Those words cut deeper than almost any others in a marriage: “I love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore.”

If you’ve heard this from your spouse after discovering their infidelity, you know the crushing weight these words carry. They seem to simultaneously offer a crumb of hope while snatching away the entire loaf. Today, I want to explore what’s really happening when a straying spouse utters this confusing declaration.

The Profound Misunderstanding of Love

When someone says “I love you but I’m not in love with you,” they’re revealing a fundamental misunderstanding about what love truly is. They’ve confused love — a choice, a commitment, an action — with feeling — a temporary emotional state that naturally fluctuates.

Real love isn’t butterflies or excitement. While those are wonderful and intoxicating, they’re simply feelings that come and go throughout even the healthiest relationships. Authentic love runs much deeper.

Unconditional love is a choice made daily. It’s showing up when it’s difficult. It’s seeing your partner’s flaws and loving them anyway. It’s choosing connection over self-protection. It’s being willing to grow together through life’s challenges rather than seeking escape when feelings change.

The “in love” feeling your spouse is chasing is actually infatuation — a temporary neurochemical state that naturally evolves in all relationships. When they say they’re “not in love,” they’re really saying they no longer experience the dopamine rush they once did with you — and may now feel with someone new.

Trying to Explain the Unexplainable

When your spouse tells you they “love you but aren’t in love with you,” they’re actually attempting to make sense of their own confusing internal experience. They’re trying to rationalise behaviour that, deep down, they know contradicts their values and commitments.

The affair has created a fog of hormones, excitement, and novelty that really does feel intoxicating. Your spouse is experiencing a chemical cocktail of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin — the same neurochemicals involved in addiction. Like any addict, they’re trying to explain their choices in a way that doesn’t force them to confront the reality of what they’re doing.

This phrase provides them with an apparent “middle ground” — a way to justify their betrayal without completely severing their connection to you. It permits them to pursue what feels good while keeping you as a safety net.

The Inner Emptiness They’re Trying to Fill

What your spouse likely doesn’t recognise is that their dissatisfaction isn’t really about you at all. The feeling they describe as “not being in love” is a symptom of something much deeper — an inner emptiness they’re desperately trying to fill through external validation.

This emptiness stems from childhood emotional wounds where love was either absent, conditional, or inconsistent. When the core emotional needs for unconditional love and acceptance goes unmet in our formative years, we develop an inner void that can feel like a bottomless pit. No amount of external validation — not from you, not from an affair partner — can ever truly fill it.

Your spouse has mistakenly projected this inner emptiness onto your relationship. They believe the problem is the marriage, that you no longer excite them or meet their needs. This leads them to the false conclusion that someone else can fill this void.

But here’s the truth: the affair is like emotional junk food. It provides a temporary rush of good feelings but no real nourishment. The validation, excitement, and novelty might temporarily mask the emptiness, but they can never heal it.

The Cycle That Keeps Repeating

Without addressing the real issue — the inner emptiness and lack of self-love — your spouse will likely continue this pattern. The “in love” feelings with the affair partner will eventually fade too (typically within 6–12 months), leaving them confused and searching again.

This is why affair relationships rarely last. They’re built on fantasy, not reality. They’re an attempt to escape internal discomfort rather than face it and heal it.

The Path to Real Healing

Real healing begins not with finding someone who makes you feel “in love,” but by developing the capacity to love unconditionally — both for yourself and others. This means:

1. Recognising that love is a choice, not a feeling

2. Understanding that emotional voids must be healed from within, not filled from without

3. Developing self-awareness about the origins of your inner emptiness

4. Learning to provide yourself with the unconditional love you may have missed

5. Building relationships based on authentic connection rather than emotional dependence

When one or both partners commit to this type of healing, marriage after infidelity can actually become much stronger than before. The illusions about love fall away, replaced by something far more meaningful and lasting.

A Different Understanding

Imagine if, instead of saying “I love you but I’m not in love with you,” your spouse had the self-awareness to say:

“I’m feeling emotionally empty inside, and I don’t know how to fill that void. Instead of looking inward and doing the difficult work of healing, I’ve been seeking external validation. I’ve mistakenly blamed our relationship for my inner dissatisfaction when the truth is that no person or relationship can fix what’s broken within me. I need to learn what real love is — both for myself and for us.”

That level of honesty would open the door to genuine healing and transformation. It would acknowledge the real problem instead of creating a false narrative that damages both of you further.

Moving Forward

If you’ve heard those painful words from your spouse, know this: their confusion about love doesn’t define your worth or the potential of your relationship. Their statement reflects their own emotional journey, not your value as a partner.

What’s truly empowering is realising that you can bring unconditional love into your marriage even if you’re the only one ready to do so right now.

Think of two people standing on opposite sides of a canyon. If both throw a rope halfway, the ropes won’t magically connect in the middle. But if one person throws their rope all the way across, connection has already begun. By bringing unconditional love into your marriage, you’re throwing that rope across the divide.

When you begin offering unconditional love, you’re providing your spouse with exactly what their emotional system needs most — even if they don’t yet recognise it. Like a parched plant finally receiving water, their emotional system will begin to respond, often in subtle ways at first.

In time, as your spouse’s emotional system revives and they experience the transformative power of being truly loved, they may find themselves ready to throw their own rope across. When that happens, you don’t just have reconnection — you have a doubly strong marriage built on a foundation of authentic love rather than fleeting feelings.

This isn’t about manipulation or earning your spouse’s love. It’s about recognising that real healing starts with one person choosing love, regardless of what the other is currently capable of giving. Your capacity to love unconditionally can become the catalyst for transformation in your entire relationship.

For over 14 years, we’ve helped more than 1,200 couples rediscover what real love means and rebuild after infidelity. We’ve watched marriages transform when both partners learn to fill their own emotional voids and create a relationship based on authentic connection rather than emotional dependency. Our own marriage has done the same.

The path isn’t always easy, but it leads to something far more fulfilling than the fleeting feeling of being “in love.” It leads to a love that chooses, a love that sees, a love that stays — even when feelings fluctuate.

Ready to learn more?

Book a call with Pete now