People in loving relationships feel happy, respected and secure. When a relationship is one-sided and only one person loves, they feel the opposite. If you’re feeling lonely, anxious and dissatisfied with your relationship, that’s one of the sure signs she is pretending to love you.
Similarly, fake relationship red flags are the opposite of the traits of a healthy relationship. Starting with love, everything that makes a romantic relationship happy is missing, so it’s impossible to feel like you have a real partner.
What Are The Signs She Is Pretending To Love You?
Questioning your relationship with your girlfriend is one of the basic signs she is pretending to love you. If it feels like something is missing, that’s because it is. When there’s no love, there can’t be a healthy relationship.
Love is only the beginning: without it, everything else that you need to build a happy relationship could be missing, too.
1. Lack of vulnerability
A lack of vulnerability makes emotional intimacy impossible – this is one of the biggest signs of fake love.
• She’s emotionally distant
If she claims to be emotionally unavailable, it might just be an excuse. Emotional distance isn’t always about finding it difficult to share your feelings, often it happens because there are none.
• Your relationship is shallow
There’s nothing wrong with a superficial relationship if both people want it, but not if one person makes it clear they want something deeper and opens up and the other one rejects it.
You’re curious about everything from her daily life to her innermost thoughts because you care for her, but she’s keeping you out because she doesn’t feel the same.
• You feel like you don’t really know her
Emotional vulnerability is about showing an authentic part of yourself and trusting the other person. You don’t know her because she never took a chance on you.
• She deflects your attempts to connect
When you put yourself out there and try to bond with her, she turns away because she doesn’t want to try to get to know you.
2. Communication problems
Problems with communication are relationship red flags that shouldn’t be ignored.
• You don’t communicate
The point of communication is to get the message the other person wants you to receive, so if this is lacking, so is understanding.
• Your conversations are superficial
You only talk about unimportant things instead of showing each other your inner thoughts and talking about things that matter, such as feelings, dreams, experiences, past relationships and concerns.
• She doesn’t listen to you
She might be involved in conversation with you, but she doesn’t really care what you have to say and if you ask her what you talked about five minutes ago, she wouldn’t know.
• She mostly talks about herself
Pay attention to her body language when you talk about yourself and when she talks about herself and you’ll see what’s the only thing that matters.
• She escalates arguments
If she starts to shout or goes back to previous fights to prove a point, a manipulative woman isn’t trying to solve your problems, but to win over you.
3. No sense of partnership
Two people in a loving relationship are partners and everything between them is mutual.
• She takes, but doesn’t give
True love is selfless and makes you happy to give the person you love whatever they need or want. If all she does is take, then does she really love you?
• She won’t go out of her way for you
She wants all of your attention but won’t give you any of hers; she wants you to sacrifice your needs and prioritize hers, but she won’t do anything that’s even a minor inconvenience for you.
• She never does anything for you
Don’t even think of calling her if you need her during difficult times, because she won’t be there. A clear sign of fake love.
• She’s demanding
She always wants something more from you and the only thing she wants from you is what you can give her. And she’s not shy about asking for it.
• Her needs must come first
If she expects you to put her needs before your own, she not only doesn’t love you, she’s showing a toxic trait of narcissism.
4. Absence of closeness
The little things and the important events – in a healthy relationship, you want to share everything with the person you love.
• She keeps her distance
She claims she’s too busy with her own life to pay attention to yours – even when she’s not busy at all. She just doesn’t want to get too close.
• You haven’t met each other’s friends or family
In a serious relationship, your partner’s family members and friends become important to you as well. And if you have never met any of them, your relationship probably isn’t as serious as you think.
• She keeps your relationship secret
If she wants you to keep things on the down low, you’re in a toxic relationship. There’s a difference between a relationship being private and one being a secret.
• She avoids physical intimacy
Unless she’s with you only for this, she rejects all your offers for physical intimacy. When she accepts, it feels distant, with no eye contact, gentleness or warmth.
• She’s doesn’t cuddle or talk to you after sex
One of the reasons she’s with you with no intention of taking things to the next level, might be because she’s using you for sex. If she is, you can expect her to distance herself the moment you’re done.
5. No effort
When she not only never does anything special for you, she never does anything at all. Lack of effort is an obvious sign that she doesn’t care.
• She makes no effort
She never changes her schedule for you, she never does anything thoughtful and she can never be counted on. None of these things probably ever cross her mind.
• She won’t compromise
Meeting each other halfway is one of the most important things you need to make a relationship work. If her attitude is ‘my way or the highway’, she’s only looking out for herself.
• Your relationship feels like a struggle
She doesn’t care about your relationship, so she feels no need to work for it. This places the burden on you and you have to deal with the obstacles that come from her lack of care.
