The Process Of Falling Out Of Love

[AugustSnow]

I know there are reasons why we fall out of love with someone we are with. What is your experience in terms of falling out of love. What are the first things you do in the beginning stages of falling out of love? What was the final thing you did before you left the relationship (if you did). I know everyone goes about falling out of love differently. This inquiring mind wants to know.

[carhill]

I told my exW in MC that it happened one day at a time and told her precisely why, because she was, IMO, purposely ignoring me at the macro level, markedly after I started caregiving. By ignoring me, I mean not acknowledging my presence or any communication. After about two years of it, she was pretty much dead in my eyes.

[Blanco]

For me, it was also a slow process. She had always jokingly been critical of me, but it was light-hearted and clearly came from a place of endearment. As time went on, these criticisms seemed based more on (to her, genuine) flaws or failings with a lot less of that *wink, wink* tone. It got to a point where it felt like she didn't respect me, thought I did most things wrong or poorly, and just had a general void of appreciation for my presence in her life. After a while, it beat me down and I stopped putting in as much effort, which of course, only made things worse.

 

I still care about her, maybe even love her as a person, but I fell out of love with her a long time before it finally ended.

[Meli22]

My ex pretty much fell out of love with me for no reason. Obviously there will be a reason, but he never did tell me. He just said he didn't know why, and that I was perfect for him and hadn't done anything wrong. That's the worst thing sometimes because it makes you doubt yourself and wonder if you weren't good enough. He kept me on a string for months of his cold behaviour/waiting to see if his feelings came back whilst I was doing all I could to keep us together and try to make him happy again. I finally had enough and walked away. He didn't see that coming. I don't care what his reasons are now though, I know I can do so much better. I'm actually surprised it wasn't me who fell outta love with him!

[xpaperxcutx]

People fall out of love for different reasons. From personal experience, I do know my ex fell out of love because of my behavior. At the time, I treated him really badly and disrespected his family (particularly his mother). Sometimes there are thresholds a person can never cross with another person, and once that line is croseds, it's impossible for people to look at you the same.

 

I own up to my faults, and I understand how my ex didn't see a future with me and thus decided to move on with someone. At the time of the breakup, when everything was still raw and fresh, I couldn't understand why he fell out of life, but given time, it's now easier to see things from his perspective.

 

From my standpoint, I was very deeply in love with him too. It took me over 8 months to move on. Even now, my mind sometimes wanders back to thoughts of him, but given the fact that I've remained in NC and focused on myself, my love has also dissipated too.

 

Love is a very strange thing. Sometimes being in close proximity to someone, to share everything with that one person, a bond is formed. But time and distance can also break that bond. Which can explain why LDR never work for certain people.

 

Love is not unconditional, unless it's between a parent and a child or between family. But even then, love still has its limits.

 

When two people fall out love what happens is that you either hate the person so much it becomes a process of deliberately trying to forget your SO. The way I see it, its a process. Its a matter of something of the other person you fully dislike or can never tolerate again that makes the falling out of love easier. Which is why from a dumpee standpoint, when a dumper initiates breakup first, that love has already become either dislike, hate or indifference.

[thejabberwocky]

I'm still in love with my most current ex, but I remember well the exact moment I fell out of love with my last ex.

 

We'd been together 2 years, including him cheating on me, and me taking blame for it and taking him back. It was pathetic, to be honest. I still cringe at the thought of how weak I was.

 

I always wondered what our relationship would have been like, if he was open and honest and tried harder. Well, our second time around, he was all of those things... but I realized that I had lost so much respect for him it didn't really matter. He wasn't a very considerate person over all. The last time I saw him, we went to a party together. He threw a literal tantrum in front of our friends because he wanted to leave (it was like 9:30PM) and it was very embarrassing. I didn't even say anything, I just agreed to leave. But I thought in my head "This is the last time he's going to manipulate me this way."

 

I never even really broke up with him. I just never answered his calls again. It was brutal for sure, but considering he cheated on me, I didn't have a lot of sympathy. I just could never move past it. It was hard to stop talking to him at first. He didn't even try very hard in the beginning. Then a month into NC, he freaked out. He called me 75 times in one day, sending me crazy texts like his dad has cancer (lie) or he was in an accident (lie), trying to get me to respond. It was so obvious he was trying to manipulate me yet again, and at that moment, I was so repulsed by him. I literally had no feelings left. I finally saw him as he was, and not the romanticized version of him in my head.

