I love you, but I'm not in love with you!!!!

[cheeselostandconfused]

Well, where do I start...? I have been with my DH since sweet sixteen, we have been together for 20 years and married 12. We have two wonderful children. My DH has been distant from me on an emotional and physical level - I put this down to the stress of the posibility of loosing his job. The job has been confirmed as secure, but he didn't come back to me (emotionally) as I had hoped. The last straw was last weekend. I asked him what was wrong and that if I didn't know what was going on in his head, I couldn't help him. He told me he was "fine". But in the evening he eventually opend up and told me he loved me as a friend (best friend), the sex is great (but it's just sex!)and that he is not in love with me. When I picked myself up off the floor, I asked him why? He said he couldn't give me any answers as he doesn't know and that his head is confused. He cried and I cried. He said he will go to counselling (on his own initially), which is hapening on Tuesday. I have already had one session and the Cousellor gave me the details of this website (so grateful to her already). We have talked and talked...DH said that there is noone else, and I believe him. He is a very honest man, and this is something I have always admired about him. I am totally, lost and confused. How do you get your DH to fall back in love with you? Please help....any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Just wanted to say so sorry that you are going through this. I have no advice as am in a similar situation myself, so wanted to let you know that you are not alone.

Hope someone with a clearer head will be along soon to help.

Also sadly have noticed over the past few weeks that there are quite a few of us going through/have gone through this recently. What is with these men, why can't they be thankful/happy with what they have? Is the grass always greener.

Do you mind if I ask what age he is? Have been reading a bit about mid life crisis recently.

SIL

Hi SIL, He is 35 (36 in March). I have wondered if he is having a mid-life crisis!?

So sorry to hear that you are going through the same situation. I have been on this site for an hour, just reading the sad stories of the same situations.

When did you find out?

Cheese

It may be a midlife crisis, it may be that he feels he has been in one relationship for nearly all his adult life and wishes he hadn't settled down so early, it may be that he has met or encountered someone else he fancies.
The thing is, you can't 'make' someone love you. You can't keep someone in a relationship that the person wants to leave. People do have a right to leave relationships.
ON the other hand, it's a bit much of him to expect to be able to keep his feet under the table indefinitely and have you continue to service him while he frets about whether he loves you or not. It's a good sign that he's going to see a counsellor, but do try not to get into the situation where your whole life becomes about wondering where the magic button is that will make him love you and not leave. There is no magic button, and there comes a point where someone who has told his/her partner that s/he is no longer sure about the relationship basically has to shit or get off the pot. So if this goes on for months and he remains not sure if he loves you or not, then it's worth taking steps towards a separation so you get the chance to decide if you actually want to stay in the relationship, too.

Sorry to say this , but i wouldnt be surprised if theres someone else on the scene .

My H is 34. He is going through some work stress at the moment also. Wondering whether to change jobs/not happy with his current situation. So basically I think he doesn't know which way is up or down (thats the best view I can take of it). Ofcourse I am considering all the worst case scenarios also. It all came to a head with us 3 weeks ago but to be honest we had been going through a tough couple of years (I thought it was work/small children stress).

Thank you so much for your thoughts on this. I have (stupidly) just spoken with him, and he says he just wants to be on his own and that he just dosen't have "those" feelings for me anymore....then gone off to make a cup of tea!! Help, I think I'm going crazy! My heart feels betrayed by the person I have trusted the most with everything in my life!! This hurts so much !

Cheese , its very very rare for a man to just " want to be on his own " when theres no one else involved . He would leave his family and his cosy home to live in a shit flat eating microwave meals for one , for what reason ?

Sorry , but id do some digging if i were you.From what he said to you initially it sounds like hes comparing you .

it is absolutely possible there is NO ONE else involved.

I really dislike the assumption men rarely leave without someone else in the background.

I also dislike the assumption that men cannot feel anything like this without another woman on the scene! OP there is every possibility he just needs a change...he is still a young man...my DH is 38 and we have been together only 7 years....I still see him as a young man..and your DH is too!

Is it possible he is depressed?The fear of losing his job could have kicked off some feelings he was not expecting...maybe he was secretly hoping for a change? In some way being made redundant can be freeing...is there anything else he has spoken of doing professionally? But not yet persued?

Well if he wants to be on his own, tell him to go and be on his own for a bit. There may not be another person in his sights, but he may want the opportunity to look for new sexual partners.
FWIW 'I love you but I'm not in love with you' often means 'I like your domestic service and want that to continue while I see if I can get a better offer elsewhere'. Except when it means 'I want you to prioritize pleasing me over everything else in life. I want you to be constantly fretting about ways you can make me happy and let me have my own way all the time. Therefore I'm going to threaten to leave you in order to make you up your performance.'

OP, listen to Solid, she speaks absolute sense

I also think he has his eye on someone else (if not already involved)

There is a book with the exact same title as your thread here. I read some of it a while ago and according to the author there is more than one reason why anybody would say this. It could be that after spending so long worrying about his job that he lost sight of your relationship and now can't feel the same way about it as he used to or maybe he resented feeling worse about the threat of the job loss because he felt he would be letting you down.

