I don’t like it anymore like I used to
“I don’t like it like I used to be” is something that comes up a lot. But each case being different, I will answer today a question asked by a reader who wished to remain anonymous and whom I will call Camille.
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I don’t like it anymore as before: The email of a reader
Hello Léa,
While reading an article on the break or not, I took the liberty of sending you this email. I appreciated the advice you gave to a reader and I would like, if you can, to advise me the same.
So here I am in a couple for 1/2 years. I love this man very much but I have a lot of questions. I feel sincere attachment more than love. I have a loss of libido towards him, no more feeling of love apart from being worried about him and that his happiness is important to me.
Today I find myself in a special situation between these questioning and our move abroad I do not know. I’m unhappy where we are but he appreciates it, I feel like I’m no longer on the same page with him. I think he’s looking for experiences that I’ve already had and that I don’t want to live anymore. And it doesn’t help, before we had a life laid down and it suited me. I followed him out of love but I don’t know if I still love him. It’s hard I don’t know what to do is I have to stop and let him live his life and his experience or do I have to fight for him because I know what an exceptional man he is but stay unhappy? Please help me.
Thank you
I don’t like it anymore as I used to: My answer
Hello Camille,
Thank you for your message, I will try to answer it as clearly as possible.
1/ Attachment and love
First of all, I would like to take stock of the difference between love and attachment. You say, “I feel sincere attachment more than love.” In response to this, I ask a hypothesis: What if the difference between love and attachment was the fear of loneliness? Thinking about leaving him, are you “just” afraid of hurting him or are you also afraid of regretting him? Does loneliness scare you? Are you afraid that you will no longer be with him and realize that you miss your moments?
Because that’s also attachment: we create bonds, we weave lasting memories together, we make a life around the “us” and when we decide to stop, necessarily, the ball in the belly is there: what if I made the wrong choice?
Here are some differences between love and attachment: (I don’t like it anymore like I used to)
“Love is wanting to make the other happy, attachment is wanting to be happy through the other”
“Love is a difficult thing; attachment is only difficult when you are away from one another”
“A strong and powerful love, when it stops, generates another strong and powerful feeling but which is him, negative. If it is only attachment, the mourning of the breakup will happen quite quickly.”
From what I read – and I may be wrong – I have the feeling that you feel, at the moment, less than attachment. I would say that there is still affection, that you appreciate it and have nothing to reproach it for, but that, on reflection, it does not bring you much. He wants to live things that you have already experienced and that you no longer particularly want, you no longer have a carnal desire.
But the question is also: doesn’t this feeling that it’s not like it used to be like it, not also come from the situation? You followed him out of love but reading you I have the feeling that it is this very decision that made you lose your feelings. Hence the importance of listening to one’s own desires even within the couple.
2/ Love VS love state (I don’t like it anymore like I used to)
I would also like to quickly return to the difference between love and the state of love. If you want to dig deeper on the subject I invite you to read the article written on it but to summarize quickly: To be in love is to feel, to love, it is to decide.
Being in love = having butterflies in your stomach, wanting to see the other all the time, spending days in bed cuddling under the duvet, talking only about him
Love = The brain, reason, will take over from the heart. Christiane Singer said “The couple is the great chance of work“. Because yes, although we dreamed the opposite, although we would have liked love to come from oneself; LOVING IS A JOB. And not the easiest! So to love is to decide that we want to continue together and to put everything in place to make it work.
Very often we are in love before loving and in my article on the stages of a couple, I explain that during the opposition phase many separate because they think that they no longer like their partner. While it is simply that the passion has faded and given way to love. But not everyone sees it. (I don’t like it anymore like I used to)
I explain all this so that you can take everything into account Camille because only you can know what it is. Is this just a bad time? Has it been going on for too long now? Do you think things can improve and if so, how, concretely?
Because, indeed, when you say: “I have a loss of libido towards him, no more feeling of love except the fact of being worried about him and that his happiness is important to me.” I for my part have the impression of seeing love anyway if his happiness matters so much to you. Unless it’s compassion, pity? In which case, then it is quite the opposite.
Even if it takes time, you will have to ask yourself all these questions and answer them as sincerely as possible, even if you doubt your answers yourself.
3/ Divergent expectations (I don’t like it anymore like I used to)
You clearly have differing expectations and that is bound to be a problem at some point. But have you ever told him? Did you know how to communicate well before this departure? Have you exposed your desires to yourself?
The other “problem” is that “there is none.” In the sense that you apparently do not have much to reproach him so there are, for his part, no concrete solutions to put in place? Or do you see anyway?
4/ What to do then?
Your situation is clearly not easy because you do not know where you are yourself. That is why, as is often the case, I think that a “break” would be a good solution. Not a break in the sense we will break but rather establish a distance for 3 to seven days, during which there would be no right to news. The idea is simply to see if you miss him, if you want to be with him, to talk to him, to touch him, to tell him about your day…
Sometimes you have so much nose in your relationship that you can’t take a step back at all.
I also advise you to take the time to ask yourself all the questions I have put in this article and also to ask yourself what you really want. What would be your ideal relationship?
At the time you wrote your message, I think you really wanted to break up: is it transient? Do you think that the few feelings you have are definitive?
You can also decide to leave yourself X weeks/month and make your decision in a safe and defined way.
Hoping to have helped you,
