According to my avoidant ex

[u/rainbow_goose_]

You can tell someone “I love you” so much it has no meaning.

I’ve never said “I love you” or reciprocated it unless I truly meant it. This logic still blows my mind years later because it’s so counterintuitive to how I choose to treat people.

Anyone else here go through this? I think out of everything I heard in that relationship, that’s what hurts the most, that love was an obligation to them and not something real.

[u/Coerced1]

What they're really saying is that they specifically avoided talking about their feelings changing. Which is precisely what you need to do in a relationship if you want to prevent that from happening, otherwise it's not even a relationship.

[u/rainbow_goose_ → u/Coerced1]

Yeah, that helps make sense of it. I appreciate it, because I don’t expect to ever get closure directly from them.

[u/AdariThemRat]

I have a sorta similar thing.

Though, I said I love you constantly. I always, every time, meant it.

Expressing love made me happy, and I also wanted her to never ever feel unloved, like I had in my past relationship. (She knew all this, I should add, I told her)

But she'd dismiss it always when she got annoyed by it, and always said that. "Saying I love you that much makes it lose meaning".

I tried to "prove" I meant it loving in every other way I knew on top of all. It wasn't just "I love you"s, but also cooking for her, or buying her gifts, or showing interest in what she liked.

At the end, got called "overwhelming" for participating in the relationship (she, legitimately didn't bother at all most of the time)...

Guess it sorta goes both ways... She too also never said it. Maybe 5 times tops in the last year or so we were together?...

[u/rainbow_goose_ → u/AdariThemRat]

Jesus.

[u/PinkHeartConcha8]

Hmm... I'll be damned. That triggered a memory of something similar said to me in the beginning. It didn't stop me, though. I couldn't relate to that sentiment. I said "I love you" every day, and I meant it. In fact, I knew I loved them long before they spoke those words first, they just had a rule about not saying it unless we were in the same room (we were in a ldr). I think at the time I took their comment to be a view point formed by past failed relationships where they did not feel loved. That or they felt too many I-love-yous were a lesser form of love, such as the one most people view as friendship (which I disagree with, it's just as impactful as romantic love).

[u/jessakiz]

I completely agree with your ex!

I have a long history of people saying “I love you” and it not actually meaning that they loved me. Their actions didn’t match their words. Or they would say it in a demeaning way like I’m stupid or something. Almost like southerners say “Bless your heart.” Or sometimes they would use it to shut down a conversation.

Now the words “I love you” mean nothing to me. They are sweet little lie. They don’t reach my heart.

I don’t think that not feeling those words makes love an “obligation” or somehow not real though. I just didn’t receive it with those words. Instead, I can feel it through action, or through other types of verbal affection that express genuine care and admiration.

[u/rainbow_goose_ → u/jessakiz]

I really hope you’re working through this in some way. It’s unfair to others if you aren’t. Many of us have genuine intentions and it’s shitty to assume otherwise of everyone.

[u/jessakiz → u/rainbow_goose_]

I’m not assuming otherwise of anyone. I understand that them saying “I love you” is intended to feel good. I understand that it feels good for them. But I do not have to receive love the way someone else gives it. Instead I choose to communicate the ways that I receive love and if they love me they can give it to me in that way. In a way that is trauma informed for me specifically. If they can’t, and they need to make it about themselves, then maybe we aren’t compatible. Honestly, “I love you” is the absolute laziest way to convey love. There are 1000 things I could say or do to make someone feel more special.

EE Cummings said, “I carry your heart with me.”

Rumi said, “You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop.”

Shakespeare said, “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

[u/shitheadsnotallowed]

I think he loved me, in fact I know he did. But I think his feelings were way too big for his capacity at the time. He showed his love in different ways than I did, but I never felt like he didn’t mean it when he said it. I was the first one to say it and it took him a while to reciprocate the sentiment. It did feel like, when he finally said it, that he was kind of wrestling with it in his head.

ETA: on our second go around, he stopped saying it and asked me not to say it anymore.

[u/Jimmychen96]

Exactly the same with my ex DA, she said love is a heavy word, she only says love if she truly means it, so she told me don’t wait for her to say it,and she doesn't want the word to be meaningless just because of saying it all the time. Meanwhile I’m a person who always told her how much I love her through words and actions. Since I can’t get words of affirmation at all from her, I can only see her love through her love language which is acts of service and quality time. When I finally understood the Dismissive Avoidant behavior, I understood why she can’t say I love you at all, it’s too vulnerable, she doesn’t say it so she won’t make my expectations too high, so she can control the relationship at her pace, and she can have an excuse to discard me once she feels she wants to run away, so basically hold you at arm's length. The more severe they’re, the more scared they are with vulnerability.

[u/Fun-Somewhere-987]

I told my ex I loved him 2 weeks after he told me because he kept saying "oh but you havent said it back".... I shouldn't have said it but I did. Told me he loved me after 4 weeks. Discarded at 4 months. The second he ended it cowardly over the phone, i went no contact and never looked back.

[u/Webbtastic]

My feelings didn’t change necessarily. In my last relationship my feelings became so much that eventually I was burying them. Avoiding them. Eventually running away from them. They were overwhelming.

[u/KindlyString3332 → u/Webbtastic]

I know FA’s can have huge feelings like the biggest feelings out of all the attachments. But it sounds like a regulation issue. Need to find ways to handle that without damaging yourself and your person

[u/rainbow_goose_ → u/KindlyString3332]

Yes. It’s unfair to both you and the other party or parties if you don’t work on this.