“I Love Them — I’m Just Not In Love With Them Anymore”
It’s one of the most common things I hear from couples who are thinking about leaving.
I still love them. I’m just not in love with them anymore.
When I ask how they know that, the answer is usually some version of: the feeling has gone. The butterflies. The pull. The aliveness that used to be there when they walked into the room.
And the conclusion that follows — almost automatically — is that this means something is over. That the feeling going is a signal to leave, and that the right thing to do is go find that feeling somewhere else.
I understand why people think this. We’ve been taught, by every romantic film and song and story we’ve ever absorbed, that love is primarily a feeling. That it either is or it isn’t. That when you have to work at it, something has already gone wrong.
But this model of love causes a lot of unnecessary pain.
What love actually is
Stephen Covey wrote: “Love is a verb. Love — the feeling — is the fruit of love the verb, or our loving actions.”
It’s a useful reframe. The feeling of being in love isn’t the foundation of a relationship — it’s something that grows from how two people treat each other over time. It’s a result, not a starting point.
Early relationship love — the honeymoon stage — is real and important. The connection that develops in that period helps sustain a relationship when things get hard. But it’s also relatively automatic. It doesn’t require much. The chemistry does most of the work.
What comes after that stage is different. It’s less automatic. It requires more intention. And it offers something the honeymoon stage doesn’t — a deeper, more layered kind of intimacy that can only develop through time, difficulty, repair, and the accumulated experience of choosing each other over and over again.
If you leave every relationship when the butterflies fade, you never get to find out what comes next.
That said — leaving is sometimes right
This isn’t an argument for staying in relationships that are harmful, fundamentally incompatible, or simply over. There are absolutely times when leaving is the right choice.
But that decision is worth making clearly — based on concrete, considered reasons — rather than primarily on the presence or absence of a feeling. Feelings fluctuate. They’re influenced by stress, by how well you’re sleeping, by how much resentment has built up, by how long it’s been since you’ve genuinely connected. They’re real information, but they’re not the whole picture.
What to try when the feeling has faded
If you still love your partner and want to see whether the feeling can return, the answer is almost always the same: action. Deliberate, consistent, small-scale action. Not grand gestures — daily ones.
Here are some things worth experimenting with. Try one or two for a few weeks and see what shifts:
Notice and name what you appreciate. Write down things you genuinely like about your partner — not the things you’re trying to convince yourself of, but things that are actually true. Leave them somewhere unexpected. On a pillow, in a bag, on a laptop screen.
Give more than you track. Stop keeping score. See what happens when you focus on what you’re giving rather than what you’re getting. It feels counterintuitive. It often changes the atmosphere of a relationship faster than anything else.
Put the phone down and actually listen. Not waiting for your turn to talk. Actually paying attention to what your partner is saying — what they’re trying to communicate underneath the words. If this feels harder than it should, that’s worth paying attention to.
Get curious before you get critical. Before blaming, ask yourself what you might be contributing. Try to see the situation through your partner’s eyes — not to agree with them, but to understand what it looks like from where they’re standing.
Touch more. Hold hands. A hand on the shoulder. A hug that lasts longer than two seconds. Physical affection is connection, and it often fades gradually in long-term relationships without either person quite noticing.
Accept the differences instead of fighting them. Some of what creates friction in long-term relationships is the same thing that created attraction early on. Difference is interesting. It can also be exhausting. Learning to hold both is part of the work.
Remember you’re a team. Relationships aren’t a competition. If you find yourself focused on winning an argument rather than resolving it, that’s usually a sign that something underneath needs attention.
Laugh together. It sounds simple. It gets overlooked. Find something you both find funny and prioritise it. Laughter builds connection and interrupts the seriousness that tends to accumulate in relationships under stress.
Create rituals that are yours. A Sunday morning walk. A particular meal you make together. Something small and consistent that belongs to the two of you.
Make time for each other non-negotiable. A weekly date — at home, out, a walk, anything — that doesn’t get sacrificed when life gets busy. Consistent time together is the soil that everything else grows in.
Work toward something together. A shared goal — a trip, a project, something you’re both building — creates a sense of partnership that day-to-day life can erode.
Get some support. If you’ve been trying on your own and not getting anywhere, that’s not a failure — it’s a sign that a different kind of help might be useful. A couples retreat, a relationship course, or couples counselling can offer structure and perspective that’s hard to create from inside the relationship.
If the feeling has faded in your relationship and you’re not sure whether what you’re experiencing is a natural shift or something more significant, relationship counselling can be a useful space to get clearer. It’s available in Squamish and online across BC — for individuals navigating relationship questions as well as couples working through them together.
