Fiance claims she loves me but does not feel "in love" with me anymore

[EHen1990]

After 2 and 1/2 years of something I can only sum up as absolutely amazing, my fiance broke up with me last night and claimed that it was because, for five months now, she has felt a distance from me and that she felt like she was no longer in love with me. She assured me several times that she ultimately loved me, but she felt like that spark was no longer there and that she has tried to get it back but it just won't return. I am nothing short of devastated. She is the most perfect girl I have ever met and seems to be perfectly molded for me. We were so in love....I have no clue what happened. I knew something was wrong for months and I constantly tried to talk to her about it, even asking her if she still enjoyed our relationship, and she always assured me everything was okay and that she loved me. Ultimately, she just chalked it up to being so busy with work and school. The whole time she was telling me all of this, she balled her eyes out and kept telling me that I was the best and most perfect guy she had ever known and that I deserved much better than her. She told me that, since we met, she was totally head over heels in love with me, but around October, she just felt like something had changed. More importantly, that was around the time I proposed to her. More than anything, she constantly pressured me to propose. It wasn't like I didn't want to do it, it's just that I wanted to wait until I felt both of us were ready, but I was scared she would get discouraged if I didn't eventually propose....so I did. It was afterwards that she started acting so strange. As well, her whole family has commitment issues and she kept telling me that she is afraid she is the same way. She told me that, throughout this time, she has been discussing our relationship with her family, which I think is honestly horrible, because that is only going to reinforce her already negative feelings. More than anything, I cannot imagine my life without her. I have been through break ups before. Believe me, I know the drill. It's just, this is so devastating....she is so absolutely perfect for me and I still am so in love with her. I want to fight for her so bad but I don't want to pressure her. I am just so afraid of permanently losing her and I am not about to be ready to let that happen, but I also know that I can't manipulate her and pressure her to come back to me. What bothers me is that, she never sat down and tried to work things out....she just gave up so quickly and that is not like her to do such a thing. Due to that, I don't know what is fueling her feelings but I feel like it ultimately has to do with her being afraid. Today I told her that I loved her more than anything and that I always will but she needed her alone time and that I realized that. I just can't deal with not having her. What do I do?

[Chi townD]

She gave you the "ILYBINILWY" speech. She states that you're perfect in every way ( then, why leave something so perfect?). She says that you deserve someone better (guilt about something). Became distant towards you and you can't figure out why.

 

Sorry dude, she was/is cheating on you. The signs are there.

[Pisces13]

This sounds almost exactly like the spiel my ex gave me (we just broke up 3 weeks ago), the only difference is we weren't engaged, and she didn't tell me I deserved someone better, but she did say that I was the perfect boyfriend an all that other stuff.

 

I don't think you can say she was/is cheating, perhaps she just got cold feet, or the more she thought about marriage she started to panic. How old are you guys? And has she only ever been with you? Or does she have "life experience" under her belt? Has she been going out socializing and partying etc. more lately? I'm thinking this might be a case of G.I.G.S.

 

I think you really just need to talk about it more with her, keep calm and collected and just tell her to be open and honest with you about everything.

[Limbo21]

I'm sorry for the heartbreak man, it's gonna be tough. I agree with chi-town. They are the signals

[siankat]

Don't worry about losing her permanently

 

I have had enough experience to know that when you are deeply involved with someone, those feelings don't ever really go away so give her her space, could be years so get on with your life.

 

Experience: two exes who came back wanting to try again, one after 4 years the other after 2 years. And everyone i know who has had an ex try and get back after a long time and a what seemed like final breakup at the time.

 

Let the dust settle. You will force nothing good (ie nothing that u want) now.

 

Have the long breath, be courageous to step into the unfamiliar, and start with baby steps

[TaraMaiden]

This is bunkum....

 

Don't worry about losing her permanently

 

I have had enough experience to know that when you are deeply involved with someone, those feelings don't ever really go away so give her her space, could be years so get on with your life.

Yeah - but with the aim of not staying sad, alone and single in that time!!

