12 Men Describe The Exact Moment They Fell Out Of Love
Falling out of love happens slowly ... and then all at once.
Kimberrywood | Canva Emotions are fickle things. Just like nobody knows exactly when or how you will fall for someone, similarly, no one can plan for that moment you fall out of love.
How can someone fall out of love with their partner? According to research, it starts with a lack of trust and intimacy in a relationship.
For some, feelings take longer to catch up with our logic than they should, keeping us in relationships far past their expiration date, while others can maintain objectivity in romantic endeavors and exert a precise amount of emotional response at any given moment.
No matter how you experience the complicated dance of detachment, one thing is clear: Whether you've fallen in or out of love, the sensation is sudden, apparent, and inescapable.
Here 12 men describe the exact moment they fell out of love with their partners:
1. She lost interest in me, so I lost interest in her
"It sounds awful, but I was really into someone a few years ago. We’d had great chemistry and rapport. She backed out right before the first time we were intimate and said she wasn’t interested in me at all anymore.
"All the energy on my end just disappeared. Almost a year later we started talking again and even finally were intimate and it was just FLAT. It was as if her very sudden and abrupt loss of interest just ate all the passion."
2. Her abuse and addiction drove me away
"A few years ago I moved across the country with my girlfriend at the time. We were, for all intents and purposes, married. Shared household, bank accounts, the whole nine.
She was emotionally and verbally abusive and even threw a cell phone at my head and put it through a plate glass window missing me by inches.
"She tried to say I was riding on her coattails and taking advantage of her being a PhD. However, I pointed out that her debt/income addition to the household was less because of her monthly student loan payments.
"No amount of logic stopped her from finding things to berate me about. She was also an addict. No amount of couples therapy stopped her. One day I woke up and the love was just gone. All the hanging in there to help her and make it work wasn’t going to get anywhere and I just literally woke up done with it.
"I broke up with her that day and moved out a week later. I'm one of those people who will hold on and try and work until it's just beyond unsalvageable and then I’m gone."
3. The love I had disappeared overnight
"I remember waking up and the love I had for my girlfriend was just gone. I still liked her but it was only as a friend.
"None of the things I had fallen in love with existed in my mind anymore, and if I had to put it in picture form it would be a car trying to start with no gas — just trying and trying to crank but nothing was there to help it turn over."
4. She prioritized her male friend over me
"I realized I didn’t love her anymore the moment I went to talk to her about a male friend that my girlfriend was spending a lot of time with.
"When I spoke to her about my concerns of how close they had gotten, she blindly, angrily defended their relationship instead of addressing my feelings at all."
5. It took me months to realize
"I don't think it's possible to fall out of love if you love someone. Now, I do remember the exact moment when my mind caught up to the chemicals in my brain telling me that I love a person.
At that point, I felt nothing. I could not comprehend exactly what was going on and it took months to figure it out.
"My subconscious started dealing with it way before my conscious line of thought. By the time I realized I needed to be away from her, I had been planning for it for months.
"The best way I know to describe it is when I finally comprehended everything, well... it's a lot like being lost in the pines. You have no way of knowing which way you need to go, but you know you got to keep on walking or you'll never get out."
How long does it even take to fall out of love? According to the New York Times, scientists found that it can take an average of six months.
6. We completely disconnected
"I have rarely ended a relationship, but I have left relationships before the other party. If I have fallen out of love with the woman I am in a relationship with, it's too late for it to work.
I don't enjoy hurting women, whether mentally or emotionally so I have rarely 'broken up' with anyone. But I would just stop doing all the things that I felt made me worth being with.
"I wouldn't initiate phone calls, conversations, intimacy, or anything. It didn't take long for her to pack up shop, feeling like she deserved better and there was something wrong with me. I know, so passive-aggressive."
7. I didn't want to fill her emotional void anymore
"I had a significant other. that I was living with, and I realized that we were just in different places. It felt like she was looking for something to fill an empty spot in her life, and it started to feel like my burden to fill that spot.
"It hurt that I realized that I wasn’t willing or capable of filling that hole and that I effectively ‘gave up’ on her by diminishing my investment into the relationship. She wasn’t (and still isn’t) a bad person in any way, and I still have some guilt over falling out of love with her."
8. It wasn't a specific moment, but it didn't make things hurt any less
"It's hard to recall a specific moment, but I remember how tough it could be waking up in the mornings when the reality of everything would set in, and then one morning it might still be there, but it wouldn't hurt.
"It could be bittersweet — the feelings are gone and a part of you might still want to hold onto those, but at the same time it can feel like a weight was lifted."
9. I became emotionally distant
"It was like turning off my emotions like a water faucet."
10. I realized this wasn't the type of relationship I signed up for
"I can't love someone who treats me with disrespect and disdain and insults me or puts me down at every opportunity. I felt trapped in something that didn't make me happy and the person hindered my ability to pursue my creative interests."
11. I looked at her and felt nothing
"This is possibly the worst feeling ever because it involves you no longer loving someone you still care for. The moment of realization for me was when I looked at this person who had always stirred something inside of me, looking at me in that loving way, and feeling nothing back.
Pexels / Trinity Kubassek
"That little look that always said they cared so deeply for me, that always made me smile, no longer had any effect on me. It is a very hollow feeling, seeing this person you know inside and out, and just feeling numb about them."
12. She was sneaking around with another man
"I remember the moment I fell out of love with my ex, my first long-term relationship. We had been going out for over three years and I was emotionally abused.
I kept making excuses. I thought that if I only worked harder at this whole relationship thing it would all turn around.
"Her friend told me they were going out to the movies. I got off of work early and went to surprise her. I figured that popping up to meet her at the movies would be a welcome surprise.
When I got there I found her and her friend watching the movie... and a guy who was constantly hitting on her sitting next to her. Boom.
"I saw the writing on the wall. It had been rocky for a few months up to that point but that was it. We lasted another month or so after that, but that was the moment my heart changed. Hollow, empty, soul-sucking."
Liz Pardue-Schultz is a writer whose work has appeared in Huffington Post, Time Magazine, XOJane, Medium, SheSaid, HelloGiggles, Ravishly, and Thought Catalog.