Do you ever wonder if you are fallen out of love with your romantic partner? Maybe it crosses your mind when you feel unseen, unheard, or ignored. Nagging doubts creep up about whether you partner is lovable or worth loving when you feel as if you are irrelevant, or non-existent. Perhaps you wonder if you were ever truly in love in the first place.
The idea that you have fallen out of love suggests that you were in love once upon a time. The days of romance and feeling bathed in rays of adoration, attractiveness, and allure have come to be what is known as being in love. But beware what you are in love with! All is not what it seems.
Fallen Out of Love – a question of degree and gradation
Falling out of love is not an on-off affair, but one of degree. There are gradations in feelings of love toward a partner that move along several spectrums, rather than an all-or-nothing experience. Brit Brogaard, in her 2015 book entitled ‘On Romantic Love: Simple Truths About a Complex Emotion”, says that, “failure to realize this aspect of love is likely one of the main triggers of that gnawing anxiety that most people experience in their romantic relationships.”
Fallen Out of Love – Change in Value of a Partner or Shift in Concern For Them?
If you have fallen out of love, then it’s important to consider what you have become estranged from. Pilar Lopez-Cantero, 2017, in the journal Philosophia argues that you may have fallen out of love in terms of valuing the person, and/or in terms of concern for that person. If you value certain characteristics of your partner and expect reciprocity then you are more interested in a romantic relationship. Loving your partner because they have value and shape how you feel about yourself, means that you don’t fall out of love – but out of the relationship that no longer offers mutual scratching of each other’s backs.
Fallen Out of Love – reclaiming your authentic sense of self, rather than be mushed into a relationship
If you have fallen out of love, it might be because you need to reclaim your autonomy that you chose to give up in order to shape and be shaped by the relationship. The reference points that being in love and loving in a committed relationship demand that you subsume a large part of your unique and authentic self. Pilar Lopez-Cantero, and Alfred Archer argue in a 2020 article published in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, that falling out of love is necessary when you no longer need to define yourself through your romantic partnership. They suggest that, “Mutual shaping is a feature of love that is lost when one falls out of love. The person who falls out of love loses a ‘co-shaper’ of her own self-concept – that is what we mean by a point of reference in self-understanding.”
Fallen out of love – the critical moment
When you become fully aware that you are no longer feeling that romantic love, is when you finally realize that the accumulating loss of desire or even fear of emotional closeness overtakes your sense of comfort with intimacy. When the emotional pain of being judged, and made to feel that you are not fulfilling the role your partner has assigned, you are on the road to developing a negative sense of yourself. Joami Santor reported in 2013, in the journal Qualitative Report, that “the pivotal moment is …the awareness of no longer being in romantic love.”
Fallen out of love – romantic bubble burst or change in real feelings?
Ten years into his marriage, 37-year-old Kumar told me he had fallen out of love with his wife 36-year-old wife Raina. He was just waiting for the time when the kids, now nine and 7 years old to be in college and out of the house. He dreaded the thought of living another decade or so in this fake marriage, having fallen out of love with Raina, uncomfortable around her and avoiding her as much as he could without making Gopal and Maya suspicious or worried.
Kumar thought he had hit the jackpot when he first met Raina. She was so attentive and did her utmost to please him, making him feel special and valued. He fell in love with the impression she gave of an unselfish, ever caring, and reliable partner who would counter the barrage of complaints his mother leveled at him. His experience with his mother made him doubt himself and long to be acknowledged and validated for his hard work ethic. He wanted to be seen as the ‘good, lovable and worthy’ partner so bad, that he gave Raina power to mold and shape him to her specifications so that she couldn’t but love and cherish him forever. He fell in love with the fantasy of a woman who would see the goodness shining out of him when he did as she wanted.
Raina also got caught in the trap of the romantic bubble when she fell in love with Kumar’s straightforwardness, his solidness, his willingness to do her bidding as proof of his love for her. But like her husband, she too thought that she had fallen out of love with Kumar when most of their interactions were tense, defensive, accusatory, blaming, shaming, and disengaging.
Kumar and Raina both expressed a longing to go back to their early days of courting when they were ‘in love,’ hoping to grasp some magic that had blinded them from knowing each other and loving one another for who they were rather than through the idealistic lens that blinded them to reality (because as we know, reality is the big spoiler!)
Signs That Kumar Had Fallen Out of Romantic Love with Raina
• He wanted to be with social groups more often than spend time with Raina
(They enjoyed his company and didn’t demand that he fit their expectations).
• Kumar began avoiding engagement and intimacy with Raina by filling himself up with work, fathering and work related activities.
• He fantasized what it would be like to be free to be himself without guilt hanging over him like a sharp sword that more often than not made stinging cuts
• Kumar saw married life as a drudge and dreamed of a partner who would enjoy him as he learned about himself and shared it with her.
• He felt increasingly annoyed that Raina wasn’t interested in self-discovery like he was, resenting her attempts to make him feel that he was the bad guy for wanting to develop.
The experience of having fallen out of love is one of bitter disappointment and disillusionment. Rightly so, because Kumar and Raina both discovered that they were fooled, deceived or just too blind for their own good. They didn’t fall out of love, because they didn’t love the other person, just an unrealistically perfect version of them that was bound to crumble. Both needed to reclaim themselves from having subsumed their identities too much in the romantic bubble stage of their relationship which cannot last.
Signs that a couple love each other, but not necessarily in love with one another
If they had loved one another (rather than been in love with each other) then no matter how rough things get, they are more inclined to:
• Understand each other’s insecurities and make allowances
• Be attuned to each other’s shifts in mood, tone, and tolerance levels – adapting as needed without taking it personally or as a transgression in a fragile relationship.
• Retain bonds of attachment even when hurt or disappointed by remembering the many and frequent acts of togetherness, soothing and patience.
• Be genuinely glad and encouraging for one another as each develops and grows on a personal and professional level, rather than fear it and try to stop the path towards individual authenticity.
• Grow with each other in your own particular field, usually by getting therapy, and share the benefits of the new depths of experience that enhance and strengthen the relationship.
Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. 2023
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