Is it possible to love a person even if you don’t feel close to them?

Is it possible to love a person even if you don’t feel close to them? My bf of 8 months and I recently broke up after discovering that we don’t feel close to one another. It has been 3 days since the break up and I still feel very hurt and sad that it ended. He was a great guy and put in a lot of efforts. We were good up until 5 months when things kinda fizzled. Despite not feeling close and disconnected from him during the last 3 months leading up to our break up, I miss him a lot and still care for him very much and wished that we were closer with one another. We ended in good terms.

Why am I feeling this way if we didn’t feel close to one another? Am I unsure of my feelings for him and that I actually do love him but not realize it until after he’s gone? We never expressed to each other that we loved each other.

You feel the way you do because you just broke up with him. As time marches on, you'll feel less in love with him and then gradually, you won't love him anymore. You'll feel indifferent.

Love is a two way street. If it's not reciprocated habitually and since you've broken up, your love for him will fizzle and fade away. It's only a matter of time.

Eventually, he'll become a blur, out of sight, out of mind.

You may love him. Love its not as elusive as we tend to make it. It comes in many forms. But missing someone is not the tell tale sign of love.

Talking to him etc was a habit. And it makes total sense you miss him and catch yourself thinking of him, looking for his texts or whatever you guys did.

Think of it this way, have you ever changed jobs? And when you go to the new job, you find yourself thinking of what you should being at your old job. So you gotta grab those thoughts and redirect them to what you're currently doing.

You just gotta ride it out... don't let emotional, lonely thoughts get the best of you.... go hang out with some friends, do some retail therapy, hit the gym or clean out a closet.....

It is always sad when things end, but you know whether it was right or not... I went through similar feelings recently. it really comes down to the fact that I want a relationship, but not with that guy... and being bored does not change that. you know?

hang in there. this too shall pass.

The thing about love is that it's whatever a human being wants to call love. Whether you want to label what you're feeling right now or felt alongside him love—well, that is up to you. That's the beauty of it, and the mystery.

The other thing about love, however we chose to define it? It's not enough to make a relationship work, as people have proven, over and over, every day for millennia. Might be worth remembering that, a little keel as you ride these emotional waves.

What you're experiencing right now, from where I sit? It sounds like longing, a kind of mischievous cousin to love. Longing for love, longing for what could have been, or should have been, or, who knows, might still be possible. Potent stuff, that, sweet and sour. There are people who stay inside relationships solely out of longing for an idea of what that relationship might actually become as opposed to what it actually is.

A question worth asking: If you're only capable of feeling the most intense feelings about someone when they are gone, rather than next to you, what does that say about the connection?

Part of missing someone might be not so much about him exactly. But more about grieving the relationship, the time you invested into it, along with it's hopes and dreams.

When I missed someone years ago, what I missed most were the good times we had shared. Those good memories were difficult to reminisce. Then reality set in and I suddenly realized why the relationship dissolved. It was due to incompatibility, personality and character differences, gaslighting tricks, manipulation and the ugly side of discord. That reality check and logic set my brain straight. I knew I did the right thing by going our separate ways in order to save my sanity.