Hi newstart :)

For me, I was with my abuser for 7 years and for the first 6 years he refused to say he loved me at all. I asked him once and his response was "you need meds. you're too clingy."

Other times he would reply "I love your ass." He did it on purpose. But I did get my revenge even without seeking it...

Amazingly, after I got tired and left him, he would email, call and text every day to say he loved me! He also said he was suicidal.

I do not believe it, though. I don't think sociopaths are capable of love, for me or anyone.

I remember him talking about what he was going to do with the money of the inheritance should his mom die, so yeah, that's the way they are. lol

Hey :)

Good question.

With my husband, yes I have. Sometimes he makes a funny face and says, 'No,' which is supposed to imply that he is joking and really does love me. Sometimes he will say something like, 'Well, sometimes you are annoying, but what do you think? I married you, didn't I?' There are also other responses which I can't really think of right now.

I remember distinctly asking this once to my mother as a child (She was predominantly borderline but had a narc side that came out sometimes too). Her reaction was to snap, 'Of course!' as if I was stupid for even asking. I don't recall being very reassured by that answer...

"I married you didn't I?" is an answer I got from my first H. He didn't seem to understand why I said that wasn't enough.

My 2nd H ... well he would say he loved me early on, though it was always me who initiated. His was more a "I love you too" kinda thing. Towards the end, when things were going really pear shaped but I was still trying to make it work, I asked a heap of times and got either an evasive non-answer or a half-hearted "well I love you, but I'm not sure I'm IN love with you any more".

I think my ex actually struggles with this internally - what love is. She would always tell her son and father she loved them. But then she questioned why I didn't tell my parents I loved them every time I talked to them on the phone. It was a weird conversation, and my gut was telling me that she was thinking that telling people you love them is how you love them. It was if she was asking me because she was searching for what the meaning of "love".

A few times she was upset with me for not telling her I loved her enough. I probably told her I loved her twice as often as she told me she loved me. Not that it was a contest, but it got to a point where I quit saying it to her because her reaction was negative. I'd tell her I loved her, and she would respond, "how do you know", or just say nothing at all. I wrote her a love letter once, and her response was to call me up and ask me why I wrote the letter!

When talking about her ex husband, she would sometimes say, "I did love him, and my child was conceived out of love." I assumed she loved him, and assumed part of her probably still does, so I thought it weird for her to qualify her marriage like that. But she would also tell me that she thinks she was not conceived in love and that her parents did not love each other. Maybe this was her way of convincing her own mind that her son is better off than she was. Again, my gut feeling when she was talking about this was that she was searching internally for the definition of love.

When she did tell me she loved me, I could tell there was a warm emotion behind it. In hindsight, her "I love yous" were always in relation to something I had just done or offered to do. The fist time she said it, it was "I love you TODAY." I am not sure she loved me, but the action I had just done. There would be no "I love you" if I tried and failed.

I have issues around 'I love you's. I think you should just tell people when you love them, in romantic relationships you just accept you might not hear it back if you say it first, but when you do hear it back, you should continue to hear.

But, I got told that he wanted it to be 'special' every time he told me, so he couldn't tell me too often.

At first, I thought it was sweet...

Now I see it for what it was, another way to make me nervous and crave his attention. He liked being chased so that he could then complain about me being needy.

It should have been a sign, so many signs! Love isn't meant to be stored away or rationed out. The more you love, the more love you're meant to feel. He never did understand that. Or just didn't want to.

When I would ask my most recent ex if he even cared about me at all.....he would look at me like I was a complete idiot as he thumped me in the center of my forehead.

Wasn't that a great response?

As if I was supposed to feel loved by his refusal to help me around the house or how he completely disrespected my boundaries and set off triggers that reminded me of the man who raped me every night for 6 months of my life.

Oh yes, darling, that just screamed "I love you" like a giant billboard covered in neon lighting.

My favorite response of all time....I love you, but I'm not IN LOVE with you. To which I would ask, "Then why are you with me?" The response, "Because I DO care and I am an honorable person."

Now that I look back on that particular statement, I think I might fall down on the floor and roll around hysterically laughing.

HONORABLE????? Yea, that's a joke.

I didn't ask him if he loved me. I asked him, after 30 years, what made him fall in love with me and want to marry me. Because he was unhappy with me from about day 3.....

