"Falling in love" versus "In love" versus "I love you"

[sandrawg]

I'm so confused right now because my bf broke up with me 2 days ago. We dated for about 6 months but were only serious the last 3. I let him pursue me, and he was the one who wanted a relationship...he first defined us as "boyfriend and girlfriend."

 

Unfortunately, he had just gotten out of an LDR where the girl treated him badly. I think he was a little scarred from that.

 

During our time together, we had some bumps because of the ex, and he said he was afraid to say the L word, because whenever he said it, the girl ended up leaving him. He said he wasn't sure he could say that to me. I was okay with that, because I felt like his actions spoke louder than words, anyway..he would do romantic things all the time, like cook me amazing dinners. When I told him my stuffed animals got taken away from me as a kid because of my allergies, he started buying me stuffed animals.

 

When I went out of town, he snuck into my house with a bouquet of flowers the night I arrived back, to surprise me.

 

End of December, we had some tension over his ex contacting him, and he sent me an email saying, he wanted to keep trying with me. That his head, and his heart, indicated it felt right.

 

New Year's Eve he told me "I'm falling in love with you." I was SO happy.

 

The next 3 weeks were great-we were happy. 2 things happened, tho that may have influenced him to break up with me. I sent him a very passionate love letter, and we had been making a lot of plans for the future. Not, marriage plans or the like. Just...going together to a friend's birthday party. Taking a couple of trips here and there (we had already taken one in November and had a blast.)

 

The only tension we really ever had in our relationship was that he could be somewhat flirtatious. But it never caused serious conflict.

 

2 nights ago, he told me I was awesome, but that he was unhappy. "The feelings aren't there." He said he started feeling resentment that I was trying to make so many plans for us.

 

He told me he thought we'd be better as friends. Strange, because..we never WERE "just friends." My feelings for him are too strong to do that.

 

My question is - what does "falling in love" mean, then? How can he say 3 wks later, "the feelings aren't there."

 

Does anyone have a clue what he meant by "falling in love" and how that could not mean, the feelings WERE there? Should I have expected this because he couldn't say "I love you"? Is "I love you" better than "I'm falling in love with you"??

 

I'm confused.

[BrianH46]

There are a lot of people on here who were dumped just days after their ex's said how much they love them and want to be together. Words are just that, words don't get confused by them and don't let your heart ache confuse you. If he wanted to be with you, you wouldn't be on this forum right now. Stay away from this guy, he seems immature and definitely has baggage.

[Batya33]

I think that none of these distinctions are issues when you are in a healthy romantic relationship - when the time comes to express loving feelings in words, there's no need for analysis or parsing of "are you in love, do you just love, are you just falling in love" because in a healthy relationship while the words are magical the actions of love -loving as giving -are so obvious that even though the words are thrilling there is an undercurrent of "of course he does/of course we love each other". I think the "better as friends" is one of those things people say to let someone else down easy. I don't think you want to hear about the other women he will be pursuing so you can't really be friends.

I think he did some really nice things for you in the beginning. I think actions over a longer period of time -the better part of a year- tell more of an accurate story about the depth of the feelings.

[OptomisticGirl]

Batya said perfectly what I was trying to say in your other thread about this. When 2 people aren't synced the 3 things mean different things and can mean completely different levels - when your in a healthy relationship all 3 mingle into one thing - love.

[sandrawg]

I think you are right about that.

 

There are a lot of people on here who were dumped just days after their ex's said how much they love them and want to be together. Words are just that, words don't get confused by them and don't let your heart ache confuse you. If he wanted to be with you, you wouldn't be on this forum right now. Stay away from this guy, he seems immature and definitely has baggage.