How To Know If You're Falling Out Of Love

Few things are more painful in a relationship than questioning whether you're falling out of love with your partner. It's normal for a mixture of uncomfortable feelings, such as guilt, resentment, confusion, and grief to bubble to the surface, even causing you to avoid your partner in order to procrastinate the pain.

But if you're questioning your love for your partner, then it's a sign there is a lot of work to be done: either to salvage your relationship and connection, or to decide it might be time to split up.

Maybe your partner used to be a source of comfort for you, but now you feel agitated in their presence, flooded by a wave of negative emotions. If that's the case, you may be experiencing "flooding," according to McNeil. Flooding often occurs when a partner is "unable to regulate feelings of resentment, frustration, past unresolved hurts, or lack of trust," McNeil says.

In a relationship where either or both partners stop communicating about their needs, feel increasingly disconnected, and distance themselves from each other, an unfortunate pattern can arise: they can stop seeing any positives to their relationship, at all.

This is called "negative sentiment override," according to McNeil, and can often lead to love dissolving within relationships.

Have you been wondering if life might be easier if you were on your own?

It can be difficult to know whether you're falling out of love with your partner or just experiencing a recoverable bump in the road.

During a rut, you may experience a sense of boredom, and a lack of excitement or emotional stimulation, McNeil says.

"Ruts can happen in any part of life, from a job, to where you go to eat dinner, to the way you have chosen to decorate your home," McNeil says.

It's perfectly normal for there to be periods of ambivalence in relationships, according to family and marriage therapist Jane Greer, Ph.D. Relationship ambivalence can occur for many reasons, including big life chances or if you've developed a crush on someone else.

"Being able to sort out the ambivalence is at the heart of every relationship," Greer previously told mbg. "What is the degree of ambivalence, and can you get back to loving feelings?"

Seeing a couples therapist can help you better understand yourself, your partner, your relationship, and how to move forward as a happier partnership.

"Having a third party validate and help frame what is happening in the relationship that may be causing you to want to pull away can sometimes set things in motion," McNeil says.

Whether you remain in a romantic relationship with your partner or not, it's "always worth attempting to understand and heal what went wrong" in any relationship that once meaningful to you, according to McNeil.

Try to pinpoint the catalyst for your feelings of disconnection from your partner. What was the painful event, or when did your partner miss your bids for connection?

By allowing yourself to be vulnerable and open to possible feelings of pain or disappointment, you can take a more clear-eyed approach to understanding what went wrong in your relationship.

"Your partner and you are often not experiencing disconnection because you don’t love each other. Most times the emotions that are telling you that you don’t love a person anymore are there to block you from being vulnerable," McNeil says.

Once you and your partner understand which behaviors to change, and make those behavioral changes, then your relationship can heal and love can flourish once again.

Pay attention to whether your partner is open to resolving the relationship, or insistent on defending theirselves without accepting responsibility. It will help you understand better whether it might be time to break up.