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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

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

93 replies

PeacefulPottering · 30/01/2022 22:47

Just had this said to me . What does it actually mean? I want you but actually don't? I'm really confused. The seranio was I dressed up, put makeup on, trying to kickstart our sex life. I looked and felt sexy, I sat next to him and stroked him, clearly wanting sex/intamcy.
We are 21 years together, two kids, left home, I'm 51, have a nice body, keep healthy and fit. He has a big tummy, always been fit but recently has no bother to sat to me, look at this large tummy? I responded, it's just a bit bloated?
He hates every bit of me if I put on weight, but he seems to revel in it!

OP posts:
Original poster
PeacefulPottering · 30/01/2022 22:49

Sorry, my point is he hates if I put on weight. He can and it's ok

OP posts:
RandomMess · 30/01/2022 22:53

It means he doesn't fancy you anymore. It is often followed with them telling you that they've been unhappy for years and it turns out their having an affair.

Littlepaws18 · 30/01/2022 22:56

If you put on weight what would your husband do? Is this a condition to him loving you? I recently had a baby and have put on a dress size. I fret over it, but my husband says he loves me just as I am, he makes the effort to say lovely things about the bits I'm worried about. But the upshot is my waistline measurement isn't a measure of my worth or love to my husband. Is yours?

PurpleDaisies · 30/01/2022 22:56

Focussing on weight is a red herring.

It sounds like something has gone very wrong in your relationship. If someone said that to me, I’d think they were going yo break up with me.

How did the conversation continue after he said that?

feelsobadfeltsogood · 30/01/2022 22:57

@PeacefulPottering

I had this with my ex and I'm currently with a partner co-parenting and I feel your pain here

Sometimes we have to accept that things aren't as they were and it's time to call time on it

You deserve better and deserve to have the attention that you want

Get your finances sorted - see a solicitor and make plans to move on

Never nice never easy but sometimes needs to be done. Why would you want someone who doesn't want you? Rejection is terrible but sometimes it's the wake up call we needed - that happened with my ex partner

I was happy with my current partner but we have young kids no relationship and it's depressing I'm only here as they're so young it would upset them if I didn't have young kids I'd be gone.

Sending 🤗

Rainbowshit · 30/01/2022 22:57

My husband said this to me. There was someone else.

Aquamarine1029 · 30/01/2022 22:59

This is your warning shot. He has checked out and is halfway out the door. If you're married, get a solicitor and file for divorce. Your relationship is over.

Interrobanger · 30/01/2022 23:00

“I love you but I’m not in love with you” is the first line on page one of the cheater’s script.

Rummikub · 30/01/2022 23:00

^^
Yup exactly the same

Rewriting history

Kelly7889 · 30/01/2022 23:10

What it actually means is "I'm not in love with you" which means he either has his eye on someone else, or is involved with someone else, or hopes to.

There is absolutely no coming back from this, I had someone say this to me once and gave him 2 more years of my life, hoping somehow he would go back to the way it was. It was absolutely terrible. He became so callous.

Sometimes he wanted sex if he was bored - it doesn't mean they love you, fancy you or even like you - men will fuck an apple pie or a plastic doll if there is nothing else available. I didn't know this then because sex and love were one and the same to me.

Please please take the intiative, keep your self-respect and move on without him.

Bananarama21 · 30/01/2022 23:17

Hes checked out.

Thirtytimesround · 30/01/2022 23:24

Hang on so you dressed up sexily for him and suggested sex and he responded by calling you fat and saying he isn’t in love with you anymore?

Wow. I have no words. So sorry OP. When he says “I love you” that doesn’t sound true to me. We don’t deliberately hurt those we love.

Sounds like he’s considering ending the relationship but doesn’t have the balls to actually say that. Or maybe he no longer wants a sexual relationship with you but wants to keep you around doing his housework etc.

Either way, he can’t be that horrible without expecting a response.

DatingDinosaur · 30/01/2022 23:27

I love my friends. I’m not in love with them.

I love my mum, my dad, my sister. I’m not in love with them.

Sounds like he’s checked out of the romantic relationship and firmly in the comfy rut.

He’s probably not cheating on you if he’s not made some effort to spruce himself up and kickstart the exercise regime or his routine hasn’t changed.

I think a conversation needs to be had.

boireannach · 30/01/2022 23:31

When it was said to me he was trying to excuse his affairs.

TossaCointoYerWitcha · 30/01/2022 23:32

What it actually means is "I'm not in love with you" which means he either has his eye on someone else, or is involved with someone else, or hopes to.

Yep.

"I love you..." - ie. there's nothing inherently wrong with our relationship,

"...but I'm not in love with you" - ie. we've been together a long time so I don't get the heady butterflies and uncertainty that I do with this other person who's turned my head.

Prepare for lots of other phrases like "I have to live my truth", "YOLO", etc, etc justify the decision to nuke everything you've invested in, in order that they can chase a bit of strange.

Supersimkin2 · 30/01/2022 23:34

It’s over. Flowers

altmember · 30/01/2022 23:37

It means he doesn't love you as a lover anymore, he loves you like he does a friend or a relative. He's too much of a pussy to call time on the relationship, doesn't want the inconvenience or financial hardship of a divorce. Or he'd rather just keep treading water in a dead relationship than the daunting prospect of being single/starting over with some one else.

Unfortunately, I've never known a relationship survive someone making that statement.

There may or may not be someone else, but the fact that he's wallowing in self pity at his own obesity suggests not. He's clearly not happy with himself just as much as your relationship.

BringOnTheOtherWorlders · 30/01/2022 23:56

The full sentence is more like, "I love you because you are the Mother of my children, but I am in love romantically with someone else."

Whydoesthecatalwaysdothat · 30/01/2022 23:58

My XP said this. What he meant was he was planning to give me the boot as soon as someone better came along. I wished I'd listened.

MrsSkylerWhite · 30/01/2022 23:59

Oh dear.
You deserve someone who loves you back. Move on.

Cherryblossoms85 · 30/01/2022 23:59

I'm so sorry. You're still young enough to find another partner . My mother left at a similar age , got a job, moved cities and lives a completely different life.

DramaAlpaca · 31/01/2022 00:00

I'm sorry, but I don't think there's any coming back from someone you are in a relationship with saying that to you.

Sunnytwobridges · 31/01/2022 01:42

My DDs dad and I said this to each other , there was no one else but it definitely meant we’d checked out of the relationship.

PinkSyCo · 31/01/2022 02:21

He loves you like a friend/the dog/his favourite pair of comfy slippers but you don’t make his pulse race or his heart flutter anymore.

Nosquit · 31/01/2022 02:26

He’s probably got someone else but doesn’t have the guts to leave or it’s too convenient for him to stay. Do you have a nice house he doesn’t want to lose or something similar? I knew a guy once who said he wouldn’t leave his wife as she would almost certainly want the house but as he had helped build it he wanted to stay there.