• She always has an excuse
Whatever doesn’t work, that’s her fault, she can explain. If she always has an excuse for her behavior without thinking about how you feel, she’s probably only pretending to love you.
• She doesn’t put you first
What’s real love if it isn’t about the other person’s happiness? She doesn’t feel it, so your happiness isn’t important to her and she only does anything for you if it’s convenient.
6. Not showing care
She’s not showing care because there is none. If she isn’t interested in knowing you, she’s not interested in loving you.
• She doesn’t show any concern for you
She’s never worried or concerned about you because her feelings aren’t connected to yours. This is a clear sign of fake love.
• She treats you like an afterthought
She never thinks of you and does something for you to make you happy. Instead, you get leftovers and scraps. Stop being concerned about her and save your efforts for someone who feels true love for you.
• She doesn’t want to make any future plans with you
If you suggest doing something in the future together, she claims she can’t think that far ahead, that she doesn’t know, that she’ll let you know later. She never does and you still keep asking.
• She talks about her future without mentioning you
On the other hand, she has clear future plans and goals and none of them involve you. This shows you that she doesn’t care enough to include you in her life.
• She isn’t interested in your life
She won’t show interest in what’s going on with you because she doesn’t care about it. The only thing she cares about when it comes to you is whatever it is she’s getting from you.
7. No sense of comfort
A relationship should bring you comfort and safety, so if it’s lacking, there’s something wrong with it.
• She makes you feel bad about yourself
Instead of making you smile with encouragement and compliments, she makes you feel bad about yourself with harsh words and dismissive attitude that hurt you.
• She criticizes you
She has a comment on everything you do and she loves telling you how wrong or stupid you are or how you always do something that annoys her.
• She looks down on you
When someone feels genuine love for another person, they want to uplift them and make them feel valued. If you’re always feeling low, there’s no love there.
• She makes you feel inadequate
Even if you like a certain trait of yours, she’ll find a way to acknowledge that it’s not as good as you think. She enjoys making you feel less than you are.
• She’s only nice when she wants something
This clearly manipulative behavior is easy to fall for because you love her. To find out if she’d love you even if you had nothing, try saying no a few times and see what happens.
8. Lack of trust
It’s impossible to avoid trust issues when one person is unwilling to do the work needed to build it.
• Her actions and words don’t match
She tells you one thing and does another, so you start to wonder if she’s lying or if she doesn’t even think about what she says to you.
• You can’t rely on her
You can’t rely on her for anything because there is no bond between you. You should be able to count on your partner to be there for you and she’s not the one to be relied on.
• She’s never there when you need her
When she needs something, she doesn’t hesitate – she gets in touch with you and demands it. However, if you need something, she’s nowhere to be found.
• She makes empty promises
At this point, you’ve stopped taking her promises seriously. She never keeps them, but she swears that she’ll come through next time, but you have no reason to believe her.
• She doesn’t support youIf she were the right person for you, she wouldn’t avoid you when you need emotional support. Instead, she’d do anything she could to show you that she’s on your side
9. No relationship security
You wouldn’t have to wonder if the woman you love is only waiting for someone she likes better if she wasn’t showing you just that.
• She openly talks about being attracted to other people
She talks about her attraction to other people so often that you’re wondering if she’s looking to replace you or if she’s already unfaithful and you’re seeing the warning signs that she has multiple partners.
She might say that she and some follower of hers are just friends, but they’re always flirty and cute with each other. She might take it a step further and flirt with people right in front of you.
• She likes getting attention from other people
When she’s the center of attention, she forgets about you and doesn’t feel the need to apologize. If you were important to her, others wouldn’t matter.
• It feels like a one-sided relationship
To make a relationship work, it takes both people. If one person isn’t as invested as the other, a power imbalance is unavoidable. If you feel like all your energy is spent on keeping this relationship alive, she’s probably just pretending to love you.
• You feel insecure
If her behavior makes you feel insecure about your relationship, if you don’t know where you stand, if she never assures you of her feelings, all she has for you is fake love.
10. Low level of contact
She shows up only when she needs something from you, so how could you not doubt her feelings?
• You’re the only one reaching out.
You want to build an emotional connection and for your relationship to grow, but that’s impossible if she never even contacts you. If you don’t text her, she won’t text you, so you’re the one always getting in touch.
• She cancels dates with you
She bails on you because she doesn’t feel like it or something more fun comes up, but she always has an excuse. If she loved you, seeing you would be the most important thing for her.
• She never has time to just hang out with you
When you invite her out, she rarely responds unless there’s something in it for her. Instead of building your relationship, she’s getting what she wants from you.
