17 Women On Falling Out Of Love: The Painfully Honest Reasons We Never Acknowledge

What Does Falling Out Of Love Really Feel Like?

It’s a tale as old as time, only it has a happy start. Most relationships begin on a happy note – it’s euphoric to be in love, especially in the beginning. But once the honeymoon phase is over, we stop looking at our relationship through rose-tinted glasses.

Perhaps, for the very first time, we come face to face with the differences – the differences in opinions, beliefs, and, more importantly, goals. This is absolutely natural. When we start falling out of love, the negatives begin to outweigh the positives.

Unlike ending the honeymoon phase, which is actually a vital part of taking the relationship to the next level, falling out of love means staring at the negatives of your partner and, more importantly, not being able to move past those negatives.

It is typical to fixate on the differences and the inability to reach a common ground when you are falling out of love. In fact, we tend to stop looking at the flaws of our partners as opportunities for growth – these are not just flaws you wish you could ignore, these are now non-negotiable.

Understand that when you fall out of love with someone, you don’t really stop caring about them. It just means that those intense feelings you felt for someone are no longer a reality – you might even experience pangs of guilt about what could have been but then don’t let that guilt convince you to be with someone you don’t love.

It is imperative that we listen to our hearts and ultimately do what’s best for all involved parties.

Here are some signs that you are DEFINITELY falling out of love.

1. You Are Longing For Someone Else:

If you have been in a monogamous relationship for a long time now, then it is absolutely normal to crush on another person…as long as you don’t act upon it. Come on, you are human, and it is perfectly natural to find other people attractive.

This innocent crush starts to feel like a problem when it starts to impact your actual relationship. If you find yourself thinking about all the things you could do if you were single, then chances are you are falling out of love.

When people begin to fall out of love, their priorities start shifting from ‘we’ to ‘me’ – you will find yourself becoming increasingly protective of your own needs and creating distance between you and your partner. If you find yourself craving new experiences intensely or fantasizing about other people, then it is possible that you are no longer in love.

2. You Choose Silent Contempt Over Disagreements:

Nobody really likes arguing, but there are days when you need to argue just so that you can strengthen your bond. Expressing your anger is sometimes good for a relationship, and so is working through the hurt, especially for keeping things healthy.

Otherwise, all those negative feelings will transform into contempt, and it will definitely sour your interactions with your partner.

If you always stay quiet about the stuff that makes you upset or annoys you instead of discussing them with your partner, then you are beginning to choose silent contempt over disagreements. Gradually, your contempt will take over the entire relationship, forcing it to its breaking point. This is a BIG sign that you are falling out of love, gradually but definitely.

3. You Are Not Excited To Spend Time Together:

Remember those early days when you and your partner were completely inseparable? If you don’t look forward to or get excited about spending time with your partner, then chances are you are falling out of love.

While giving each other space is considered to be healthy, it is also normal to be excited about meeting your partner. So, if you find yourself making eager plans with everyone else but dreading your next dinner date with your bae, then it is time you reconsider how you feel.

It is not something to be guilty about – it is an opportunity of sorts to reflect on your relationship and determine whether or not you are really falling out of love. Try to evaluate the driving force behind your change of heart because it is possible that your lack of desire also comes from fear of attachment or personal insecurity.

4. You Are Seeking Opportunities To Avoid Your Partner:

When you are falling out of love, it’s not just about not being excited to spend time together – it is also about finding yourself at a point where you can’t help but avoid your partner. You might just start staying late at work or taking the longer route home. It is also possible that you have started stepping out to eat or watch movies on your own.

If you are actively looking for ways to be around your significant others, it is more than clear that either you are not getting what you really need from the relationship or your feelings have changed towards your partner.

5. You Are Too Defensive:

According to Drs. Julie and John Gottman’s theory of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, there are four dynamics that lead to a relationship’s demise,

Criticism,
Stonewalling,
Defensiveness, and
Contempt.

