When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone

By David McElroy · October 10, 2019

I woke up one morning and the fever was gone. Suddenly, unexpectedly, with no explanation. I didn’t love her anymore.

She was gone. I accepted that, but this was more. I didn’t want her anymore. It wasn’t sour grapes. I had moped and pursued her for a couple of years. She practically begged me to. But I had given all I could give to her. I had given her every chance. Finally, the love was dead. I was drained.

It was like the breaking of a fever. One day, my heart was sick that I couldn’t have her, that she wouldn’t choose me, that she wouldn’t reverse the mistake she admitted that she had made.

And then the next day, I simply didn’t care. I don’t know how it changed. I just woke up knowing that I didn’t care anymore. The painful longing was gone. I got out of bed and casually blocked her on Facebook. It was time to cut the last remaining ties.

She never heard a word from me again, not even an explanation or a goodbye. It felt liberating.

Love never dies a natural death. It’s killed by pride and ego and arrogance. It’s murdered by bad choices and fear and selfishness. In the end, though, the cause of death for love is always indifference.

Love can survive for a long time under difficult circumstances, but it can’t survive indifference. Not forever. When I reached indifference on that day nearly six years ago, it wouldn’t have mattered what she had done. It was too late. I was ready to move on.

That wasn’t just a temporary reprieve. I never felt a stab of regret in the coming days or weeks. As the weeks passed, I didn’t second-guess myself. My love for her was gone and buried.

For me, love is an all-or-nothing affair. If I love you, I crave you and need you. I crave all of you. Your voice, your touch, your smell, your presence, everything. Half a love is worse than none at all. I want all of you — or nothing at all.

For the previous couple of years, my love had lived on promises and hopes and hints and loving words. When I became indifferent, the words and promises which I had relied on suddenly meant nothing. It was as though I had been under a spell — and the spell had been broken when I woke up that morning.

This indifference continued. The weeks stretched into months and the fever didn’t return. It was then that I realized the fever was completely gone. I was free to live again. I was free to love again.

And then — months later — something completely unexpected happened.

For the first time in a long, long time, I fell in love with someone else. I had known her — not nearly well enough — years before. I had wanted to know her better, but circumstances had prevented that. I had put my feelings about her into a box and closed the lid tightly. I thought about her sometimes, but more in the way I might think of some fantasy woman who I’d never have.

And then, here she was again.

The feelings came exploding out of the box where I’d hidden them. They consumed me like a fierce fire blazing through a dry forest. Every part of me wanted every part of her. I would have done anything for her love and presence.

I had not thought I could love more powerfully than what I had loved before. I didn’t think I could want anyone as much as I had wanted her. I didn’t believe I could need life with a woman as much as I suddenly needed to live with this new woman.

What I experienced was the most powerful and most devastating love of my life. The previous love was just an ancient memory.

I got a letter this week from a woman who is still in love with a man who no longer wants her. She doesn’t hold out realistic hope that things will change. She just wants to stop loving him. She wants to stop hurting.

She asked me if she would ever get over her love — or if she would feel this way the rest of her life.

And I told her this story. I can’t predict what will happen for her. All I can say is that when I was under the spell of my love for someone six or eight years ago, I feared that nothing could ever change. I thought I was doomed to forever love someone who I couldn’t have — and that nobody could take her place.

I was wrong.

Someone not only took her place, but someone surpassed her in every possible way.

For me — and I suspect for most people — love will survive fierce blows and hurts and betrayals for a long time. But then, without warning, it will die.

When we love, we want nothing more than to be loved in return. We will make any sacrifice for that person. We believe this fierce love can never die. But if we’re pushed to indifference for long enough, the fever will finally break. We will rethink everything. The hurts and betrayals which we have willingly suffered will finally be too much.

We feel hurt. We feel used. We feel betrayed.

Then we become indifferent. Love has died. We have been set free from a love for someone who isn’t willing to choose to give us love in return.

And then, at some point — without warning — we will love again. That hope is the only thing that keeps me alive.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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