"I love you but I'm not in love with you", what exactly does this mean?

Exactly that. What’s the problem? You in love with everybody?

They see you as a friend or a sister, but don’t want to propose marriage. It is also an old excuse.

It’s an empty statement meant only to let a person down easy during a breakup.

I have said it often and I meant it exactly as spoken. There are many people who you can love, feel sexual attraction toward, etc., but not be romantically in love with. It is normal, not unusual. It is a part of finding the right mate – there are many “not quite right” ones on the way there.

@DarkScribe I understand sexually attracted to, but actual love? You mean, like a friend that you’re attracted to but not in love with?

Its just saying “I care for you, but I don’t want to share my life with you”.

Like @DarkScribe, I’ve also said it and meant exactly what I said.
I was living with a man, and something didn’t feel right. On a solo vacation, I realized that I was excited to get back to him to hang out and watch TV and talk, not to wrap my legs around him or have any kind of physical intimacy or share romantic evenings with him. I loved him, but I wasn’t in love with him and realized I had confused the two. I started the relationship because he was a great guy and wasn’t honest with myself about my feelings, or maybe didn’t even have enough life experience to realize there is a great difference. Other people have probably done the same thing.

@kheredia I understand sexually attracted to, but actual love?

Yes, actual love. You can truly love all sorts of people in a non romantic way. The most common instance would be family – parents and siblings. I have a number of people in my life who I adore but have not a trace of sexual or romantic attraction toward. Male friends, older people, kids. Sex and romance don’t have a stranglehold on love.

But what I am trying to get at is that you don’t start a relationship with a person that you love like a brother or a sister. At least I don’t. I start a relationship because there is an immediate spark between the two of us and I actually believe that we can have a meaningful relationship. I just don’t see the point in leading somebody on if you don’t feel that the relationship can work.

I’m hearing a denunciation of this as a cliche break up tactic… why can’t it just be true? I’ve said this, I’ve meant this, I’ve received this… It just kind of Is.

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Granted, I do understand @Likeradar as she was confused about her feelings but I would never knowingly start a relationship with someone I knew I could not fall in love with.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic nailed it.

@Disc2021 I second that emotion. He usually does.

it means I care enough to call you once a month but not enough to want to see you naked.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 Here it might mean: I care enough to talk to you in a flutherthread, but not IM every day.

Basically, they care about you enough to say they love you- as in they want you to succeed in life, they care about your well-being, etc. but they do not long to be near you and are not crazy about you.

I love my ex husband and an ex lover but I’m not in love with them. The love changes, not necessarily like siblings but it becomes something else. How do you value that person?

I love you as a person but don’t love this relationship we have.

Right now I’m not in love with anyone. But I do love a lot of people. I love my parents, but I’m not in love with them. Even though its the same word in both phrases (“I love you” “I’m in love with you”) they mean two entirely different things and I think its pretty easy to understand the difference. For example I love my ex boyfriend, because he played such a huge part in my life and I wouldn’t be the same person today without him, but I’m not in love with him, and that is why we aren’t together.

There have been many essays/books written on the different kinds of love. C.S. Lewis breaks it down into four different types. In Greek, there are two different words for love: Agape and Eros. Agape is a love felt for family, for friends, etc. It is considered to be the lasting of the two, the more unconditional love. Eros is a love specific to a person and is strongly tied to sexual attraction and personal attachment. It’s rare when eros lasts for an extended period of time.

Imho it means “I don’t love you (in the romantic sense), but I dont want you to cry right now so i’ll say this to confuse you.”

A nice (lame) way to blow someone off.

Haven’t you ever started on a journey only to find a destination in the end different than you anticipated it being? Love can be like that. Often the initial feelings we register change as a relationship matures and evolves. If I love you, at all, I care, worry, and genuinely am concerned about your feelings. But I might not (as mentioned above) want to be involved sexually with you and am not interested in pursuing that avenue of the relationship anymore (or at all). As with any phrase, it’s overused. However, it can also be the perfect description of a feeling that has just morphed into a new creature.

Truly the validity of the statement depends on the honesty of the delivery.

Sometimes it is a sign of fear. There are people who need emotional distance in order to feel safe. When they find themselves caring deeply for another person, and wanting to become closer, it triggers their anxiety, which shuts down their libido and prompts them to reinstate the “appropriate” amount of emotional distance so that they can feel comfortable again.

It is a nice way of saying, “We’re done”, for those who want to avoid confrontation. They don’t want to be the ‘bad guy’.

@kheredia You may start of being in love with someone but gradually that love changes and you realise that while you still care for them deeply and love them you are no longer in love with them. That’s basically the reason my parents divorced. They were in love for at least 10 years.

However, not every relationship fails just because the in love feeling is no loner there. Many relationships survive without it providing they couple still care for each other. Personally I would find this type of relationship very boring but often “comfort and companionship” relationships last a lot longer than “in love” relationships.

When I first met my wife, I was in love with her. After a decade or so, I loved her, but I could no longer describe it as being in love with her. I still wanted to be with her, although I still craved that feeling of being in love again. That’s probably due to other psychological issues I have.

We’ve been working on our relationship, and I think some of that in-love-ness has come back. It’s not like that excitement of first getting to be known, but it is that thing where I can not imagine life without her.

I would not compare it to loving a relative. Nor is it like loving a friend. It is more special than that, but it is without that demanding side, where you absolutely have to be with your love right this second, and you can’t imagine how you will survive until your love is back with you.

I think it is an honest thing, and it is not necessarily a way of breaking up. It all depends on what he wants. If he wants to be in love, then yes, he wants to seek that out. He may also want to stay with you until something that grabs him and takes him over comes along.

You should ask him what this means to him, and what his plans are, and whether he wants to be “in love.” If he answers you honestly, and tells you he wants to be in love, you know where you stand, and you can make a decision about what you are willing to accept.

Love (but not “in love”) can last a long time. It can be very fulfilling. You don’t have to have the “in love” feeling. You don’t have to be crazy in love. Some people need that, and others don’t. If you want that, then move on. If you are willing to explore the love but not in love thing, then do that. What is most important is that you communicate openly and as clearly as you can about your wants, desires, and needs. What is important is to be able to work together to make sure both of you get as much of what you want as you can; that you are both generous to each other, and not withholding anything.

If there is any kind of barrier between you—any expectation you can not talk about because you are afraid of how he will react—it’s not going to work. If you are in love with him, but can’t tell him because he only loves you, it won’t work. However, if you can tell him, and he doesn’t feel like he has to reciprocate, and you are ok with him loving you but not being in love with you, and you feel secure in his love, it can still work.

Whatever you want, you still have to know what it is that you want, or it will be very difficult to sort this out. So figure out what your bottom line is about what you want from a relationship, and see if it is possible to get that within the confines of what he is willing to give you. If you can’t get what you want and need, it won’t be well if you just “settle,” because over the long term, you may come to resent your choice.

<—in love with Zen, too bad he lives so far away.

@ninjaxmarc: “I love you as a person but I don’t love this relationship we’re in”. I have to agree and add from experience that love doesn’t trump all, sometimes it’s not enough to overcome obstacles or forgive hurt/damage.

it’s a polite and guilt free way of saying’ now piss off’’

It means, you’re probably better off with someone who can simply and clearly state whatever is on their mind.