My Boyfriend Loves Me More Than I Love Him

When your boyfriend tells you or shows you that he loves you more than you love him, there are four reasonable explanations for his behavior.

1. Your boyfriend is more emotionally available and ready for a relationship than you.
2. He’s insecure and/or doesn’t love himself and craves an emotional connection very badly.
3. He wants you to know he appreciates you a lot.
4. Or he’s not on the same wavelength as you (has a different love language and attachment style) and likes to give and receive love more often and in different ways than you).

If you think that your boyfriend loves you more than you love him, you likely feel that he has expectations you can’t fulfill.

You can’t give him what he wants because emotionally, you feel that he’s moving at a pace that is unnatural and unhealthy to you.

This often happens to couples who are in different stages of life and have different relationship expectations. One wants more love and attention while the other wants more freedom, so the couple struggles to meet each other halfway and feels emotionally incompatible. As a result, the more insecure or clingy person emotionally exhausts the person who craves space and ends up pushing him or her to detach and appreciate independence.

If you feel that your boyfriend loves you more than you love him, you need to figure out why this is happening.

Is it because you’re not emotionally ready for a relationship, have trust issues, or because you feel pressured into spending a lot more time with your boyfriend than you’d like—or is it because your boyfriend is insecure, clingy, pushy, and wants to rush the relationship?

The fact that you’re not on the same page emotionally is alarming as you’re at the point where you could take your boyfriend for granted and fall out of love with him. You could think that he’s not the alpha or the confident guy you thought he was and that you need to help your boyfriend feel secure rather than him help you.

Before you butcher your opinion of him, you should try to understand why he loves you more than you love him. Consider the possibility that there may not be anything wrong with him but that you grew up in a family where you weren’t used to receiving so much love and attention.

That would mean that you didn’t learn how to deal with so much care and affection and that instead of perceiving it as a sweet gesture, you now find it smothering.

It’s nearly impossible for me or anyone to pinpoint the reason why your boyfriend loves you more than you love him without listening to your story first, but normally, it’s got something to do with people’s upbringings and the attachment styles they’ve developed during their childhood or the attachment styles they’ve formed later in their lives.

Some people go through life-changing breakups that change the way they perceive and desire love. Their past relationships make them develop trust issues and fears, so they choose to keep their new partners at a distance. Doing so helps them stay in control of how attached they get and emotionally starves their partner for reassurance and connection.

So if you have a feeling that your boyfriend loves you more than you love him, I strongly encourage you to figure out why you feel this way. Don’t just say it’s because “my boyfriend does this and wants that,” but also think about why you don’t like the way he speaks or acts. When you understand where your inability or unwillingness to reciprocate strong feelings of love comes from, you’ll be able to understand whether you’d like to improve the way you think and feel about your boyfriend or give up on the relationship altogether.

Today’s article is for anyone who feels that their boyfriend or girlfriend is more emotionally invested in the relationship than them.

My boyfriend loves me more than I love him

Back in the day, once couples got married, most of them would stay together for life. They didn’t see a reason to separate because they didn’t think about separating. They were married and believed that marriage was eternal.

This isn’t to say that there weren’t adulteries and roadblocks to overcome, but couples used to work things out with each other because they had different (better) expectations of marriage. They understood they chose their partner for a reason and also feared judgment from society.

Today, this isn’t the case. Although the number of marriages has decreased, the divorce rate has increased. Couples are no longer as willing to stick together through thick and thin and put up with what they perceive as unjust or less than they deserve. It’s much easier for them to give up and start a relationship with someone new. They’d much rather enjoy a moment with someone they don’t know and take the risk with him than to reflect and realize why they’re unhappy in the relationship.

Most people like to point fingers and say their lack of happiness, feelings, or security is someone else’s fault. They don’t stop to wonder that maybe, just maybe they have something to do with the way they feel (or don’t feel) and that relationships aren’t easy.

You see, relationships especially aren’t easy when people delude themselves by watching other happy couples on social media and want the same for themselves. I can tell you that these so-called social media influencers and people who appear the happiest online have far from perfect relationships. Most merely appear to be in perfect relationships because that’s how they choose to portray their relationships.

Off-camera, in their personal lives, though, they have quarrels, issues, depression, anxiety, fears, and everything normal human beings have. So don’t think that replacing your boyfriend with another boyfriend will solve your issue. Maybe you won’t feel so pressured into giving so much love, but you’ll encounter other problems.

Problems that you don’t yet comprehend.

Maybe the next guy will love you less than you love him and make you crave his attention very badly. Would that make you feel loved?

Surprisingly, many people think that’s what love is. They think they have to be anxious and starving for validation to feel that their relationship matters. Such people don’t understand gratitude and commitment, so they rely on the wrong kinds of emotions for proof that their relationship is worth their time.

I’m a guy, so I asked my partner about what she thinks would happen if I were to cling to her and give her a lot more love than she would give to me.

I said I would message her and call her like a crazy person and to my surprise, she said she’d appreciate it. But I think that after some time, she’d get tired of being chased and would unknowingly take power in the relationship.

That’s when she’d suddenly become a lot more frustrated with me. She’d be less patient, less forgiving, less thoughtful, and less giving in general. She would get a lot of love from me, so she wouldn’t feel a big need or desire to bond with me.

