We Love Each Other But Can’t Be Together

When couples love each other but can’t be together, they usually don’t understand why they can’t be together. They feel that some mysterious force is preventing them from understanding each other fully and growing their love.

That’s why they often think they love each other but aren’t actually in love with each other. Some part of their romantic life isn’t how they want it to be, so they have a lot of doubts and relationship-destructive thoughts.

But despite that, they choose to stay together because they’re used to each other, attached to each other, and don’t want to let each other go.

They’ve invested too much time and emotions into the relationship to abandon it and be with someone else.

Such couples delay breaking up and continue to drain each other emotionally. If they don’t find a solution to their problems fast enough, they tend to get tired of feeling unfulfilled and break up. The breakup is the only thing that can help them escape a situation they lack the energy to be in.

The truth is that most couples who think they can’t be together eventually break up. The reason for that is that breakup thoughts and convictions that they aren’t a good match destroy their love and commitment.

They make them doubt their love and happiness and enable them to crave space or a relationship with someone else.

You need to know that love alone isn’t enough for a relationship to continue to exist. On top of thoughts that your partner is a good match, you and your partner need a healthy relationship mentality, good communication, self-control, gratitude, maturity, loyalty, and the tools to deal with problems and misunderstandings effectively.

If you or your partner don’t have relationship skills or don’t develop them quickly, you’ll likely exhaust each other and label each other as incompatible. Such a belief will suck all the romantic feelings out of the relationship and make you want to break up to avoid pain and discomfort.

So be careful about the thoughts you produce. Thoughts can create emotions or destroy them if you can’t figure out what caused them. They can induce anger and resentment and transform you into a person you don’t want to be.

Therefore, a certain level of self-awareness is required. By understanding why you think and feel the way you do, you can stop yourself from feeling misunderstood, undervalued, and neglected and avoid detaching from your partner.

People often say they have great chemistry with someone they recently met, and then break up a few weeks or months later. This happens because they overprioritize their feelings and underprioritize their and their partner’s ability and desire to invest in themselves and each other.

Because of this, they fail to understand themselves as well as their partner and associate unhealthy thoughts and emotions with each other. This makes them lose romantic feelings and forces them to seek happiness elsewhere.

Couples who want to break but can’t feel stuck with each other. They can’t leave the relationship because they feel guilt, shame, and a sense of responsibility and commitment to their partner.

The only way they can leave is by convincing themselves that the relationship doesn’t make them happy and that they deserve someone who easily connects with them and makes them want to invest in the relationship as well as themselves.

This post is for couples who love each other but can’t be together.

Why do you love each other but can’t be together?

First of all, there are 4 types of “can’t be together.”

The first type is the incompatible type. We talk about it when couples get together but realize they aren’t compatible in ways they think and feel about each other.

Couples who aren’t compatible have opposing beliefs, unmatching personalities, and different lifestyles. They may want to be together but because they’re very different culturally or behaviorally, they don’t find each other attractive. They don’t get the feeling that they feel understood, that they get along, or that they want the future to look like the present.

That’s why there’s not much if anything they can do about it. Most of the time, they don’t even want to do anything because they don’t want to abandon their core beliefs and be the people they’re not.

The second type of “can’t be together” is when couples want to be together (have determination and commitment) but don’t feel the love. This is the most common of the three types and tends to break up more couples than the other two types.

Couples who don’t feel connected often stay together for the sake of being together. They’re used to being with each other and afraid of breaking up (of what comes after), so they either work on the relationship, seek professional help, or give up.

What they do usually depends on how early they realize that their relationship has deteriorated and needs improvement.

The fourth type is when people have an affair and want to be together but can’t because they’re married or in a relationship.

As for the last type, we talk about it when parents, guardians, family members, or friends force couples not to be together. They tell them they’re not good for each other and that they must break up and find someone better suited for them.

Such opinionated people meddle with couples’ relationships (oftentimes by threatening and manipulating them) and make them wonder what the right thing to do is.