 

That was over 6 years ago now, and still to this day, although he's had many girlfriends since (all of which he's cheated on - we grew up in a small town, so I still hear about him quite often from family), about once a year he will try to get in contact with me. It's always a reason that is extremely manipulative and usually a lie. I don't respond but he still hasn't stopped trying. I definitely dodged a bullet and I'm so grateful for my strength to walk away and go into NC. If I hadn't, I may have never seen the person he truly is.

[ByMyself01]

On One occasion, I fell out of love with my ex before the last one, the first step I knew I fell out of love with him was when everything he did annoyed me, the second step was when I felt happier when I was away from him and the last step is when I no longer wanted to have sex with him and could sleep comfortably in the bed by myself.

 

Now on the flip side, this is how I knew my last ex was falling out of love with me: First, he pretty much stopped talking to me on the phone like we used to and he deleted me from his Facebook and NEVER added me back again, then he started to not care about me when I was away, never asked about my day, the last and final way I knew he fell out of love with me was when he stopped spending time with me. It hurts really bad, but I will never convince him to love me again. And during the midst of it all, he was trying to find other girls to be with and I think he found someone to fill the void I used to fill and I can bet that's how his feelings started changing. Oh yeah, in the final stage he stopped telling me he loves me I would always have to say it first and he never said "I love you too" he would say "love you" and I would have to start the conversations first everytime.

[Meli22]

I found myself asking why my ex stopped loving me so much after I left him and I can sort of pinpoint why, despite him not being able to tell me himself. My ex always assumed the worst of me. He was very insecure and paranoid which led him to be very controlling too. He always thought I was looking at other men, being sneaky on my phone, flirting with other guys when he wasn't around. I couldn't glance in a direction once without him starting an argument about me checking someone out. He'd accuse me of looking at men and when I couldn't recall who he meant (because I wasn't looking at them), he'd then turn the argument into me being a liar.

 

On our first 2 week holiday to the Caribbean, he started an argument pretty much everyday (that lasted the whole day) about someone I'd apparently checked out. Even if guys looked at me, it was my fault. He argued that I put sun cream on too seductively, that my bikinis were too revealing (they were regular bikinis). I couldn't look out at the ocean without him accusing me of looking at another man! I had bought myself lovely new dressed and outfits but couldn't wear them because if they showed off an inch of my shape he wasn't happy. I found myself wearing the same few outfits during the holiday - loose fitting, floaty clothes. He would go hours/whole days without speaking to me. I'd get into the pool and he'd swim away from me and get out. All because of how he thought I was. He'd batter my self esteem and say my stomach looked a little fat (I was relaxing on holiday, of course I didn't have abs from all of the food and drink!) and would say I "needed attention" and had daddy issues. I truly believed I was an awful girlfriend.

 

It wasn't just the holiday, he was like that our whole relationship. I couldn't go to family gatherings with him because he'd accuse me of checking out his male family members. I was on egg shells constantly. When I went to the gym he'd ask me to tie my jacket around my waist so guys couldn't see the shape of my butt. I worked in a gym and he had issues with that too, he thought id probably be flirting with gym members. He'd hound me and interrogate me about my past, how many guys I'd slept with, where, how it happened. But he wouldn't tell me any of his. The list is endless. It got to the point where I doubted myself so much I became a shell. I hated myself because I believed every word he said; I believed he was the better partner and I wasn't good enough.

 

I went off a little there sorry, but that was just my opinion of maybe why he fell out of love; he couldn't relax and just be. He couldn't live in the moment. Everything was a worry. I'd get texts daily about a "worry" that he had in his head about me. He ruined my whole birthday because he started an argument because he had pictured me being flirty at work (he'd never seen me at work, nor did he have any evidence that I was flirting). So yeah.. He couldn't just enjoy what we had without assuming the worst. We would waste whole days off together when I would have liked to of gone out and done something, just watching TV. Whenever I suggested new things, he'd argue that they were stupid ideas. He was pretty selfish in that sense. We spent so much time just watching TV that our spark went (another out of love theory) and he wasn't willing to try anything to fix it. Instead he pushed me away and complained everyday. Also, as he was falling out of love his accusations became SO much more worse. He told me he thought id be seeking attention and affection elsewhere because I wasn't getting it from him. Not true, I just desperately wanted some love from him.

 

He had this image in his head of me which was completely untrue. People are shocked when I tell them. Every other relationship I've been in, the guys always said they appreciated how loyal I was to them. I'm also quite reserved and definitely don't seek attention. So I guess I'm saying that his image of me in his head probably told him I was no good. It's sad really but also a blessing. If that didn't happen id probably still be with him, my esteem being flattened even more and the controlling getting even worse. I was too blind to see any of this whilst we were together. He'd always remind me that being this way created a "pure and special relationship"

Edited September 12, 2015 by Meli22