When you stop loving someone you thought you’d spend your whole life with. He asks, “What happened?” But you don’t even know where to start, so you answer, “Nothing.”
It happens. Somehow, over time, you stop loving the person you thought was the love of your life. At first, everything you once liked about him—admired and attracted to him—suddenly starts to irritate you, sometimes even making you seriously angry. You think that maybe you have changed, maybe you were too young when you fell in love with him, or maybe he has changed over time.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t make your pain any less. You can’t explain what happened. You just know that something in your heart doesn’t feel the same anymore.
People ask how you two are doing, and you don’t know what to say because everything looks great from the outside, but you know it’s not the same anymore. You can be in the same room with him and not even think about it. You can be lying next to him and feel lonely. He asks, “What’s wrong?” but you don’t even know where to start, so you say, “Nothing.”
You know he doesn’t support your work ambitions, and it hurts you because you work so hard to be the best at what you do. You know he doesn’t care about your opinion, and if he does, it’s to prove he’s right.
You feel like you’re not sexually attracted to him anymore, and at first, it hurt, but now you’ve accepted it, and now you don’t even want him to touch you.
You thought that these feelings were normal, that eventually all couples come to this, that one day it will all just pass and everything will be like before, but the more time passes, the more you understand that this is not normal, that you have distanced yourself from him emotionally, that you need to escape and live your own life.
And it doesn’t matter what he does to get you back: maybe he writes to you more often, asks how your day was, says nice words, it’s too late, you’ve moved on, and your feelings for him have passed.
And it’s not that you fell in love with someone else—you just learned to love yourself; you know what you want; you know that he wants something completely different from life, so you don’t see a future in your relationship.
You stopped fighting, you stopped putting yourself in second place, and suddenly you realized what you needed to do; you realized that you could live without him; you realized that everything would be fine with you.
You look back on your relationship, and maybe you can see when it all started to fall apart. Or maybe you can’t. You hold every memory you shared so close to your heart, and maybe that’s the problem: you love the memories more than you love the person in front of you.
The thought of life without him hurts, but it doesn’t break your heart the way you thought it would. It’s more of a liberating thought now, making you feel alive and free.
You can breathe, you anticipate how you will realize your dreams, how you will achieve goals, meet new people, and perhaps someone who will understand how important all this is to you, who will want to see you successful, self-actualized, and happy, with whom you will see your future and whom you will not stop loving.
You thought relationships were something you had to work at to make them work. And to some extent, they are. But when you have to work so hard for them that you don’t enjoy them anymore, it becomes a chore or a habit, not something you want to do.
I think that’s when you know it’s over, that it’s time to move on: when you’re not sure whether to say “I love you too,” but you know it’s expected of you.
That’s when it means you’ve fallen out of love. When that person still means a lot to you, but you can’t say you love them anymore. When you want them to be happy, but you know that happiness won’t be with you.
It hurts a little, but you also know that you deserve happiness too, and, that this person can’t give it to you fully. That’s when you realize it’s over.