On the other hand, it may be that he has already left the relationship in his head and either looking for somebody else or has already found them but it isn't necessarily the case. The fact that he is prepared to go to counselling is a good thing, so long as he turns up - going on his own initially could be a way of getting you off his back without him having to really put any effort into making things right.

Reading a book can't make everything right (would be good if it could!) but it might give you some insights in why it is happening and what you can do about it.

I too am not in the he either has or is looking for a new partner camp. In the early stages of our relationship I was totally besotted with my partner. I believe that relationships see-saw, sometimes one person loves the other more. How can two people be on exactly the same love wave at the same time? [hgrin]

My DP is very career focussed and after starting his own business our relationship was put on the back burner. After living together for a couple of years he would say that he needed his own space his words were "I want to be alone" (after a while I would mimic him Marlene Dietrich style) and I would be thrown into despair and be worrying about where our relationship was (not) going. I clung on. I didn't ignore what he said, I was heartbroken but somehow I stayed although I started leading a different life - I changed the dynamic of the relationship. I was not there for him 100% and would make my own decisions to go out without him and on holiday when and where I wanted to go. I became more independent. (At the time we weren't parents).

Although I think that he was committed to me it was not until we had our daughter that the 'I want to be alone' phases stopped).

Now I will tease him and he is embarrassed that he ever went down that path. In fact we both discuss how the tables have turned and now he is possibly more in love with me than I am with him [hsmile] We have been through some tough times lately culminating in me being very sick. These times have strenghtened our relationship and have made us realise how important we are to each other. When I was sick he was my saviour. It was a huge wake up call for both of us. Never underestimate longevity of a relationship.

Thank you again so much for your outlook on this. I am very confused right now, but with time I hope (with all my heart) that this works out for us. Just speaking with you guys last night has helped to know that I am not alone on this, which in some ways is very sad to know how many of you are going through something similar. I have taken the day off work today..completley on my own and with my own thoughts.

My eyes are black where I cried so much last night and was sick with worry this morning. Managed to get the kids off to School and keep it together for them.

DP said last night that he doesn't feel like he needs to rescue me anymore (I had an abusive mother amongst other things) and he is not sure if he mistook protecting me as "being in love" all those years ago. He said he is completly confused. But he still wants to do the date nights etc!!!? OMG, those words hit me like a brick wall at 100 miles an hour! He said there is no other woman, but that he feels he could make a connection with two women...one being a friend of mine and the other a nurse where he works who has just lost her husband to Cancer. He said he has not acted or wants to act on it, but that he has thought if he was single that one of these ladies would be a possibility "I belive that there is not only one person out there for you, but many, if you can find them" were his words. He said he would rather be like his Uncle, who was a spinster, just living on his own with no relationship, rather than going out to look for one. This really hurts because he could be leaving this relationship just to be on his own...am I really that bad!!! I never scream or shout at him he gets his golf time twice a week. Where am I going wrong????

You are not going wrong. This is not about you. This is about him, him, him.

Love changes, as Horse illustrated sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.

What rarely happens is that the glorious 'in love' fast heart beat love lasts for decades. I think some men are especially prone to confuse this lust/love with 'true' love.

But, it is not you. You can be a 'friend' and support him through what is a midlife crisis perhaps with a dose of depression but that will be very very hard work. But whatever you do will not change how he feels.

I know this feels like a huge rejection and is so very painful but I promise you you will be ok. Take care of you, take care of your children. This is a time for you to re-evaluate your life and see if you want to add something too. Try and be independent and strong, but a duvet day today (and do you have any chocolate?) sounds like a plan. You must be exhausted.

Sounds like he likes the 'rescuing'...... You don't need that anymore, but he's identified some women who do!!

Sorry, think he's already 'left' you.

god thats awful for you. I agree with the above, its sounds like he has moved on if not physically then, in his head. Its somekind of midlife crisis.

You are not going wrong anywhere so, dont beat yourself up about it. If you havent got angry yet, you will be very soon.

Take care and, all the best.

Yuk, yuk, yuk. You will actually be a lot better off without this tosser, though it may not feel like it now.
GIven your latest post, what he is saying actually translates as 'I like you when you are vulnerable and in pain. I want gratitude and obedience from a partner. I can't deal with women as full human beings at all. I have now made a win-win situation for myself in that I either get the freedom to 'rescue' some other miserable woman who will be grateful, or I make you so unhappy that you become attractive to me all over again and I don't actually have to move out of the house or inconvenience myself.'

HOnestly, tell him if he feels like that to pack his bags and fuck off. You can, if you like, agree that the two of you will have a talk after a couple of weeks but that he will have to earn his way back into the family home. It's never a good idea to give a partner the idea that they hold all the power, that only one person is allowed to make the decision as to whether the relationship continues and the other partner has wait passively to see if they are 'chosen' or not.

