Are you really in love? Or are you just afraid of being on your own?
It’s a hard realization to come to. I only came to it when he finally ended things with me!
I thought I was still in love, but that was just my fear of being alone and starting over convincing me to stay…
Some relationships end and that’s OK. But it isn’t going to end unless you end it – especially if this person is still in love with you.
If you think this might apply to you, here are 8 signs you’re not in love anymore. You’re afraid of being alone, and it’s clouding your decisions just a little bit…
Up first:
1) You aren’t truly happy
First up, you won’t feel truly happy if you aren’t in love. I know happiness is a tricky thing to grasp. It’s also a tricky thing to attribute to your relationship alone!
Like when I was in a bad relationship, I knew I was unhappy in my job, too. I put my happiness down to the fact that I didn’t like my job. When really, it was my relationship…
Facing the fact that you’re unhappy in your relationship isn’t easy. But when you’ve fallen out of love, you’ll just have this feeling that something isn’t right.
You might think to yourself that you used to be happier before you were dating this person or in the earlier days of your relationship.
You might even think if you “just did this” or “if this changed”, things would be better.
Unfortunately, these are all signs that you aren’t really in love or even happy together anymore. You just don’t want to call it quits and be alone yet.
2) You feel like you deserve better
Maybe they treat you well. Maybe they treat you OK. Maybe they treat you just a little bit badly – but only sometimes!
Whichever one it is, you feel like you deserve better, deep down. You feel like you could be happier or treated better if you were with someone else.
You might even feel like you used to be treated better, but now you’ve been together for a while, things have started to slip. And it’s never gone back to the way it was…
I know a lot of people associate falling out of love with coming out of the “honeymoon phase”. But I’ve been in enough relationships to know this isn’t true!
This feeling you have isn’t slipping into peaceful contentment with the person you love – still growing together and appreciating each other every day.
It’s a feeling of comfort mixed in with the idea that you aren’t getting what you truly deserve or maybe even want…
3) You think you won’t find better
Even though you think you deserve better, you still have this fear that you won’t find better than what you have right now.
Late at night while you’re lying in bed, running over the things you did together and talked about, you think to yourself, “Is it all really so bad?”.
And, of course, there’s the “what ifs”.
What if this is what a happy relationship looks like? What if he/she really means it when he/she says they’ll change? What if I regret ending this relationship one day? What if I don’t find anyone else and end up alone forever?
Honestly, I get it. I’ve had these same thoughts and these same fears. But they really are just that – fears. When you finally leave (if that’s the right thing to do), you’ll realize just how crazy those “what ifs” were.
Besides, what about if you flipped those “what ifs” around?
What if you found someone even better? What if you found so much more happiness single than in a relationship? What if your life completely changed for the better when this chapter ends?
4) You make excuses for their behavior
Remember when we talked about feeling like you deserve better?
Well if that’s true, this is something you’ll probably find yourself doing a whole lot: making excuses.
“They just had a bad day”, you might say to yourself when they’ve been mean to you once again.
“They’ve just been busy and so tired”, you might say when they haven’t organized a date for you in months.
“They’re just feeling a bit down at the moment”, you might say when they say something cruel or hurtful again.
It’s even worse if they keep apologizing to you and trying to explain away their bad behavior. Because when you care for someone, you want to believe them.
Deep down, maybe you know their behavior isn’t right.
But if you’re afraid of being alone, you don’t want to believe that, because believing it means being alone – and that’s definitely something you don’t want to do.
5) You don’t want to start over
If you aren’t in love anymore and you’re afraid of being alone, you’ll hate the idea of starting over.
I get it! When a relationship ends, especially a long-term one where you’ve built a life together, you do kind of have to start over.
You have to rebuild your life and create a new future for yourself. If you want to find love again, you actually have to start over with someone new, too.
Right now, this probably feels like a horrible thing. The whole idea of being with someone else and having to rebuild yourself might feel terrible!
But there is a way to turn it around and make it a positive. Think of it like, “I get to start over!” rather than, “I have to start over…”.
6) You enjoy your alone time a little too much
Alone time is good for all of us. Provided you’re a confident, secure person, you’ll love spending time with yourself!
When my other half goes out for the evening, I love watching trash TV, cooking my favorite meal, and huddling on the sofa with my two cats.
The problem comes when you start preferring your alone time over time together.
When your partner texts you to organize a date, you feel a little reluctant to go. When they call, you aren’t sure if you want to speak to them. You even feel a bit funny about texting them back sometimes – and you put it off.
If they have plans for the night or go on a trip away with their family/friends, you secretly love it – and not in a healthy way!
In a way that makes you wish your life could be like this all the time…
7) You flirt with others any chance you get
I had a friend who did this a lot. “I’m just a big flirt!”, she used to say when she was dancing with yet another guy at the bar.
A few years later, she confided in us that she wasn’t getting the attention she wanted from her relationship. Each day that went on, she fell more and more out of love because of it, without even realizing it.
Wanting attention from other people is a classic sign of unhappiness in a relationship. When you’re dating someone, you should feel validated, loved, and appreciated if it’s a happy relationship.
If it isn’t, you won’t. So you might be tempted to search for that attention elsewhere. You might not cheat. But flirting is something you’ll have no qualms with…
8) You hope one day things will change
My friend once said to me, “Never stay in a relationship because you think one day things will change or get better” – and it really stuck.
She was right. “One day” isn’t today. Realistically, that “one day” is never going to come either!
If you’re staying in a relationship because you think one day, you’ll get closer, one day they’ll commit to you like you want them to, one day they’ll change, or one day things will be better… I think you already know that it won’t.
I know that’s a hard truth to face, but it is the truth, nonetheless.
If things aren’t good now and they haven’t been for a while, they aren’t going to suddenly become better. If you’ve tried working things through and talking things out, and it’s failed every time, it’s going to keep failing.
Unfortunately, that really is the reality of it.
Staying with them because you don’t want to be alone isn’t the right thing to do.
Final thoughts
When I fell out of love in a long-term relationship (and he did too), neither of us wanted to face the facts.
I would never have admitted it back then, but I was afraid of being alone and that’s why I didn’t end things. I think he was, too.
Once we finally decided to call it quits, we both found the happiness we’d been trying so hard to create together, but could never find.
Of course, hindsight is a beautiful but painful thing. If only we’d known this sooner!
But hopefully reading this today gives you the direction (and the courage) you need to do what needs to be done.
Because life is too short to stay in an unhappy relationship just so you aren’t alone!