• She always invites you to go out last-minute
The reason why she only invites you last-minute is because she’s been waiting for someone she considers better to respond. If she loved you, she’d be thinking about you so often that no one else would cross her mind other than you.
• She only wants to do things when it’s convenient for her
She’ll only agree to spending time with you if she has nothing better to do or if it’s very convenient. She doesn’t want to bother because she’s just pretending.
11. Lack of commitment
When you love someone, you let them know through words and actions.
• She makes decisions about your relationship
The only reason she makes decisions about your relationship is because she’s making it for herself. She doesn’t care how they affect you, as long as she gets what she wants.
• She avoids uncomfortable conversations
She doesn’t want to talk about anything meaningful or difficult because it doesn’t matter to her. When something bothers you, you feel afraid of addressing the issues because of her reactions whenever you try.
• She never says “I love you”
She’s faking that she loves you, but she doesn’t say it unless she specifically needs you to know she loves you so that you’ll give her something in return.
• She doesn’t make romantic gestures toward you
Don’t hope for her to fix you a snack or get you a gift if she’s just pretending. The only times she does anything like this is when it gives her direct access to what she wants.
• She never tells you how she is feeling
She doesn’t like to talk about her feelings or she doesn’t like to share them with you. Talking about her feelings is too personal and too vulnerable, and this is what she finds the most important.
12. Disrespect
The person who loves you stands beside you as an equal and you’re a person she values.
• She doesn’t ask for your opinion
If your opinion were valuable to her, she’d want to know what it is. If she doesn’t really love you, she’ll try to get out of giving you feedback and receiving any.
• She wants to change you
It’s normal for couples to influence each other and introduce each other to new things and experiences. However, if she’s trying to change things about who you are, then she just doesn’t like you for who you are.
• She compares you to others
She looks at other people and finds another reason why you don’t measure up. Exes, friends, celebrities, she compares you to many of them and yet she never chooses you.
• She ignores your boundaries
The lack of communication can lead to broken boundaries that haven’t been communicated properly. If she violates them even when she knows them, it’s because she doesn’t consider them serious.
• She’s not interested in resolving your conflicts
Arguments are normal and healthy in relationships which deal with them rationally. But if she overreacts in arguments or shuts you down, she’s not interested in conversation or making things right.
13. Missing connection
You’ll know you’re in a fake relationship the moment you start to wonder if you are. Listen to your intuition.
• Your relationship feels off
If you’re wondering if she’s stringing you along, you’re right. Always trust your gut feeling – it makes faster decisions and knows what’s good for you.
• She makes you feel alone
Companionship is the drive behind human relationship. If she’s pulling away when you need her and you feel lonely even though you’re together, she’s not showing you real love.
• You don’t feel comfortable with her
A loving and happy relationship is a source of comfort and joy. If you’re neither calm nor relaxed about your relationship, it’s a sign that it’s not what you want.
• She doesn’t take your relationship seriously
You feel like she doesn’t consider your relationship serious and important in the first place, so she’s not making any effort at all.
Why Would She Be Faking That She Loves You?
Now that you’re aware of the signs she is pretending to love you, there’s something you need to think about: if she doesn’t love you, why is she with you and why doesn’t she break up with you?
If she has any level of care for you, she could be putting off a breakup because she doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. She’s still only hurting you more by stringing you along in a relationship that can never succeed.
If she’s not a kind person, it’s all the same to her.
In either case, she’s taking advantage of you. She’s getting something from you and she isn’t in this relationship because she wants a future with you.
. Here are some examples of what she’s getting from the relationship:
• She’s lonely and you’re convenient.
• You have money or possessions she can get from you.
• She ended a relationship and is using you as a rebound.
• She’s using you to boost her ego and to feel better about herself.
• She likes someone else and you’re her backup.
• She’s attracted to you, but doesn’t think you’re good enough to date.
• She’s exploring her options and holding out for someone she likes better.
All of these reasons sound harsh, don’t they? You probably have some idea which one of them is applicable to your situation if your girlfriend is really faking it.
So with a possible reason for her actions in mind and knowing what’s missing when you’re in a fake relationship, you already have your answer to whether or not she’s pretending to love you.
Don’t Just Pretend To Love Yourself
If you recognize your relationship in many of the signs she is pretending to love you, you must stop waiting for her to change. She never will, so stop seeing her as more important than yourself.
Pull back and stop trying to force this relationship. Stop making an effort and giving her what she wants. If she comes after you, take a slow, careful and assessing look at why she reached out: is it because she loves and misses you or because she wants something from you?
Set boundaries and let her know what you want from the relationship. If she rejects them, nothing has changed.
The only relationship advice you need right now is this: even if she doesn’t love you, you do. If you doubt your love for yourself, prove it by doing what’s best for you.
