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Can You Stop Loving Someone If You Truly Loved Them? (5 Interesting Facts)

Whether you’ve just broken up with your long-term partner or you’re trying to kill your feelings for someone that doesn’t feel the same way about you, can you ever stop loving someone? 

Although pretty much everything else in the world has some level of explanation, love is one of the things most peculiar and unexplainable. 

Love is a phenomenon and even when we tell ourselves to stop feeling it, it can still exist. Therefore, there’s no proof or theory and a lot of people have mixed views on whether you can stop loving somebody if you truly loved them

Let’s start with the good news first, love can definitely fade over time and you can take steps to manage your emotions in such a way that you can feel like you’ve stopped loving someone quite quickly. 

You’ll most likely always carry some deep-rooted feelings for your ex-partners and people you used to be in love with, but over time it fades and it is not love anymore, it’s the aftermath of feelings and care you still hold for that person. 

However, a lot of the time you will be hanging on to loving someone for a long time after you’ve decided to stop feeling love for them, and that’s when it gets incredibly frustrating and hard. In this article we’re going to take a look at the 5 reasons you can’t stop loving someone, and what you can do about it.

Can You Stop Loving Someone If You Truly Loved Them?

1. You’re still obsessed with missing this person

you're still obsessed with missing this person

One of the most obvious reasons that you can’t stop loving someone is because you’re actually obsessed with missing them. Rather than trying to move on and let go, you’re actually still constantly thinking about them, talking about them with your friends, looking at their profile on social media, and yearning for them. 

Sometimes your significant other may even have cheated on you (which is more common than you may think as you can see in these infidelity statistics), and yet, you still long for them.

Instead of letting yourself feel the emotions towards the breakup or the rejection or whatever the specific situation is and moving on from it, you are stuck in wallowing over them and missing them. If you don’t keep yourself busy, surround yourself with people who lift you up, and choose to move forward with your life at some point, you’ll be stuck being in love with this person, unable to break the cycle.

2. You haven’t removed them fully from your life

You will find it incredibly difficult to ever stop being in love with someone if you are constantly surrounded by them, their family, or things that remind you of them. 

For example, if this person has rejected you and you’re trying to get over the heartache and stop loving them, the worst possible thing you could do is still choose to spend time with them. It’s especially important to create space when it comes to a situation like this because the person you love won’t actually realize how much you’re struggling.

Spending time with the person you’re trying to not have loving feelings for anymore is just never a good idea. You will only torture yourself over the fact you can’t be with them in the way you want to be, and your feelings might even grow stronger for them.

3. You’ve not been with anyone else since you left them

A lot of the time, people can still love someone because they haven’t moved on and actually experienced a romantic or sexual connection with another person since. Although you obviously need to allow yourself time to get over a breakup or a rejection, at some point you do need to get back into the dating scene, or at least open yourself up to the idea of meeting someone. 

If you don’t allow yourself to think about someone else in a romantic or sexual way then you are always only going to associate being happy romantically or sexually with this person. How do you know that you love someone? How did you fall in love with this person? By giving it a go, so you need to just go out there and open yourself up to the idea of love and a new relationship - it might even be better! 

4. You’re living in the past

Another common reason people can’t get over their previous loves is that they are stuck living in the past and haven’t been able to properly move on looking towards the future or even just living in the present. If you find yourself flicking through memories in your mind of you and this person or you're always thinking about the relationship you shared together, you’re not living your life because you’re living your past.

It’s nice to occasionally look to the past and reminisce, but it’s extremely unhealthy to live in your mind. The blunt fact is that you’re not in a relationship with this person anymore and life has changed, but you still need to live your life, otherwise, you’re wasting it and denying yourself current happiness.

5. You’re hanging onto the belief that they’re the one for you

If you hang onto the belief that this person is your one true love and no one will live up to them, you are stopping yourself from having any kind of relationship in the future because you aren’t letting yourself close the relationship with them, instead, you are hanging into it. 

If you stick to the belief that you are supposed to be with them, you’ll waste your life comparing every relationship you ever have to the one you had with them and you’ll deny yourself happiness. 

What Can You Do About It?

If you think that you are holding yourself back from letting go and moving on or you feel stuck being in love with someone you’re not with anymore, there are some things you can do about it to ensure you get over them as fast as possible in the healthiest way possible.