 

Experience: two exes who came back wanting to try again, one after 4 years the other after 2 years

 

And....?

What happened in those two instances?

 

. And everyone i know who has had an ex try and get back after a long time and a what seemed like final breakup at the time.

 

And....? What happened to the majority of those?

 

 

Have the long breath, be courageous to step into the unfamiliar, and start with baby steps

 

Yup.

Move on.

If she's no longer in Love with you, believe me, please: As a woman.

Those feelings don't return, ever.

Not even to the same intensity.

 

And if she comes back, please realise - it will probably be because she has been dumped and she needs the familiar for comfort.

 

IF a reconciliation is on the cards further down the line, it will need a lot of work and commitment to ensure there's no 'lather, rinse, repeat' scenario.

Besides, by then, you may no longer be in a position to take her back, or even want to if you could.....

[siankat]

@ Tara Maiden

 

In all the instances the people who came back after a long period were rebuffed.

 

Even though feelings run so high and strong, when the dust settles. we really move on, realise we can not just survive but enjoy life without that person, that when they come back, we can assess that opportunity from a relatively emotionless place but with a more 'do i want to go for another round'.

 

Even if the relationship was perfect from one persons point of view, the fact that the other person ended things is a huge bad point in the relationship itself.

 

E.g. one of the guys i valued, was attracted to and liked most in my life didn't want me and in the end i was like yeah he was amazing but had one fatal flaw...he didn't like me

[TaraMaiden]

@ Tara Maiden

 

In all the instances the people who came back after a long period were rebuffed.

 

Exactly.

So frankly, your post sounds contradictory.

On the one hand, you seem to be advising the OP to not give up hope, she may change her mind, just hang in there - and yet you state that all those who came back did so pointlessly.

 

Even though feelings run so high and strong, when the dust settles. we really move on, realise we can not just survive but enjoy life without that person, that when they come back, we can assess that opportunity from a relatively emotionless place but with a more 'do i want to go for another round'.

So what you're saying in a nutshell is - forget it, move on, get on with your life, get over the ex- because in time, you'll see you didn't need them anyway....?

 

 

Even if the relationship was perfect from one persons point of view, the fact that the other person ended things is a huge bad point in the relationship itself.

E.g. one of the guys i valued, was attracted to and liked most in my life didn't want me and in the end i was like yeah he was amazing but had one fatal flaw...he didn't like me

And that's exactly (more or less) what's happened here.

She loves him - but clearly not enough, or in the right way, to persevere with the relationship. So there's no point in flogging a dead horse, is there?

 

So basically, what you're telling the OP is to detach and move on. He will heal and realise there are other better, bigger and more worthy fish in the sea. This one - ain't it.

 

Gotcha, thank you.

 

 

Ehen1990, Read the No Contact (updated 2013) Guide in my signature.

It's the first post I advise you focus on.

The remainder is a threadful of contributions from those who harboured wishes to rekindle or reconnect.

 

And a further word - do NOT, whatever you do, fall for the 'let's still be friends' crap.

[siankat]

A lot of anxiety comes from thinking we can't have what we want...

and i think u misunderstood my comment

 

I said that from experience people who walked away, often times have come back but that the person who felt or was rebuffed in the first place, is at a different place from the one they were in of initial break up stress. That person makes the decision on whether to reconnect with someone from the past, from a new place. And from what i've seen, and experienced, people don't want to go back to the position they were in where it led to rejection once they have already moved on. So what i'm saying is, the person who originally posted may not want his ex back in the future even if given the chance but i believe it's worth moving on in the meantime but not to stress out with thinking 'all hope is gone'. Life is suprisingly circular sometimes...not always linear, in lots of ways.

