Certified Gottman Therapist
Licenses:
California LMFT #99008 | Texas LMFT #205614
Dr. Dana McNeil is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the founder of The Relationship Place, a San Diego couples therapy practice specializing in high-acuity relationships, emotional disconnection, conflict repair, and intimacy concerns. She has achieved the highest level of training in the Gottman Method Couples Therapy and is known for her compassionate, direct, and practical approach to helping couples rebuild trust, communication, and closeness.
She is also the founder of Therapy Getaway, a structured couples intensive model designed for couples seeking deep, focused relationship repair. Dana has specialized expertise in midlife marriage challenges, empty nest transitions, and gray divorce, and provides training and professional education for therapists, including work connected to the Gottman Institute.
Her expertise has been featured in national publications including Oprah Daily, Martha Stewart Living, Men’s Health, Bustle, and SELF Magazine.
She is passionate about helping couples move from feeling like roommates to rebuilding emotional and physical connection.
- Why Am I So Anxious in My Relationship? - October 9, 2026
- Breadcrumbing in a Relationship: Why Crumbs Never Add Up to a Cupcake - September 25, 2026
- Dr. Dana McNeil Featured in Good Housekeeping: The Real Lesson Behind “Gummy Bear Mom” Parenting - September 9, 2026
People fall out of love when the small, everyday ways of staying connected wear away: they stop turning toward each other, stop feeling appreciated, let resentment build after unresolved fights or betrayals, and slowly start living parallel lives. It rarely happens overnight. The good news is that love that faded this way can often be rebuilt, and working with a couples therapist gives you both a structured way to find each other again.
Even the healthiest relationships ebb and flow. That glimmering spark when you meet someone for the first time won’t last forever in the same form, and it can be particularly elusive in decade-long marriages. Knowing the reasons people fall out of love can help you notice what’s happening early, before distance hardens into a decision.
What Are the 8 Reasons People Fall Out of Love?
1. Small Fights Never Get Resolved
Everything becomes a reason for a petty argument. A towel left on the bed or who drives the kids to school turns into a fight, and nobody ever circles back to repair it. At home, this looks like walking on eggshells, tense silences after dinner, and a running scoreboard of who was wrong.
2. Trust Was Broken
Infidelity, hidden spending, or a serious lie can make it very hard to keep loving someone freely. At home, the betrayed partner may check phones, replay the betrayal, or hold back affection to stay safe, while the other partner feels permanently on trial.
3. One or Both of You Feels Unappreciated
When kindness goes unnoticed for long enough, people stop offering it. At home, this looks like one partner carrying the household, the planning, or the emotional work without a thank-you, and silently keeping score. Over time, appreciation is replaced by resentment.
4. You Stop Turning Toward Each Other
Couples make small bids for connection all day: a comment about the news, a hand on the shoulder, “look at this.” Partners who miss or ignore those bids slowly drift apart. At home, this looks like two people on their phones in the same room, one sharing something and the other barely looking up.
5. Life Becomes Routine and Joyless
No long-term relationship keeps the intensity of its first months. But when there is no shared fun, curiosity, or adventure at all, the relationship can start to feel like a business partnership. At home, conversations are mostly logistics: bills, schedules, and who’s picking up groceries.
6. Hard Life Events Pull You Apart
A death in the family, a job loss, illness, infertility, or a sick child can push even strong couples to their limits. At home, each partner may cope alone and in different ways, and one may feel the other wasn’t there when it mattered most.
7. Physical Intimacy Fades
Sex isn’t the whole of a relationship, but it is an important part of one. Dry spells are normal, especially in long marriages. When touch disappears for a long time without being talked about, partners can start to feel unwanted. At home, this looks like separate bedtimes, no casual affection, and questions like “Am I still attractive to them?” that never get asked out loud.
8. Partners Grow in Different Directions
People change over decades. One partner may develop new goals, values, or interests and stop sharing them, or feel the relationship no longer fits who they are becoming. At home, this can look like separate social lives, separate plans, and a sense that you no longer know each other’s inner world.
What Are the Signs You Are Falling Out of Love?
These signs can show up in you, your partner, or both of you:
- You no longer worry much about how your partner is doing or what their day was like.
- You complain about your partner to friends instead of talking to them.
- You feel more relief than disappointment when they’re away.
- You stay mainly out of comfort, habit, or practicality, putting in the minimum effort.
- Affection and sex feel like obligations, or have stopped.
- You find yourself picturing a future without them.
- You feel more irritated by them than fond of them most days.
Falling Out of Love or Going Through a Rut?
A rut is usually tied to circumstances: a new baby, a demanding job, a move, or a stressful year. You still feel goodwill toward your partner, you miss them when you think about it, and you can imagine things improving once life calms down.
Falling out of love tends to feel more settled. The goodwill itself has faded, and you may feel indifference, contempt, or relief at the thought of ending things. A useful question is whether you still want to feel close to your partner, even if you don’t right now. If the answer is yes, you are more likely in a rut, and ruts respond well to deliberate effort.
Can You Fall Back in Love?
Yes, often. Love in long-term relationships is less a feeling that arrives on its own and more the result of how two people treat each other day to day. When couples rebuild friendship, appreciation, and shared positive experiences, the feelings frequently follow.
Falling back in love is most likely when both partners are willing to try, when there is no ongoing betrayal or abuse, and when you can still remember what you liked about each other. Our guide to how to rekindle love in your marriage walks through practical ways to start.
What Should You Do When You Are Falling Out of Love?
Start with honesty, with yourself first and then with your partner. Then focus on small, repeated actions instead of one grand gesture:
- Turn toward bids. Respond when your partner reaches for your attention, even in small ways. In Gottman’s research, couples who stayed married turned toward each other’s bids far more often than couples who divorced.
- Bring back fondness and admiration. Notice what your partner does well and say so. Rebuilding fondness and admiration is one of the fastest ways to soften resentment.
- Talk about the inner stuff again. Ask about hopes, worries, and dreams, not just schedules. These are the conversations that rebuild emotional intimacy.
- Create new experiences together. Novelty, play, and shared adventure bring back some of the energy of early dating.
- Repair old injuries. Resentments that never got addressed will keep blocking closeness until you talk them through.
These steps are rooted in how the Gottman Method works: strengthen the friendship, manage conflict, and build shared meaning.
When Can Couples Therapy Help With Falling Out of Love?
Couples therapy helps most when you’ve tried to reconnect on your own and keep landing in the same place. Consider it when:
- Every conversation about the relationship turns into a fight or a shutdown.
- There has been a betrayal you haven’t been able to move past.
- One of you is unsure whether you want to stay.
- Resentment or contempt has become the main tone between you.
A Gottman-trained therapist can help you understand how you got here, slow down the conversations that keep going wrong, and practice the skills that rebuild friendship and intimacy. If one of you is leaning out and the other is leaning in, discernment counseling can help you decide together whether to work on the relationship before committing to therapy.
If your partner’s behavior includes threats, control, or violence, your safety comes first. Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.
If you’re ready to find your way back to each other, call The Relationship Place at (619) 535-8890 to schedule a consultation.