What to do if you feel like you love your partner more than they love you

To some, replying to an ‘I love you’ with ‘I love you more’ is just cute hyperbole.

But if you really do feel like you care more for your partner than they do for you, it can sting like nothing else.

Mia’s* relationship was scuppered thanks to this very thing.

‘When we met he was full of energy,’ she tells Metro.co.uk. ‘Really outgoing.

‘But there were times he shut off, hid things from me and didn’t communicate things to me properly.’

Mia, 30, says it made her feel ‘isolated and shut off’ from her ex.

‘I felt like he kept secrets from me and that made me lose confidence in the relationship,’ she adds.

Feeling like there’s a mismatch of feelings in your relationship is a delicate and subjective matter that, as with so many things in relationships, must be handled with communication and care.

But something reassuring to consider, it that the issue isn’t always down to an imbalance of feelings. Sometimes, it’s more in how people communicate those feelings.

‘Love can be hard to quantify,’ Hayley Quinn, dating expert at Match, tells Metro.co.uk.

On top of that, what comes easily to one person may not even occur to their partner.

Hayley adds: ‘Love isn’t static. It can change and flow; over the course of a relationship, your feelings for someone can shift.

‘So if you think you love your partner more than they love you, it’s worth questioning whether this is about the act of loving someone, or how you’re both communicating your feelings to one another.’

Counselling Directory member Siobhan Butt agrees that it’s hard to measure love in concrete terms, and this difference in love languages can show in countless different ways.

‘Don’t compare yourself or your relationship to anyone else,’ she tells us. ‘One blueprint for success for someone else does not mean it will work for you.’

Hayley uses your partner cooking, or taking the children out for the day so that you can have some time to yourself, as examples.

‘This might not be the romcom gesture you were hoping for,’ she adds, ‘but it still demonstrates love and care.’

Learning to understand your partner’s love language – whether they show affection through words, touch, gifts, quality time or acts of service – goes a long way towards making you realise your feelings for each other are, in fact, balanced.

Siobhan says: ‘This sounds like you are having to give up who you are, but remember your partner is doing this also. 

‘I think the problems come when you feel like you are not being seen or heard within your relationship, when you notice you are making excuses for the other person’s behaviour and when you notice you seem to be doing most of the heavy lifting in the relationship.’

You have to think about what the intentions behind your partner’s actions are, she adds, and whether that could be them showing their love.

Are they, for example, doing a chore they know you don’t like? Do they wake you up with a cup of tea or coffee made just the way you like it? Do they message you to check in on how your day is going?

These are things that, while they might not be immediately obvious to you, are ways people can show they really care.

Outside of love languages, Siobhan suggests what people may really be picking up on is an issue with support.

‘Life has a rhythm,’ she explains. ‘It ebbs and flows with busy times, happy times, relaxing times and sad times.

‘There are times we need more support and there are times we have more capacity to give support. This doesn’t mean we love and care for someone any more or less – it just means right now they are having a challenging time and this is taking up their bandwidth.’

The important thing is making sure this balance of care shifts between both partners through the years. One person shouldn’t be doing all the heavy lifting – as Hayley puts it, it needs to be ‘give and take’ .

So what work can you do with your partner to help bridge what you feel is an imbalance of feelings?

The answer, unsurprisingly, is communication.

Mia, who works in media relations, says part of the reason why their relationship broke down was a mismatch in their respective communication styles.

She tells us she now thinks her ex was avoidant by nature, and when asked whether she believes this had something to do with their breakup, she tells us: ‘Yeah, I think so, as he couldn’t express his emotions clearly to me.’

She says communication with her ex wasn’t ‘aligned’. He would, for example, not text her back for days when they were in isolation during the pandemic, and ‘act like that was OK.’

Unfortunately, Mia says her ex didn’t try and meet her halfway, which is key to making relationships work.

‘He got very defensive,’ she explains, ‘and just wouldn’t understand the other person’s perspective.’

For anyone in a situation where they feel like their emotional needs aren’t being met, Siobhan says there are some key questions we need to ask ourselves.

‘What are both you and your partner currently doing to help nurture the relationship?’ she says. ‘What would you like to do? Have a conversation together around this.

‘Is there anything you would like more or less of? It can feel really difficult if we have attachment wounds, and we perceive that our partner doesn’t love us as much as we love them.’

Yes, past wounds can also factor into how you’re feeling in the present.

‘Talk about it,’ says Siobhan. ‘Just as light overcomes darkness, your openness and honesty with your partner will help you overcome your hurt and pain.

‘By choosing to turn towards each other you can choose to understand each other and how you show love to each other.’

However, all this isn’t to say there’s no such thing as love imbalances in relationships full stop.

Hayley explains: ‘It’s normal for feelings to ebb and flow. It’s normal for long-term relationships to have short periods of complacency, and for people to express how they feel in different ways.

‘It is not normal for your partner to withhold affection, to withdraw, to not communicate and to disappear. It isn’t normal for you to maintain an infatuation (not love) for someone if they’re not actively participating in the relationship.

‘If you’re relying on the occasional message from a partner, if you’re not meeting up regularly in person, or if there’s always some reason why they can’t commit, then this isn’t the real relationship that you want.’

If you’re finding your emotional needs aren’t being met and your partner isn’t willing to work with you to make this change, then it might be time to walk away.

‘Perhaps your partner has been aloof for a long time, or perhaps they’re not your “real” partner at all, and your long-term situationship has run its course, Hayley explains.

‘If so, you need to be brave (and kind) enough to yourself to realise that you can’t get your needs met, and that you can’t build a bridge from just one side. Even if you give this relationship 100%, you need your partner to give to this relationship too.’

*Name has been changed.

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