Hey all, fun question for you..
Were both late 30s
My ex girlfriend used the fact we don’t say “I love you” to each other as one of her reasons for the breakup.
I don’t even tell my mum I love her and it’s something I’ve worked on since the breakup
We might not have said “I love you” but I felt other things we did showed how much we cared for eachother and that while we didn’t say it – we both knew we did.
What do you think?
EDIT: Although there were other things she listed (both communication based), she was in a relationship 3 weeks after she ended it.
19 comments
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I think is a bullshit excuse breaking up for something that could have been easily communicated and discussed, but whatever
How long of a relationship are we talking about?
I think it would be very important for me – but that’s the whole reason why people say it’s important to figure out your partner’s love language. Clearly your ex, like me, is a words of affirmation girl. We need to hear how our partner feels in order to feel loved. You are clearly different and wanted to show your love in other ways. Either find someone who has a love language that matches yours, or realize if you’re with a words of affirmation girl, you will need to change.
Yes, it wouldn’t hurt or kill anyone. I see it as giving someone a genuine compliment, but I wouldn’t use it against someone if it wasn’t reciprocated.
You can show love through actions without saying I love you. My family never say “i love you”, i always saw it as a couples thing. My ex thought it was weird that I would not end a phone conversation with “i love you” my with mom or dad. We just show how much we love each other through spending time together and helping each other.
If you dont say you love her and dont show her love I understand. But that might not be the case. Everyone loves differently.
To a lot of people, it matters. Did she say it regularly and you didn’t — or did she not say it either?
A point you raised about “it’s something she should have talked about before breaking up”. Maybe, but also it’s something someone wants the other person to want to say. Otherwise it’s like working at Wendy’s and your boss telling you to ask if they want to super size it. Yes, it’s now being said but 🤷🏻♂️.
But again, if she never said it either then that’s nonsense.
I’d probably ultimately break up over it too, but not before communicating this as a want/need and giving my partner time to adjust. If she didn’t mention it, then it’s a bit too much. Mind-reading is not a required skill for dating
I say it to my partner every day. I never end the day without saying it.
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WhenI was younger I was in some pretty awful relationships before I got the ship turned around. I look back and realize it wasn’t said to me (among other things).
Yes it is very important for me in a relationship.
I might also add that as one of the reason for breakup.
Even though we don’t say I love you in our family (to each other).
Edit- But I would 100% mention that it bothers me before considering breakup.
I think it’s more important why you don’t say it more than why you do.
But also, people have different “love languages.” So it’s varying kinds of important to different people (obviously).
I don’t think it would be important to me to be told “I love you,” all the time, but I think I’d be happier with someone who said it more frequently than less, because verbal affirmation is something I look for.
She was just making excuses. Showing love is more important than saying it anyway.
I feel saying “I love you” is one of the simplest criteria for being in a relationship.
I’m with her 100% on this one.
About 6 months, we had a big weekend away planned (and was planning the day before the breakup)
Yes this is important to me. Yes I would probably break up with someone over it as it likely indicates larger emotional unavailability issues.
Obviously it matters to her. That’s what’s important.
Yes, to me and to most people it is crucial.
It sounds like she, like most people, needs to hear it. You wanted her to feel it through actions alone but she needed the words as well. You can’t assume people know you love them if you don’t tell them…! People are not mind readers.
I’m curious what the other communication things she listed.
That could bother me enough to lead to a breakup but I’d also communicate how important that is to me long before breaking up.
Man this story and some of your comments brings back some memories of a similar complaint and “reasoning” for breaking up with an ex from my 20’s.
Apparently, I never said the magic words of “I love you” or at least I didn’t initiate the exchange… It was always “I love you too” according to her. I still think the reasoning was a bunch of BS and while she didn’t immediately find someone new I know for a fact she was already chatting someone up within a week of our breakup… And sort of like you the ironic thing is 3 weeks before we broke up, we were in NYC and went ring shopping at Tiffany’s…
Sure I posed it as more of a lark/joke of “lets go check out their uber fancy rings” but the entire time we were in the store we treated it seriously and to me it was a fact finding mission of what she likes and would want in ring… and we had serious discussions after the shopping trip about which ones she liked and didn’t like and why… When she told me I never initiated saying I love you, I was just like “jokingly or not, who takes a girl ring shopping when they dont feel that way.”
We’d been dating for about 14-16 months at that point and my own thoughts on the matter at the time was that the ring shopping trip made it all become too real. One of the other BS reasons she gave was that I made too much money and it made her uncomfortable since we had different attitudes towards our spending as she was on a stricter budget.
We remained friends (kind of hard not to as I had gotten her a job with the company I was working for so we still had to see each other and no matter how much I tried to distance myself from her she kept coming around) and I’m fairly close with her mom so I know her dating history since which has only backed up my conclusions that most of the reasons were BS as she ended up with a new guy a few months later that she dated for like 5 years before they split and to me the guy seemed like the definition of “emotionally unavailable.” Like when they first met, she lived a little over an hour away from him in the next city over and when she got a new job in the same city about 1.5-2 years into their relationship, he made her get her own apartment in the city… and though they did move in together in year 3, it also took him like 2 years before he’d attend family holidays with her and they spent the last year of their relationship in couples counseling. Never engaged and while I dont know for certain, based on what I do know about their relationship, I doubt it ever came up as even a joking possibility… On the brightside, I’m sure he said “I love you” plenty.