Difference between being in love and loving someone.

[Floomingfootball]

My DP has said a few times this week that he knows I love him but he believes that I’m not in love with him.

I’ve tried googling it but I really can’t work out the difference (maybe I’m not in love with him if I don’t know!)

In what context is he saying it?

If you’re in love with someone you are crazy for them and want to be close physically and sexually a lot IMO

Like I love my mum but I am in love with my boyfriend

Well it's not something you can dip in litmus and come out one or the other. But I think "I love you but I'm not in love with you" usually means "I care about you but I don't wish to have a sexual or romantic relationship with you".

What a really weird thing to say to someone. Unless there is some massive back story

You love him as a person but not a partner.

Surely most relationships get to the point where its not the heady exciting, days like when you first meet
I have been with my dh for 16 years, i love him to bits, but its not butterflies in my stomach anymore.

Not a massive backstory. I’ve been feeling quite down recently (guess I’ve been planning how wonderful it would be to back to doing things) but it’s been an anticlimax.

Don’t want to generalise too but we’ve been arguing more than usual and every time we calm down after an argument it’s ‘you love me but I don’t think you’re in love with me’.

Love for a family member is different to love for a partner, like I’m not in love with my mum but I do love her. It’s a different type of love.

@x2boys

Surely most relationships get to the point where its not the heady exciting, days like when you first meet I have been with my dh for 16 years, i love him to bits, but its not butterflies in my stomach anymore.

Ditto been with DP for 19 Years and 2 Teenaged DC

Love is not an emotion, it's an umbrella term for a load of different emotions.
I would interpret in love to mean romantic love with sexual attraction.

You need to ask him what 'in love' means to him because it kind of reads like he means don't argue with me

Married just over 30 years.
I no longer get butterflies in my stomach but I just can't imagine life without him.
We're like two peas in a pod.
He feels the same.

It’s pretty unhelpful that he’s speculating about your feelings.

Is it that HE is questioning his feelings for you, and turning it around on you? Or feeling insecure and being indirect about it?

IME being ‘in love’ is loving someone and wanting a sexual relationship with them. In a long term relationship that doesn’t necessarily mean wanting to have sex frequently over all the other options for things to do, like sleep, eat, Netflix, go out, yoga, whatever And stuff have to do like work and parenting.

It’s quite manipulative of him to keep saying it.

It makes me think of a relationship where we ended up like the best roommates in the world. We loved each other and never argued but all of the spark (and sex) was gone.

Yup he’s manipulating you. Or being a toddler.
Neither of those are the type of people I want in my life

Sounds like he's on the lookout to blame you when he goes off with another woman.
He'll of course tell her that you don't understand him and are sleeping in separate beds.