Just like you no longer argue with your partner and feel contempt towards them, defensiveness is another harmful communication tactic that deeply resonates with falling out of love. It indicates that you no longer look at your partner in a positive light. Every time you feel like your partner is accusing or criticizing you, you can’t help but feel defensive.

Shifting the blame on your partner in such situations is also perfectly normal. When you start feeling defensive, it becomes impossible for your partner to communicate their grievances to you effectively.

If you see that you are starting to get defensive in a majority of conversions involving your partner, then it is possible that you are actually lacking the desire to keep your relationship going.

6. You Criticize Your Partner Constantly:

Nobody enjoys criticism, especially when it comes from your significant other. Criticism becomes a pervasive contribution to the demise of the relationship.

Instead of being considerate of your partner’s feelings and actually expressing your disagreement respectfully, you begin to assassinate their character every time they make a mistake, even when it’s a minor one or lets you down for some reason.

As per Gottmans’ theory, criticism is usually the precursor of the other three dynamics – stonewalling, defensiveness, and, finally, contempt.

It all boils down to whether or not you think that the criticisms are rooted in your lack of feeling for your partner. It is always safe to ask yourself – what is making me react to my partner critically? Is this something I will be able to address and then overcome without losing the love of my life?

17 Women On Falling Out Of Love: The Painfully Honest Reasons We Never Acknowledge!

Initially, when I decided to pen down a blog on falling out of love, I thought I would just seal the deal with some basic quotes about falling out of love – those always seemed to be a crowd-puller. But I have never been a people pleaser, and I kept thinking about what non-basic thing I could do.

Two days ago, I was sitting at home, bored, when my friend gave me a call. She went on and on about feeling detached from her relationship. Hesitantly, I asked her, ‘Are you falling out of love?’ There was a pause, and then she said, ‘I don’t know, but I think so…’

After the call ended, I came up with a couple of simple questions,

Have you ever fallen out of love?
If so, then why did you fall out of love?

And then it was time for the plunge – without overthinking the whole situation, I forwarded the questions with a promise of keeping things anonymous on my blog to seventeen different women on my contact list.

These seventeen women are so different from each other – in terms of age, relationship status, and more. I have always been a fan of diversity, and this time, I wanted to see how age, relationship status, and professional backgrounds could play a part in what an individual thinks about falling out of love.

From a 30-something PR professional in a long-distance marriage or a 20-something housewife to a single grad student or even a 20-something fashion student, I tried to be as diverse as possible with my participants.

When I received the answers, I was blown. Love is a conscious choice – and deciding to not love someone one fine day is sad. But that doesn’t mean it’s not normal. So finally, I opened my laptop and finally sat down to write this blog – the falling out of love quotes can go out of the window. I don’t care!

So without wasting time, here we go! – And my apologies, but the names have been changed for obvious reasons!

1. It Was Probably Never Love:

25, Housewife

“I have fallen out of love. The reason was a conscious realization that it never was love. We have all been in relationships where we have experienced strong attachments, companionship, attraction, overpowering and also overwhelming affection toward the significant other. These individual experiences are collectively interpreted as what we like to call “being in love.”

While all of these experiences are authentic and help us learn and grow as individuals, calling it an emotion of being in love can be an overstatement. I feel that the idea of being in love has been terribly romanticized, so much so that we have trivialized the experience. We have lost (rather never developed) the ability to distinguish what is “the true experience” from what is the experience of choice, convenience, fancy, glorification, etc.

I feel any relationship that is based on these latter factors will inevitably end, or even if the people in the relationship do not end the ties consciously, the experience of authenticity and fulfillment diminishes, and then it’s just a bond with two people continuing with unhealthy attachment.

I have ended relationships due to several reasons: for being taken for granted, for not receiving my due respect, for being with a partner showing early signs of toxic traits, etc. All of these are relationships where I consciously believed I was in love. Only to later realize that the experience of love is nothing like this.

