How does "falling out of love" feel like???

[exback]

Just curious. How does it work and how does it feel? My ex left me after 4 years together and the last 1 maybe 2 years together he didn't like kissing me/touching me and talked to me as if I am totally stupid, was disrespectful, didn't like spending time with me and so on and so on. I am not talking about cheating or something like that (I never did). But what do the exes feel (sometimes) prior to ending a relationship.

He was so in love with me the first year together and asked me to marry him. I did love him till the end so I want to know how "falling out of love" feels and what kind of feelings you have for your partner after you fell out of love?

[WomanWriter]

Just curious. How does it work and how does it feel? My ex left me after 4 years together and the last 1 maybe 2 years together he didn't like kissing me/touching me and talked to me as if I am totally stupid, was disrespectful, didn't like spending time with me and so on and so on. I am not talking about cheating or something like that (I never did). But what do the exes feel (sometimes) prior to ending a relationship.

He was so in love with me the first year together and asked me to marry him. I did love him till the end so I want to know how "falling out of love" feels and what kind of feelings you have for your partner after you fell out of love?

 

For me, it's not about butterflies, it's about trust. I knew I loved my ex when I felt comfortable with him and like he was my very best friend. I felt attracted to him but that was only one part of it. I also admired him and felt like a "team." I felt like he was my "home." That's how I knew.

[exback]

That's exactly the way I felt about him. He was my "home". But for him I think it was different - once the butterflies were gone he treated me TOTALLY different and started to criticize my behaviour and I was sooo uninteresting for him in the end.

[bungalo]

Love is more than just feeling. I think some people are "newaholics." After a year the newness fades, and they think..well...I guess it was fool's gold. If two people can hang in there and communicate and work through problems the intimacy grows..even if they're not the shiny penny anymore. Many many people (look at Hollywood Celebs) bolt after the romantic love phase and jump into the newbee's fresh arms....and then mix and repeat and on and on....Love is hanging in there...warts and all...

and, although it's not romantic sounding, I think it's WORK. But both

parties have to have the same relationship goal and remain a team.

[SULLY323]

I am in the same situation, but we were together 10 years. My wife did love me for a while, I am not sure when she "fell out of love" with me. the last year or two perhaps she seemed more stressed than usuall and often irritable, but I had no idea that she really was done with ME until the very end when she left. It's devistating, isn't it?

[lavenderdove]

'Falling out of love' is the catch all phrase for it, but what really happens is that at some point in time, the one partner starts to disconnect a little at a time, due to discontentment of some kind.

 

perhaps they decide they want a different identity, or that they are too young to marry, or that they see someone else they think they might like better, or they just get bored with the routine. But it starts with a little discontentment, that rather than working on fixing the problem with you, they decide to start to separate emotionally from you, build a new support system outside the relationship, and eventually leave.

 

And the actual leaving may be a long time after the beginning of the discontentment, a kind of two steps forward, one step back process. So they 'fall out of love' a little at a time, but a more accurate description of what is happening is that they make choices day after day to draw away from the relationship rather than try to mend the source of their discontent.

 

So it is more about detaching themselves a little at a time than any 'reverse' of love. Love is not just a feeling, it is a choice to stay with someone, and to do things that make you closer rather than things that distance you. So by the time they leave, they have really pulled away emotionally, and really checked out of the relationship a long time before they actually leave.

[DropToZero]

"Falling out of love" is a choice... just as much as love is a choice.

 

As someone detailed above, love is more than a feeling, so it doesn't feel like anything besides the possible pain of complete disconnection when it ends or is about to end.

 

If you let something/someone go, it's because you allowed it to get that way and didn't fight for it---whether it be your job, your money, your life, or even your wife or husband.

 

Love is really a choice even when there's no motivation to act on it.

 

One should realize that all feelings(unless you've got something I've never heard of before) fade--but not all will fade completely. To act like you could ride a roller coaster 200 times in a row 1 day at a time and think it's going to give you the same effect every time would be quite a foolish notion to believe... it will eventually not give you a rise. The feelings of infatuation are the same way, especially for most people in this disconnected age... you've got to fight to keep love alive even when it *feels* like it's not there.

 

What your partner felt was disconnected, unemotional, and uncaring. It's a choice to let things slip away, and it doesn't just happen all of a sudden(though the realization may happen *all of a sudden*). It takes time... and if one cannot realize that we as humans have this innate drive to "want more" and to realize that it cannot always be fulfilled by the things on this earth will help you to realize that being happy is not by achieving or gaining more, but by accepting what you have and being grateful for it.

 

If he wanted to go, there's rarely anything you could do to convince him otherwise unless he realizes how stupid he was for thinking a feeling will drive him all the way for life into marriage with you, you should be glad he did not marry you--or it would have ended likewise.

 

Do one thing though OP, don't become like him... it's a cold existence if it's taken too far, it's one thing to recognize feelings do drive us at times, but another to think they will always be there and that if they're not something is wrong.

[exback]

I think I do understand better now...I couldn't understand him since I never felt that I "fell out of love". My feelings did change a bit - of course they did after 4 years together - the excitement of the beginning was gone but it changed into trust and feeling comfortable with him and even so I knew he was not "perfect" (nobody is) I loved and accepted even his flaws. He couldn't accept that I wasn't the person he had imagined when we met and tried to change me till the end and all about me but nevertheless that was not enough. I could really feel that he was "out" in the end - he just disconnected in the end. But true - he could have changed that...

[stormie]

This is exactly what I believe in. In fact, when my husband of ten years suddenly left me (i came home and his things were gone, just like that) , I had to go see a psychologist, and he explained it to me just like Lavenderdove did.

 

Good post

[SULLY323]

So sad...... it could've worked out. with just a little more effort and commitment, so much pain could be avoided