1. Don’t force yourself to forget

One of the worst things you can do when trying to move on from someone is forcing yourself to forget them. You will actually spend more time trying to train your mind to forget about them and therefore you’ll think about them more. Instead, every time a thought of them pops into your head, you can acknowledge it and replace it with something positive.

2. Allow yourself time to grieve

allow yourself time to grieve

After you lose someone that you love you do need to allow yourself time to grieve. Although the word ‘grieve’ is typically associated with mourning the death of somebody, you are grieving the death of a relationship, and that person from your life. 

Allow yourself to express every single emotion you feel, whether it be crying, screaming, or getting angry. Just make sure you express your emotions in a safe space, such as in your bedroom at home.

3. Get rid of everything that reminds you of them

As mentioned previously, you do not want to have anything in your life that reminds you of this person, so all you have to do is remove anything from your life that makes you think of them. It can actually be really therapeutic to clear out these items whilst grieving. Once you’ve removed everything from your life that reminds you of them, why not treat yourself to some things that bring you joy?

4. Stop contacting them

It’s vital that you cut all contact with this person. As much as you want to speak to them every day and check in with them, you absolutely must not do this. You need to completely separate yourself from them in order to let yourself grieve and heal. If you want to be friends in the future, address this a lot further down the line when they have no emotional hold of you anymore.

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5. Get busy doing things you enjoy

The truth is, you do need to distract yourself from thinking about somebody all the time after a breakup and there’s no better way to do that than getting immersed in doing something you enjoy. Take up a new class at the gym, start pottery class, or go away somewhere. Whatever it is that you like, go do it.

6. Spend time with people you appreciate

Breakups often leave us feeling like the world is against us and we can’t trust anyone, so that’s why it’s so important you spend time with your friends and family. You need to feel supported and comforted during this time anyway, but being around loved ones also brings back faith in humanity.

7. Practice self-love

Your self-esteem will probably be pretty damaged and you will most likely miss being affectionate. All you need to do to fix this issue is practice self-love. Boost your confidence up again, treat yourself to the things that make you feel happy, do some inner work, and show yourself kindness and compassion, as you would a friend after a breakup.

8. Decide to move forward

Once you’ve cried for a week or two, you’ve immersed yourself in a new hobby and you feel supported by your loved ones, you need to decide to put an end to it all and move on with your life. Choosing a significant day and telling yourself that you’ll pull yourself together after this day and move forward with your life is a good way to do this. Close this chapter and start looking forward to the next one.

FAQs

Can you stop loving someone if you truly loved them?

Love is unexplainable and by asking different people, “how do you know you're in love?” you will end up with a multitude of varying answers. So, just like that, the answer to this question has an array of possibilities as we all experience and think different things. Love can fade over time and you can stop feeling like you love somebody by putting some of the tips in this article into action and taking measures to move on.

Can you ever completely stop loving someone and have no feelings for them if you did truly love them?

There’s a big difference between loving someone and having feelings for someone, even if the two sound similar. You can stop feeling love for someone, but you might not be able to stop having any feelings for them, especially if you were in a long-term relationship with them and they were a big part of your life for a long period of time.

Can you ever get over someone you truly love?

It’s incredibly hard to get over someone that you loved and let go of them, but it is possible. It might take months or even years to fully be at peace with letting go of that person, but you will be able to fall in love again with someone else.

Can you fall out of love with someone but still love them?

You can definitely fall out of love with someone but still love them and care for them. When this happens you have lost the romantic spark that you felt for this person (you might even have a connection with another person), but you still care for them, love them, and want the best for them.

Can true love die?

You will always have feelings of love towards a great love in your life, even if it all ended badly and you got hurt. However, things happen, people change and life continues and true love can fade out. But, it’s important to remember that we don’t all just get one shot at love, and true love can occur with someone else.

In Summary

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why you can’t stop loving someone and also given you some techniques to actually get over this person. Trying to fall out of love with someone feels horrible and it’s definitely hard work, but it’s necessary if you are to move on and live a life that invites new love in.

Did you like this article and find it useful? We’d love to hear from you so let us know in the comments and feel free to share with anyone you feel who needs to read this.

Utilize this tool to verify if he's truly who he claims to be
Whether you're married or just started dating someone, infidelity rates have risen by over 40% in the past 20 years, so your concerns are justified.

Do you want to find out if he's texting other women behind your back? Or if he has an active Tinder or dating profile? Or even worse, if he has a criminal record or is cheating on you?

This tool can help by uncovering hidden social media and dating profiles, photos, criminal records, and much more, potentially putting your doubts to rest.

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