These experiences were real and eye-opening, but they never liberated the heart. People in love will always be on the same page; this can never go amiss. It’s strange, pure, and yet abiding by the laws. It’s magical. And anything less than it should be recognized with consciousness and let go of. There are people out there who are right for us, just us; they/she will walk at our own pace. When I realized this truth, I came out of relationships that didn’t help me experience this.”

2. It’s Practical, Really!

26, Associate Professor

“No, I have never fallen out of love.

Love for me has always been fairly simple. I will continue to love someone as long as it is my choice to love that person, and personal choice is something an individual has complete control over. Love, I believe, cannot be based on fleeting concepts like thoughts or feelings. It is a choice and an active conscious choice you choose to make every day.”

3. He Took Me For Granted:

34, Fashion Influencer

“Yes, because he took me for granted when I needed him the most, and I moved on while being in a relationship, I started seeking that love from my friends and got involved in work.”

4. He Gave Up On Me:

25, Lifestyle Writer

“Yes, there was a time when I fell out of love when I least expected it. That was the time when I understood that falling out of love is much harder than falling in love. Because how can you unlove a person you were head over heels for the past two years?

It is hard to say why I fell out of love. Maybe it was because the person I loved so much, his qualities, his mannerisms, and the way he made me feel when he was near me was no more. But I can’t blame him for changing, but what hurt was while he moved on from his old self, he left me behind and never even looked back once. I don’t give up on people, especially the ones I love, but if someone gives up on me, then I cannot hold them back.”

5. I Was Never Truly In Love:

29, Teacher

“No. People I realized I don’t like anymore are the ones I’ve never truly quite liked, let alone love.”

6. They Changed Into Someone I Couldn’t Recognize:

28, Blogger

“I fell out of love because the person I fell in love with transformed into someone I couldn’t recognize. And I felt that they are going downhill and destroying themselves because of their love for me. They gave up on music. They gave up on everything that they loved because I became the priority. Love is positive when you help each other evolve..not destroy each other.

And that scared me. I also felt extremely suffocated, as if there was no space. I couldn’t just hang out with my friends. Also, I couldn’t go to a movie just with my best friend. My requests were denied. It sounds very weird to say it out right now..but yeah. I felt claustrophobic.

I also felt there was no equal footing. The person turned into a doormat – apologized 100 times a day for something silly..and I felt responsible for that. I felt I had killed that confident, ambitious, sweet, independent person. There is a lot more to the story. But yes..”

7. It Always Boils Down To Priorities:

37, Marketing Professional

“Yes, I have. When the veil of lovey-dovey-ness lifts, after a period of time, you start seeing things for what they actually are…You actually realize ok..so these are my priorities…and these are his/hers.

No harm in that, but eventually, you realize the distance between you and your partner.

You see that ultimate goals for 2 people are worlds apart… then after a question strikes…do you give in and bend over or do you stand for what you believe in…”

8. There Was No Effort Or Respect:

27, Teacher

“Yes, I did fall out of love. Even though I sustained my feelings for the person for over 8 years but, the lack of effort in keeping the minimal intact and the loss of integrity in the person made me fall out of love.”

9. It’s Happening Right Now!

27, Blogger

“Yes, I believe I have, or to answer the question honestly, I think I am falling out of love. For me, I look for the small moments and the small gestures or those small efforts they make to make you feel special. And after being in a relationship for a long time, people stop doing that, and they take things for granted.

They fail to understand that every time they repeat a mistake or don’t put the effort to meet you halfway, they are moving further away. Another thing is they do not try to adapt to the changes, even if it I for the betterment of the other person, even if that change is for their growth; they do not want to accept that.

They are in love with the person they met years back, and maybe they are not the same person anymore; maybe they have grown and changed. So, to sum things up, these are the main factors that are making me fall out of love.”

10. He Made Zero Efforts:

25, Content Writer

“Yes, of course. Twice. Being in a physically abusive relationship in the first case.

And in the second case, I fell out of love when I saw my ex-partner was not putting as much effort as I was in the development of the relationship.”

