” from both parties. I don’t like the feeling of looking at her phone and I will not do it anymore because 1. its an invasion of privacy and 2. I don’t like how I feel afterward but I need her to tell me the truth as well.
I loved your article and how it talks about just staying the course and that is what I plan on doing but at the same time I really want our family together and not to split up because the kids are seriously going to be affected by it and she knows that and even agrees with me that we don’t want to put the 3 kids through what my oldest has gone through. It’s very tough knowing she is so confused and lost and I can’t help to bring her back to reality; she is letting so many other “outside influences” cloud her judgment.
Is there anyway for me to show the true man I am without coming off as pushing? I guess thats my biggest problem I want/need to show her the true man I am and that we still have this great strong connection to build on top of but everything I seem to do comes off as pushing and thats honestly the last thing I want to do. Any advice would be most appreciated. Thank you for all your words and work on this story it really does give hope.
When someone says “I love you but I’m not in love with you,” they are usually having an affair. Even if they are not, the solution is to restore the feelings of love. These feelings don’t just “come and go.” They come in certain circumstances, and they go in other circumstances. A marriage needs to be lived in such a way that the circumstances produce the feeling of love. That’s quite easy to maintain after the right habits have been learned.
I don’t think that the person who is out of love should be belittled or told that they are being nonsensical, or be guilted into staying married – not when it is so easy to recreate the feelings of romantic love! If there is an affair, that absolutely HAS to be ended in order to recreate the feelings of romantic love, but creating the feeling of love is a well-understood and defined, scientific process.
I disagree with calling people’s feelings “nonsensical.” That is disrespectful. When people who are married make disrespectful judgments about each other’s feelings like that, that is one of the things that results in the loss of the feeling of romantic love. If you are married and reading this article, it would be best not to take such a sentence back to your spouse, if you want to restore that feeling.
My husband just told me that the other night. I have a strong feeling he’s having an affair. He’s in the military and got deployed a few years ago. Back then, he already told me he wants a divorce but I begged him to go to counseling with me. I begged him because our child was still so young then. My husband went to counseling with me. Those were dark times but we went and worked on our marriage. I felt we’ve come a long way and then, two years ago, he started getting “restless” again. Then instead of taking us with him when he got an assignment out of the country, he refused, saying he didn’t want our child’s education disrupted. So we stayed here in the U.S. He returned here last week. He just told me he wants us finished. Now. Now I know how it feels to be in an ocean of pain. I can’t sleep, and feeling so weak. Help me o God!
I gotta say, I was just sitting around and googled this phrase, “How to tell you are not in love anymore?” I have been with a woman for 2 1/2 years now. We both had just gone through some pretty harsh marriages in which we both had spouses who had affairs on us and left us for those affairs. So we were pretty broken. I never had Christ in my life, but He found me as a result of my trial. She always had Christ in her life and leaned on Him often.
She was a nursing student and had two teenaged kids, while I was retired and had, at the time, a 5 yr. old from my previous marriage. We started going out and things of course were great. She motivated me to go to law school and so we were both going to school. But I noticed that in her last semester of nursing school, she became very hostile at everyone, including me. She was quick triggered and just yelling all the time. I would in turn, turn up the words and we would argue, often times about dumb stuff that had no winners. She would bring up past issues, I would bring up past issues and ultimately, it would end with a so let’s just break it off. Things would go good for a week or so, then an argument would occur again.
Well, this week is her final week of school. She sent one of her kids away for the week so she can rest and study. I’m studying myself making every excuse to stay away from her, and luckily, she is interning at night so we don’t have to see her in the day because she is sleeping. I’m just tired. I feel like I don’t need a woman who is going to love me like this. I do see myself as giving “CONDITIONAL” love however, but I just can’t help it. I just don’t want to be yelled at, disrespected, and then contributing in an argument where I say things that I can’t take back. I came from a relationship like that, why would I want to go back to it?
I hear you Elisabeth. I’ve been trying to feel something for 5 years of a 6 year marriage and am contemplating throwing in the towel.
I was never in love but liked her companionship and good-hearted nature. I met her while working in Asia and everything was exiting, novel and exotic. I actually thought if we treated each other well I would fall in love with her later. Now we’re so far apart on intimacy, (nothing in 5 years) I’m dying inside for a connection to someone. When I bring this up she says we’ll be old soon and then it won’t matter.
I love her dearly as a friend or sister and can’t bear to hurt her. But I can’t go on. I’m grateful we have no children.
I’ve been trying to feel something for 6 years of a 6 year marriage and am contemplating throwing in the towel. I’m not having an affair but I’m sure beginning to notice other women. I will not do anything because I’ve been on the other side.
I was never in love but liked her companionship and good-hearted nature. I was single for 11 years before meeting her and very lonely. I met her while working in Asia and everything was exiting, novel and exotic. I actually thought if we treated each other well I would fall in love with her later. Now we’re so far apart on intimacy, (nothing in 5 years) I’m dying inside for a connection to someone. When I bring this up she says we’ll be old soon and then it won’t matter.
We treat each other very well and lovingly but share no interests or even have interesting conversations. I love her dearly as a friend or sister and can’t bear to hurt her. I’m thinking I made a huge mistake in marrying. But how long do I need to stay at this? I’m grateful we have no children.