This Is What You Get For Falling Out Of Love

Jul. 20, 2012

By Ryan O'Connell info

I write and edit Thought Catalog. I'm a brat. Send me fun things at ryan@thoughtcatalog.com

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This is what you get for falling out of love. You get to share a bed with them still, even after you’ve come to the cold, hard realization that there’s nothing left between you two. You get to show them in myriad devastating ways that the love is no longer there. If you think they don’t know, if you think you’ve done a good job of keeping it a secret, think again. They know.

One minute they’re there and the next, they’re gone, baby gone. What was it exactly that took them away from you? What took all of the love you had for this person and sucked it dry? You’d really like to know! Perhaps it would alleviate you of your guilt, make you feel like you didn’t have such a fickle heart. (Spoiler: Your heart is fickle. We screw over the ones we love all the time but let’s just try to pretend otherwise, shall we? Let’s try to pretend that we wouldn’t ever ruin the ones closest to us.)

When someone gives you their heart, they’re also giving you permission to destroy them. It’s never articulated but it’s understood that the possibility is always there. The second you feel yourself starting to fall out of love with someone, you’re jump-starting the destruction and betrayal. You’ve begun picking at the scab but you’re too much of a coward to ever pull it off yourself. Instead, you implicate your lover and make them pull at it. You push them away until they have no choice but to make it bleed. You couldn’t do it yourself, were too afraid to, so you ended up getting your blood on their hands.

Do you hate yourself yet? You should. Hate is what you get for no longer being able to feel love.

This is what you DON’T get for falling out of love: Peace, understanding, an apology, a thank you, a kiss, an embrace, chicken noodle soup for when you have the sniffles, respect, placid conversations, acceptance, friendship, break up sex, returned items of clothing, custody of the pet, choices.

This is more of what you DO get: Grief, teary voicemails. getting unfriended on all social networks, numerous questions that you don’t want to give the answer to, below the belt accusations, and complete and utter powerlessness over how you are perceived. You’re a monster now. Your ex is drawing a caricature of you with devil horns and sending it to everyone in their contact list.

Is this fair? I don’t know. Maybe it’s not. After all, we don’t choose to fall in love with someone as much as we choose to fall out of love with them. It’s all random, which is perhaps why love and relationships are so terrifying to begin with. In essence, it’s just our brains saying “yes” to someone until one of them decides to say “no.”

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Maybe. Maybe! Maybe?

No. No. No……

Everything you do, every heart you let in and spit out, has consequences. Don’t think for a second otherwise.

Fall out of love anyway. It’s not like you have much of a choice and chances are it’s not your fault. It’s chemical. Just make sure you understand what you’re getting in return. Make sure you understand and respect the hearts that don’t belong to you. TC Mark

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image – Sander van der Wel

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  • denkely

    you lost me at ‘falling out of love is chemical’

    • denkely

      It’s an intricate affair of drifting apart over a period of time culminating in the inevitable, ‘Babe, this ain’t working for me’, being momentarily stunned and then it hits you that he/she just ended your 3 year semblance of a relationship.

      • derp

        it’s chemical as in the infatuation wears off. Love IS chemical, eg seritonin, dopamine, etc

  • Annik

    Obliterating. Just like the actual experience you wrote about.

    • Steve13

      Very sad and yet inspiring. Well written indeed!

  • http://barmecidefeast.wordpress.com Justin Mazaleski

    I just went through this exact experience with my fiancee. I don’t know how it happened, but it went from me wanting to spend the rest of my life with her to me trying to avoid her affection. I just ended the relationship and she’s devastated, but I just couldn’t make myself be in love with her again, as much as I wanted to.

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  • Mary

    Being “in love” just means feeling chemically attracted to someone — or else just dependent on them for validation. “Loving someone” is a daily choice, a vote for intimacy and loyalty and oatmeal in the morning even when the other person smells bad and is boring. It’s a decision to be part of a team. Falling “out of love” is chemical. But leaving them is a choice, something you do because you realize you’re not ready for commitment or the schlepping that you’re eventually going to do if you’re Forever with someone. Leaving isn’t necessarily a good choice or a bad choice, but it is something you control.

    • Angela

      I absolutely agree, 100%

  • guest

    I just feel out of love with someone in the way that I really can’t control. That’s never really happened to me before. I don’t even want to be around him anymore – and I’m trying to get up the courage to tell him. Thank you for this, at least I don’t feel so alone.