The only way she’d feel the desire to give more is if:

• Her mentality and perceptions of me changed
• Something or someone hurt her
• She became more grateful
• The power balance returned to normal

So if your boyfriend loves you more than you love him, don’t think that things will return to normal on their own. They could if your boyfriend is going through a rough patch (dealing with a temporary issue) and is clinging to you for support. But if this is the way your boyfriend is as a person and/or you have issues of your own to resolve, it’s unlikely that the relationship will balance itself out.

It’s much more likely that someone (or both) will have to make personal changes and that they’ll have to be encouraging of each other’s growth.

Here are 7 reasons why your boyfriend loves you more than he loves himself.

What’s the solution?

Before you dump your boyfriend, you need to understand that you haven’t exhausted all options yet.

You haven’t tried to understand your boyfriend and yourself yet, so there’s a lot more you can do. For starters, you can have a conversation with your boyfriend. He needs to know that there is a problem so that he can work on it and try to fix it.

You shouldn’t expect him to mind-read and fix the things you want him to fix. You’re a couple and couples talk about things. So talk to him when he’s alone. Say that you’d like to talk about something very important and that you hope he’ll listen to what you have to say.

Once you’ve made it clear you wish to talk about something difficult, tell your boyfriend that you love him a lot and that you’ve noticed he does a lot of [blank]. If it’s the attention you feel smothered by, say that you receive a lot of attention from him and that you sometimes would like to spend more alone time. If it’s words of affirmation that you have trouble reciprocating, express that too.

Whatever it is that overwhelms you, tell it to your boyfriend. Do it in a way that shows you’re eager to work through issues together rather than criticizing your boyfriend and telling him he has to do all the work.

If you express yourself positively and optimistically, the chances of your boyfriend getting offended are small. So small that your boyfriend will only get hurt a bit.

Let’s face it, this isn’t an easy conversation to have as it will make your boyfriend feel slightly rejected. But how rejected he feels depends mainly on how you convey your thoughts and feelings. The better your communication skills are, the less you’ll hurt your boyfriend,

Of course, your boyfriend’s self-esteem and overall maturity matter as well. But keep in mind that your boyfriend will get over it if you show care, love, and support.

He’ll want to work on personal qualities whereas if you criticize him, he’ll likely try to defend himself.

My advice is to look within yourself first before you even have this conversation with your boyfriend. Ask yourself the following questions.

1. Do I give my boyfriend enough love?
2. Did I develop myself in the best way possible?
3. Am I ready and capable of loving him fully?
4. Is there anything I can do to increase my love for him? Can I avoid thinking that too much love is a bad thing?
5. Do we work well together?
6. Why do I think that my boyfriend loves me more than I love him?

Asking these questions will help you take your attention off your boyfriend and put it onto yourself. So forget about your boyfriend for a minute and focus only on you.

Identify your triggers for negative thinking and you may even realize that there were things you neglected and a person you took for granted.

If that doesn’t help though, then figure out if your boyfriend has work to do on himself. Do that by asking yourself a few important questions.

1. Is my boyfriend anxious, sad, depressed, or did something bad happen to him recently?
2. Has he always been this way or did something or someone trigger his need for love?
3. Is he open-minded and willing to change this part of him?

The good thing about clingy people is that most of them are open-minded. They treasure their relationship because they’re attached to it, so they’re usually prepared to listen to any changes and improvements you may suggest.

You just need to choose a sympathetic approach.

Another thing you should do when your boyfriend loves you more than you love him is to advise him to focus on himself more. Tell him that you appreciate his love and efforts very much, but that you’ve noticed he hasn’t been taking care of himself mentally, physically, or socially.

He needs to know that he’s been operating on autopilot and that a little bit of space is healthy for a relationship.

If you can get your point across sensitively, he’ll understand that you feel a bit too prioritized and that you’d like him to do the things that don’t include you a bit more.

Of course, don’t distance yourself from him completely because that will make him even more dependent on you. But do encourage him to find some new hobbies and hang out with his friends and family more.

Your boyfriend needs to become excited about something else so that he can be a bit less excited about you. Only then will he decrease his emotional dependence and make it possible for you to reciprocate his feelings.

Be kind, patient, forgiving, and accepting

Your boyfriend will need some time to change the way he feels and acts around you. He won’t be able to let go of the unhealthy attachment overnight because attachments don’t work that way.

They require understanding, willpower, trial and error, and action. Your boyfriend needs to start breaking his pattern and doing his best to be different. He needs to decide not to be so dependent on you for happiness and self-esteem and develop a life outside of the relationship.

You, on the other hand, need to know what you’re doing. You need to value your boyfriend at all times and motivate him from start to finish.

It will likely take your boyfriend a month or so before he becomes the self-sufficient person you want him to be. But if you stan by his side, you’ll probably see positive results sooner.

There will be days when he appears to be back to his old self, but keep in mind that this is how self-improvement works. People don’t just keep climbing up and up. Sometimes they have to retrace the path back a bit before they can continue climbing.

So make sure not to throw rocks at your boyfriend while he’s climbing. If you do, you’ll most likely discourage him, make him act the way you don’t want him to act, and give up on him because of it.

Does your boyfriend love you more than you love him? Are you going to try the things mentioned in this article? Let us know what your plans are below the post.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.