 

Hope that clarifies 8)

[EHen1990]

I think, more than anything else, she is going through a really emotional and confusing time in her life. She is 20 and I am going on 23. She just started college, I am graduating, she is planning on transferring, I have no plans to leave where I'm currently at. More than anything, since her second year in college, which started around October. Since then, we have both been extremelh overwhelmed at school and work. Be barely found anytime to spend with each other. Thats when everything started going downhill. I think, more than anything, she realized love was more than just this magical being that always stuck around no matter what, but that, no matter what, love is something you have to constantly work on. I believe she realizes that me and her both do not currently have the time to do that, so I feel like she just simply gave up instead of trying to stay and chance hurting me more in the long run. I want to talk to her so bad and tell her we don't have to put such an emotional strain in our relatiinship, which I believe only came up when marriage was set in stone. I just don't want to lose her....not like thia. Not when I feel we haven't said everything we need to say.

[siankat]

write down everything u wud wanna say to her, read it back to urself and see how it sounds. u might get some clarity out of that.

[Mack05]

The 'I Love you but I'm not in love' with you has to be one of the most used and cliched breakup speeches..The Urban directory describes this as....

 

"A Phrase used exclusively by shallow self-absorbed individuals who actually have no concept of what it means to love or be loved. Their hearts are vacant and usually associate sex not with a deeply emotional or spiritual experience but rather purely a physical and transient act involving no emotion. Such individuals are limited in both intellect and in normal socialization skills. People who use this overused cliche usually suffer from a combination of schizotypal disorder and sociopathy. A catch-all phrase when the person doing the dumping knows there is no reason for the relationship to end, other than for purely selfish reasons of wanting to pursue sexual relations with other individuals outside of the current relationship"

 

Just google the phrase and look at the amount of hits you get. Many of those hits refer to a 3rd party probably being involved as Chicago alleviated above.

 

One of the google hits points to this book -> I Love You, but I'm Not IN Love with You: Seven Steps to Saving Your Relationship. I have never read it, but maybe you might want to have read?

[EHen1990]

First of all, I am entirely confident that she is not cheating on me. Before me, her ex boyfriend had cheated on her and she caught him. It broke her heart and she broke up with him because of it. She knows how it feels and me and her have had extensive conversations discussing cheating and why it should never be acceptable. However, I certainly do bekieve that she is scared of such serious commitment at and early age and, more than anything, I feel that she is gravely afraid she will end up like her mother, who has been through three failed marriages. I think she thinks all of this, including me, is too good to be true. I also believe that the whole "I love you but I'm not in love with you" statement is a simple copout to simply not deal with straight up telling me that we need to take time apart to live our lives and pursue things that we want. No part of me thinks this is over but I just wish she wasn't so confused....I wish she would talk to me about it.

[Mack05]

First of all, I am entirely confident that she is not cheating on me.

 

I'm not talking about necessarily cheating. I believe someone else has caught her eye and she probably wants to explore that, or she wants to sow some oats. It's one or the other..

 

No part of me thinks this is over but I just wish she wasn't so confused....

 

If you are thinking like this you will come crashing down to earth with a HUGE wallop. She is 20, her mother has 3 failed marriages. This is a train wreck waiting to happen if she does come back. You are both way too emotionally immature to make this work long term.

 

Look at the stats these days of college/high school sweethearts lasting the course. They are rarer then hen teeth. Sadly my friend you will probably have to go through 2 or 3 of these before breakups before meeting the girl you spend the rest of your life with. You are too emotional to understand what I am telling you right now, but one day it will make sense.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Mack05

[EHen1990]

After a couple days of taking time to recover, listenening to friends' advice, and also looking at this realistically, I can definitely say I'm on a better page now. I have decided to use this time for myself, to live my life and do the thinga that I want to do. With all of the stress piling up in both of our lives, I know that I can't handle a serious relationship at this time either. While I do love her and I want to be with her, I still realize that, during this time apart, if she decides that she indeed does not miss me enough to come back and that she didn't really love me like she said, then it was not meant to be and there Is ultimately nothing that I or anyone else can do to change that. Just gotta move on and pursue other things.I stipp want to hope things will work out but I still understand that the chances are slim and even if ahe comes back, i don't know if I could take her back. There are several scenarios to how this happened: she lost interest, she felt trapped, she got scared, stress became too much....or it could have just been all. While I certainly believe we could have worked things out, that takes both people and, sadly, we weren't on the same page. Thank you all for the help and advice.