Have you fallen out of love?
Several different factors can contribute to a husband falling out of love with his wife (and vice versa). The reasons listed below are the more common culprits, but the way they manifest will differ depending on the individuals involved.
1. Indifference.
Over time, many partners end up living more like housemates than a united couple.
They’ll pursue their own interests and make their own meals, and barely even talk to one another. They won’t ask questions about each other’s plans, nor pretend that they want to know any details.
There aren’t any arguments because neither party cares enough to squabble, and they’ll see each other more like furniture than people: comfortable, and always around.
If indifference has crept into your relationship, it needs to be nipped in the bud before the damage it causes is irreparable.
You’ll need to figure out why you feel so indifferent to one another, what changed between you to cause that indifference, and how you can counteract it to save your partnership—if that’s something you both want, at this point.
2. Loss of effort toward one another.
People put a lot of time and effort into each other at the beginning of a relationship. They’re excited to get to know one another, and they want to make the other understand how much they’re cared for.
As a result, both parties will do sweet things for one another, such as buying gifts, surprising one another with meals (including ordering in or going out to eat), and showing sincere appreciation for all the little things they do for them.
Over time, this effort often wanes as people get more comfortable and start to take one another for granted.
They won’t express gratitude for hot coffee every morning or clean clothes in their closet, but instead come to simply expect such gestures because those are the roles that they’ve grown accustomed to.
Similarly, they may not see the point of doing small kindnesses for each other: that was for their courting days when they were trying to charm each other into being a couple. They “have” each other now, so why bother?
3. Resentment or bitterness.
Stress and difficulty are inevitable in anyone’s life, but instead of seeing their partners as their allies in dealing with difficulties, many people see them as the cause.
Someone whose partner is laid off and thus has to work two jobs to keep the family afloat may blame the partner for the layoff and thus feel resentment toward them.
Similarly, a person who’s shattered from caring for a special needs child may blame their partner for this difficulty, believing things would have been better if they’d gotten with someone else.
Many people find it difficult to be loving or intimate with a person whom they feel is the cause of their suffering.
The question then becomes: Should you call it quits if you feel that the other person “ruined your life”? Or should you reframe your perspective to see them as an equal partner who’s there to help carry the load with you?
4. Unmet expectations.
Many people have grandiose ideas of what a marriage or committed, long-term relationship will look like.
As such, they may have a range of expectations about how their life should be.
Alternatively, they may have discussed expectations with their partners—such as having children or traveling—only to have those plans set aside or even dismissed without both parties in agreement.
If a person has entered a marriage with the expectation of becoming a parent, for example, only to be offered excuses and platitudes until they finally discover years later (i.e. after peak fertility has passed) that their partner has no interest in having kids, that would be a devastating blow.
In such situations, they may have a great deal of difficulty remaining in love with a person who has lied to them or strung them along with false promises just to keep them around.
5. Lack of communication.
This is a major contributing factor to the bitterness mentioned above, but it is a primary issue in most cases of relationship breakdown.
When people feel that they can’t communicate their thoughts, concerns, needs, or desires to their partners, both parties suffer.
The one who isn’t communicating their truth may become withdrawn, causing the other to feel neglected. Meanwhile, the one who isn’t being spoken to has no idea what’s going on and thus isn’t given the opportunity to work on making things better.
If one or both of you gets anxious about openly communicating with one another, learning to do so will take patience and understanding on both sides.
There will be miscommunications and possibly hurt feelings or arguments, but as long as you can remember how much you love and appreciate each other, you should be able to get through the initial awkwardness
6. Boredom.
Marriage and partnerships take a lot of work. For people who like a lot of excitement and variety in life, the realities of long-term commitment can end up being boring and tedious rather than comfortable.
They may compare their relationship to food choices, and complain that no matter how much someone loves pizza, they can’t be happy eating it for every meal, every day, for the rest of their lives.
In cases like this, it’s important to remember that love is a choice as much as it is a feeling. A person can choose to see the positive aspects of marriage each and every day instead of feeling like they’re somehow missing out or being “tied down” by their decision to be with this person.
7. Infidelity.
People mess up, and sometimes infidelities happen within a marriage or relationship.
Even if you and your partner have worked through this issue and have decided to start over with a clean slate, there may be lingering anger or mistrust.
After infidelity happens, many people feel that they don’t love their partner “the same way” anymore.
If this is something you’re dealing with, you’ll need to address the reasons why the infidelity occurred before you can reconnect with each other emotionally.
If you don’t, you run the risk of the same thing happening again.
Once you’ve determined why it happened, you can take steps to ensure that circumstances don’t repeat themselves, which will be helpful and reassuring to both parties.
8. Physical changes have resulted in a loss of physical attraction.
In some cases, what people interpret as “falling out of love” is actually “falling out of lust.”
This often happens when the relationship develops out of intense physical attraction and passion rather than friendship or mutual interests.
Time takes its toll on our physical forms, and changes such as pregnancies, illnesses, and stress can do a lot of damage.
As a result, a person might look at the partner they were once obsessed with because they were so “smoking hot” and now have zero interest in being physically intimate with them.
It’s a difficult issue to navigate: most of us wouldn’t want to hurt our partners’ feelings by telling them that their weight gain or hair loss makes us not want to sleep with them anymore, but the topic can be broached in a gentle, loving way—possibly with the help of a relationship counselor as mediator.
Acceptance and understanding go a long way in this situation, especially since these types of physical changes will affect absolutely everyone eventually.
9. General incompatibility.
When people are in the first stages of love, opposites may not only attract—they may be exciting and engaging.
Over time, however, the opposite stances and interests may end up being major contributing factors to relationship breakdown. Instead of a relationship that’s full of adventure, there’s just irritation and misunderstandings.
Alternatively, people who were initially extremely compatible may grow in different directions over time to a point where they have little if anything in common anymore.
Most incompatibilities can be navigated by finding a middle ground, but there are some instances where people’s leanings and interests are so polarized that they’ll argue about absolutely everything.
When and if this happens, the couple may not solely fall out of love: they may grow to actively hate one another.