Now that you know about the 4 types of “can’t be together,” you should identify which type you’re currently dealing with. If you never got attracted to each other or lost the attraction early on (within a few months or so), you’re most likely incompatible and won’t develop feelings for each other even if you try.

You’ll just feel more tired and convinced that you needed to break up.

That is unless someone is not emotionally ready for a relationship and needs to process his or her past first.

On the other hand, if someone is preventing you or your partner from loving each other, then you’ll have to explain why your partner is a good match for you—and depending on how the conversation goes, might have to decide who to pick (your partner or the person telling you to break up).

Forced breakups can be very painful and difficult to prevent because parents can be very demanding. They can even threaten to disown their offspring if they don’t do what they need them to do. Threats and ultimatums corner couples and make them need to pick between each other or their family.

And lastly, if you grew apart or just don’t feel that you can stay together anymore, then that’s a belief you’ve developed due to a lack of bonding and communication. You got so comfortable in the relationship that you’ve taken it for granted and neglected the most important parts of the relationship.

Now that you “love each other” but can’t be together, you basically feel that you’re on different paths and not right for each other. It may feel like you love each other, but the truth is you merely feel attached and unprepared to let go of a relationship you’d invested in for months or years.

Anxiety, uncertainty, and fear make you feel that you’re in love when in reality, you don’t want to be with your partner anymore. It’s not that you don’t want to leave, but that something is making it difficult for you to do that.

You should figure out what that is so you don’t stay in a relationship you don’t want to be in.

With that said, here are different reasons why you love each other but can’t be together.

Why do you love each other?

Love can be difficult to understand because it’s often confused with attachment, anxiety, guilt, and depression. Emotional people tend to cling to their partner and tell their partner how much they love him or her.

They don’t realize they’re professing love because some emotion is driving them to give love and receive love or some kind of reassuring response.

That’s why dumpers sometimes tell their ex-partners that they love them very much and wish there was another way. Their goal is to make their exes accept the breakup and feel better. When they achieve that, they can quickly stop blaming themselves for causing pain and moving on while their ex was dealing with separation anxiety and post-breakup fears.

So if you love each other but can’t be together, know that the reason you’re staying together most likely has nothing to do with love. Many couples stay together for years despite feeling no love whatsoever. They feel attached or think that staying together is better for their finances and children.

You need to ask yourself what it is that you love about your partner. I’m not talking about what you like, but what you love. Love means that you want your partner for yourself, that you want to spend time with your partner, that you’re not thinking about throwing the relationship away, and that you can’t even imagine losing the romantic aspect of the relationship.

Try to leave guilt out of it and figure out if your interpretation of love is accurate. You might be measuring it with your feelings alone, which is incorrect because love is rational and emotional. This is important to keep in mind so that you can learn whether you need to improve yourselves and adapt or if you actually want to break up but lack the courage to do it.

As long as there’s love, there should be a will. And a will should be enough to commit to growing and becoming the person you want to be.

Mind you that love goes both ways. If you love your partner but he or she doesn’t, you won’t be able to make the relationship work no matter how hard you try. You’ll fail because you’ll smother your partner and cause him or her to seek space and alone time.

Both people need to be committed to growing love otherwise someone will get hurt. That someone will be the less attached and committed person.

If you’re not sure whether you love each other and want to be together, ask yourself some important questions such as.

• Is this the person I feel loved and supported by and want to be with?
• Do I see myself getting old with my partner?
• Do I want to express romantic feelings to my partner and receive them too?
• Am I willing to put the necessary work in to increase my love and commitment?
• Do I understand that (long-term) relationships have ups and downs and that partners in them sometimes feel comfortable or unstimulated

Once you have a better understanding of your love for your partner, you can then decide whether to fight for your relationship or give up on it. If you decide to leave, you might still struggle to walk away from the relationship, but that’s because it takes a lot of strength and willpower to leave.

You’ll need to be certain that the breakup is the best thing for you to do.

Do you both love each other but can’t be together? What’s your reason for wanting to break up? Post it below and we’ll get back to you shortly.

However, if you aren’t sure about breaking up with your partner and want to talk to us about it, visit our coaching page to get in touch.

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.