Love doesn't exist here, does it?

[Isitmeorthecoding]

Been here for more than 10 years and this is my first post. Posting in AIBU for traffic. Here goes the story:
DH and I dated for 5 years, broke up for 1 year and got back together afterwhich we got married a year later. We've been married for 12+years with 3 DCs. The thing is I've always suspected that DH doesn't love and only got married out of responsibility since he felt we had been together for so long. The reasons why I feel this way are many.
He never says he loves me except during sex.
He never goes out of his way to do things for me (but will happily sacrifice for the family).
He never compliments my looks or clothing when I make effort to look nice (but will celebrate my school or work achievements).
Basically, he doesn't complain or seem happy about anything in our relationship and its almost as if he has resigned himself to a loveless marriage.
He has stated in the past that he doesn't believe in love, when prompted by another person but in my presence. What has triggered my feelings that this is the beginning of the end for our marriage is something that happened recently. We had a couple over to ours recently and got into a discussion about marriage, relationship and love. DH very strongly aired his opinion that love doesn't exist and the only true love is the one between a mother and a child. I countered his opinion by saying I got married to him because of love but he was adamant with his opinion. I have held on to the believe that he loves me but doesn't know how to express it in a typical way. However, this recent incident has got me thinking that I'm deceiving myself and I should just cut my losses.
The only time we ever express passion to each is during sex but he no longer initiates and sex only happens when I approach him. This has made sex not very exciting anymore and that I don't think I can continue in a loveless and passionless marriage.

So, I'm I being unreasonable to feel that DH doesn't love me because of his opinion during a discussion? Or it is just an opinion that has no bearing on our relationship?

On the face of it: he's not in love with you. But supposing it's not that straightforward? So he celebrates your intellect but not your appearance? What's that about do you think?

If you are very unhappy for whatever reason, then you could choose to leave, I would not base it on what he says in an argument however, but on how he acts. To love is a verb, it needs to be acted, not spoken about, otherwise it doesn't exist. The fact that he praises your achievements rather than how you look, is a point in his favour, to me! My late husband hardly ever complimented me on my appearance, but praised me in other ways, he also had difficulty in expressing his love, but he was from Bury in greater Manchester, so I made allowances

If he says the only true love is between a mother and a child that'd suggest he doesn't love your children, which I'm sure he does.

It sounds like he's just not a great communicator.

Have you asked him how he feels about you?

It sounds to me that he is taking an intellectual approach to it. I'm sort of similar in my beliefs (though I wouldn't voice them to a partner).
There is a romantic notion that "love conquers all", but for that to be true, it would need to be unconditional. I think the most common type of unconditional love that you will find (between humans) does exist between mothers and their children but romantic love is definitely not unconditional.
When I have a romantic partner that I enjoy being with and would like to have on my life for the foreseeable future I will verbally round that up to love but I'm fully aware that it is conditional on both ends.
It seems like a semantic issue, basically.

I think none of us can know. You need to have this conversation with your H. I can see both sides in this and think there may be a way through if you can talk honestly about it. I don't think you should live with this grey nothing but equally I think a sharp LTB is not the answer either. Maybe you could make time for a conversation and lead with 'I've been thinking about the conversation you had with X about love and I'm feeling really sad about it' or something? You may hear things that are hurtful but at least it will be out in the open. Or you may find that he just communicates emotion differently from you.