11. Some Part Of Me Will Always Hold On:

35, Travel Writer

“I have never really fallen out of love. N/A, I guess.

But I would like to focus on question 1 a bit more. I find it hard to fall out of love. Some part of me will always love anyone I have ever loved completely. I will always remember the little good things they did for me, and I did for them. 🥰”

12. The Cons Outweighted The Pros:

26, Media Professional

“I mean, romantically as well as platonically both. For the romantic part, it was mostly that the person’s behavior became too much for me to ignore. Maybe I grew up and started seeing how there are other ways for people to behave and react, and what I was facing wasn’t normal or okay.

And even though I went back to the person once or twice, I just learned that the problems I had regarding their personality and behavior were too much for me to overlook or be okay with.

Whereas falling out of love with my friend was much more difficult. I always put faith and hope in people around me, but when I saw that the person had lost all motivation to better themselves and refused to listen to me time and again about how their behavior was hurting.

It hurts me to see the potential they have and to watch them squash it because they are too stubborn to open up or take advice. But then I learned that I couldn’t put my expectations on them and have to see them as they are. So my pov about them changed, and now it doesn’t hurt to be their acquaintance because I eventually fell out of love with the idea of them I’d been holding onto”

13. They Weren’t Comfortable With Long Distance:

25, Lifestyle Influencer

“Yes. I have. The person didn’t seem to take long distances or have differences of opinions that well. I tried a lot and exhausted myself in the process. Cried till I couldn’t anymore and hated myself for spending all my self-respect.”

14. He Was Just Not Into Me…

27, Marketing Executive

“Yes. I was in a long-distance relationship where in we hardly used to communicate. Lack of communication and understanding has perhaps made me fall out of love.”

15. I Just Didn’t Love Him Anymore:

32, PR Professional

“Yes. After a point, I think after a year of dating, I think I realized our principles and our life goals, or the way I saw my life to be, was something that would not align with his goals. It was a gradual process of falling out of love.

Since there was so much going on inside my head, as in how is this relationship going to work out – our goals are not aligned and stuff like that. It took some time, but I realized that I don’t have the same level of attachment to this person. And that’s how I fell out of love.

When we broke up, it wasn’t sad or even bittersweet only reason was that I respected this person, but there was nothing left in the relationship to explore. And I detached myself from this person way before we broke up.”

16. It Was A Conscious Choice:

29, Filmmaker

“Yes, I have fallen out of love.

I guess for me, with time, we just drifted apart because of innate differences that couldn’t have been expressed in words any longer. Losing the spark is not something justifiable to say about relationships because, over time, two people just become extremely comfortable, and love is a choice.

I strongly believe that love is a very conscious choice you wake up each day and choose to be with that person despite the storm or despite the calm. Long distance is one issue; even staying together has its issues. There is no one cause. Maybe it was fate, or maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. It’s very simple as well as complex.

We have so much going on in our lives apart from our relationships that sometimes, juggling all of these aspects of our lives together makes it hard for us to live a life that we may have imagined, and hence maybe expectations are what killed the relationship at that point. In the end, you just have to live on with the choices that.”

17. We Wanted Different Things From Life:

20, Grad Student

“Yes. Feelings faded due to time. I discovered that our outlook toward life doesn’t align enough to pursue something further. The person turned out to be a terrible human being.”

This, Too Shall Pass!

I have loved you for three summers, sure, but this is the fourth summer, and I guess I am falling out of love. And that’s perfectly normal – no, it’s not unimaginable.

Think about it – have you never fallen out of love with someone? Sometimes, it’s just that you are in the limerence phase of the relationship, and sometimes, you are just love-bombed to feel that you are in love.

I think love is a very vague word – you cannot define it, you cannot measure it, and sometimes you cannot help it. The only thing you can do is be glad that you experienced it – because, trust me, falling out of love is natural, just like waking up the next day only to fall in love again. It’s your heart – and the heart wants what it wants.

But before I bid adieu, let me know what you all think about falling out of love – feel free to share your stories with us!

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