Your conversation last night confirmed that he is already seeing other options, but I want to come at this from a different angle.

When someone has an affair, it is necessary for them to detach emotionally from their partner, to stop "giving" to the relationship. Now, in a happy marriage where the connection and attachment has always been strong, usually this distancing starts only after a likely affair partner has materialised.

Because most people have been brought up on a diet of beliefs that affairs don't happen in happy marriages, when a temptation arises and a person deep down wants to say "yes", if their marriage is good, happy and fulfilling in every way, they cannot allow themselves to act on their temptation. So in order to say "yes" (which is what they really want to do) they simply have to detach from their primary partner and reduce the connection.

However, sometimes affairs happen long after somebody has detached from their partner and the only reason they haven't been unfaithful beforehand is because of the absence of opportunity with a suitable affair partner.

If he is willing to go to counselling on his own, these are good signs, because it means that he is still giving enough to your relationship to process his feelings. But you might ask him to talk with his therapist about his attachment styles to care-givers as a child and see links between this and his current attachment to you.

What I want you to consider today is your H's detachment from the relationship and crucially, when you think this started.

Some of the things he is saying to you speak volumes about how detached he is from you and how lacking in empathy he is for your feelings at the moment. He is starting to re-write history, wondering aloud whether he ever loved you properly and it was just his need to "rescue", yet he finds himself attracted to someone now, who is bereaved and vulnerable. Is there anything about this friend of yours that he mentioned, who could fall into the same category, I wonder?

You know yourself that when a partner says he loves you but is not in love with you, it very often means he is in love with someone else and I wonder whether your counsellor has directed you to this site because there are so many threads on here where affairs have been uncovered after a spouse has heard that hurtful statement?

Since your H is by his own admission, already engaging in an "auditioning" process for likely partners, if you just take him at his word and he is not being disengenuous about existing involvement, what you cannot ignore is that he is looking outside of the relationship already.

What I am saying to you is that to do that alone, a person needs to have detached from their partner somewhat and since he has now convinced himself that he is not in love with you and wonders if he ever was, that detachment is pretty much complete. There are no emotional barriers now in terms of you and your relationship, that would prevent an affair. All that's left are his own values and moral code about infidelity.

Focus on detachment from you and read around old threads today. Write down how you feel and start timelining when you think this detachment started.

Thanks once again for all your thoughts. I think I need some time to digest everything. My head is spinning

He is lining up his next sucker damsel in distress

You would be a fool to keep him around

"date nights" ???? he just wants to keep you on a string in case these other women don't fall on to his dick respond to his attempts to manipulate rescue them

Take back your own self respect and tell him to fuck off until his head is on the right way round. Hopefully by the time he comes whining back with his tail between his legs you will have moved on

Does it really matter when the detachment started though? You could spend days, weeks, months, years analysing it all, dissecting it all but for what? Surely the thing to focus on is yourself.

A 20 year relationship is a very long relationship by any standards. It sounds as though he is reassessing things but is doing it in a very selfish way.

Do you think that joint counselling might be helpful, so you could both have a chance to explore your feelings about this with a neutral third party?

Brilliant post from Wwifn .
I dont think i could stand this . I think id be tempted to state that i know he is either seeing someone , or is wanting to , so to just fuck off . Id deny him the next few months of the drama of counselling , sneaking around and boo hooing about it to some ow . Half the attraction of these things is the excitement , drama and secrecy.

And i wouldnt go for date nights either , while he is " confused " he will be comparing you and you cant possibly compete. Id let him think about this while hes in a crappy bedsit eating microwave meals for one in his underpants.

Having been there, I'd say dignified is spot on. Don't indulge him, it won't make a blind bit of difference if he really wants to go, and will only prolong the agony for you. And as for the date nights, please don't fall into the trap of being his fall-back shag. Grim.

Tadpoles I agree that the OP should focus on herself and what she wants now and this is something I always advise. However, the reason I always recommend that people come at a situation from this angle (i.e. when did this detachment start?) is because people in the OP's situation are often led to believe that the reason their relationship has hit the buffers is because their partner wasn't getting enough of something, i.e. attention, adoration, sex etc. The truth is more often, that the departing partner wasn't giving enough, because they have detached from the relationship.

It's pretty important to someone's mental health that they recognise this, because what often happens in these situations too is that as SGB suggests, the shocked partner starts to jump through hoops, arranging "date nights" and self-flagellating that they haven't been attending to their partner's needs. It's a completely fruitless, soul-destroying exercise trying to get someone to "fall back in love with you", when that ship sailed long ago. It is especially pernicious to the soul when it emerges that throughout this entire process, there was someone else and the person who has been deceiving you has been getting attention and adoration by the bucketload, but from at least two sources.

In this situation OP, it's always better to focus on you and how adored, cherished and attended to, you have felt? This is the best barometer of what's going on here. I said on another thread recently, but it might bear repeating:

The person least likely to be unfaithful is the one who adores, not the one who doesn't feel adored.