    • guest

      *fell

  • julez

    heart. broken.

  • H

    Ryan, I love you!

  • http://compendiumcow.wordpress.com Sallybell

    So beautifully written. So heartbreakingly accurate.

  • http://www.tigerlipbalm.com Mary

    Sad as balls.

  • http://nadineestrella.wordpress.com nadineestrella

    Reblogged this on Nadine Estrella and commented:
    This.

  • Sam

    Wow, this hurt like hell. Way too accurate for right now.

  • Leeza

    This. This right here hit so close to home it’s getting me on the verge of tears. Excellent and raw.

  • http://lessonsofsummer.wordpress.com charlleyb

    Reblogged this on LESSONS of SUMMER and commented:
    this is why i couldn’t let you in, because if i did, then you win…

  • http://queenatunagaga.blogspot.com/ Leong Karlyn

    Perfect. Heart wrenching. Cold as ice.
    This is possibly the best thing, most honest thing that I’ve read.

  • http://breathingliberty.wordpress.com breathingliberty

    Very well written, and just pierces me through the gut.

  • http://balsamicvinaigrette.wordpress.com Xinhui

    Reblogged this on xinhui and commented:
    i don’t want to believe this. i really don’t, and i can’t see myself doing it in the near future. i’m not sorry, but i also am, but i’m also not.

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  • http://gravatar.com/ashaeffer ashaeffer

    I’m going through this right now. Unless you’re heartless, this can be almost as painful as being on the other end. The guilt, the questions that you yourself can’t answer, the not wanting to hurt another person but trying to be true to yourself, the mixed emotions (being torn between wanting to see them and being excited to be able to do whatever you want again), and if you’re so unlucky having to live in the place that you made a home for the two of you when you were happy and in love.

    • panmn

      Just described what I couldn’t put into words perfectly.

  • LetItGo

    Dead Accurate. Now I’m really hating myself.

  • Kirsten

    For the past 5 years I have been raising our kids alone. I do all of the cooking, cleaning, shopping and taking care of our children. While he followed his dream and started a business, I was told that I could not continue with school, because I could not rely on him to pick kids up when he was done with work ( and I quote “I’ll be too tired.) every day I take care of our kids, pets and home. If I ask him to stop on his way home to get milk, he tells at me for not appreciating how hard he works. I’ve kept the house clean, and despite having a very high needs toddler at home, and one going into first grade, I was berated for not sweeping off the porch today, and putting away some clutter that had accumulated there. He can’t bathe the kids, because it’s uncomfortable for him, he can’t read the kids stories because he doesn’t like reading, he gets mad at our six year old because she is afraid of riding a two wheeler, he gets mad at me for not keeping the house SPOTLESS when he is gone for 13 hours of the day, and I’m at home with a toddler that doesn’t nap (high needs) and needs to be held 80% of the time. I do everything alone, and am yelled at for everything I do. When he is off on Sundays i make him huge meals to enjoy, and have even taken on all the yard work to take the load off of him. If I go to friend’s house for 1 hour every three weeks (which is the ONLY alone time i get, the toddler even gets into the shower with me because she cant be without me for even a minute) I’m in trouble, because he can’t handle the high needs baby. I am a GIVER in bed, and dont get return in any way, so now im in trouble for not wanting to just roll over and let him do it (which is precisely what he does). If hes not berating me, hes ignoring me, and being nasty to the kids. He has completely changed on the last three or so years, and refuses to do counseling, or go back on antidepressants. So I’m the one at fault for falling out of love? Really?

    • Sara

      One word – divorce. You’re at fault for letting yourself be treated like a worthless piece of nothing. (p.s your toddler’s like that because you made her that way. My nephew is the same, break the cycle.)

  • Kirsten

    No, she’s just high needs, has been since birth. In fact, with high needs kids, they don’t “cry it out”, and if they are not held as often as they need to be, or nursed on demand, they go into failure to thrive. It’s a personality, they are intense, high activity, extraordinarily sensitive, and intelligent. People create needy children, high needs children are born that way.(Yes, theres a big difference.) Hubby doesn’t get it either, despite the doctor’s insistence that I did not make her like this. Anyhow- divorce, yes, easy to say, not so easy to do. I keep holding on to the hope that the old version of him comes back to me, but I’m beginning to realize that our children are witnessing this, and eventually they’ll think it’s okay for someone to speak to them like that. I won’t leave for me, I’d leave for my kids. It just sucks. And it’s painful.

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