He said, "I thought we could work well together."

We had our own business, and for the last 10 years it was me working....

I said to him.."That's a good reason to hire someone, not to marry them."

I was on my way out at that point....but that just helped to strengthen my resolve.

My husband always says and has said that he loved me. I went for a period when I told him that I wasn't sure I was in love with him, and so I didn't say it to him. Then, after the pressure of him constantly asking if I loved him again yet, I eventually started saying it again. I now tell him "I love you" because he expects it. I love him in the way that I care a lot about him, but I don't mean it in the way he wants me too... So I guess I'm kind of on the opposite side of your concern...

Me: You never loved me

Him: I still love you

Me: You don't know what love is...

Him: Hum?

Love is not a word. Its an action. That is how you know someone loves you. They show you!

He told me he loved me after we dated for three weeks. It was, like, an expected thing. I felt obligated to tell him I love him too.

When I asked him later, after he was abusing me for a long time, he would just answer, "Well I'm still here, aren't I? You SAY you love me, but you don't show it. You never hug me. You don't cook the foods I want. You don't this that...etc."

He seems to think that just by not leaving me he is showing me love. Plus, in the conversations he revealed that he really thinks that love means that person having something you want. For example, his friends who both LOVE hiking have a really loving relationship because they both get to do what they like together.

If your abuser refused to say he loved you it was probably because he knew that it would hurt you, but he didn't think you would leave because of it...that's usually their bottom line, IMO.

My H will say he loves me because he knows that's status quo--but he won't acknowledge that being abusive is being un-loving--he only acknowledges that leaving is un-loving. Therefore, if I leave him I am proving that I never loved him or that I am incapable of being a devoted partner.

You have to consider that an abusers logic is wrapped around what they want from you. I wouldn't listen to almost anything they say. It's usually very manipulative.

Mine never stopped telling me that he loved me. It was incessant, stifling and, in retrospect, designed to keep me feeling bonded to him. Do I think he ever meant it? I doubt it! Love is an action word and his actions spoke volumes. The first time he whacked me, any feelings I had for him disappeared - completely.

My ex would say repeatedly that he loved me but never showed it. He told me he believed I loved him but never proved it to him. Well if I tell anyone I love you, I mean it.

But his interpretation of love would always mean sex and that alone was his ill thinking of love period.

He said if I loved him, really loved him I would show it better by being sexual his time, his way, his terms. He knew this from the get go it would never happen, the sex part that is. But I did love him though. Now I don't even like him anymore because of his insidious abuse and lying cheating and mind games.

I agree that love is an action word and when we show it, we prove it. Love can be shown in ways such as being supportive, enjoying each others time together and being there for tears and laughter. Like I heard some many times before, love is patient and kind. Well that describes me.

My narcissstict mother told me
frequently that no one would
ever love me as much as
she loved me.

Yikes.

My emotionally abusive husband
told me he loved me early on,
when he was courting me. On
our wedding night, I asked him
to tell me something I would
always remember. (He did.)
He dispassionately replied that
he thought he just did (at the
justice of the peace's office,
with his "I do").

So. . . . .

that was that.

(We were married for
17 years.)


Now. . . . . .

I love myself


(more than my mother
loved me).

My abusive.narcissistic ex told me he loved me after 2 weeks of dating. But it was more like infatuation, obsession and posession. Very similar to Artemis - he used it as a manipulation tool - I don't think he knows what love is.

Because of my experience with my abusive exh who told me everyday sometimes multiple times a day that he loved me, I don't value hearing those words. for me I need to see it as in actions, through patience,respect, accetance, support and kindness. My exh did not show me love, he showed me hate. He treated me abusively and hatefully.
The first time my ex told me he 'loved" me, he didn't actually just come right out and say it. He asked me why do I put up with him and then he said he loved me too. Can we say arrogant? I wouldn't exactly call that a sincere heartfelt way of expressing what some consider to be the three most important words. i guess that those words have been used or rather misused to manipulate me so much in my relationships that I tend to dread hearing them. When they are said to me my first thought is what do you want from me, or what do you hope to gain from me or how do you want to use me.....sad I know but true. the people that I believe truely "love" me are the people that are consistent in their behavior towards me through their kindness and consideration, who don't apologize for hurting me because they don't have a reason to apologize because they don't have a need to hurt or manipulate me.