i used to measure love by uptime. how often he was available. how quickly he responded. how stable the connection felt. back when we were solid, the system had low latency and high trust. lately the signals degrade. he still shows up but with packet loss. conversations drop. affection throttles. i remember one night when i talked about my day and he nodded like a dashboard alert he planned to ignore. i told myself it was just load, just stress. emotional labor can spike during rough sprints. but then the small regressions stacked. fewer check-ins. no curiosity. compliments deprecated without notice. love used to feel like a product in active development. now it feels like maintenance mode. i started logging incidents in my head. when he stopped asking follow-up questions. when dates turned into calendar placeholders. when i felt like a stakeholder instead of a partner. have you ever noticed how silence can be louder than conflict. i did. the absence of friction felt like disengagement. still, i kept hope because hope is a renewable resource if you manage it well.

another sign arrived as scope creep. my needs were reframed as feature requests with no roadmap. he said he loved me but the actions lacked version control. promises rolled back. accountability diffused. once, i asked for reassurance and he responded with efficiency jargon, saying feelings were subjective and hard to quantify; i laughed it off then cried later. intimacy requires bandwidth. his was consumed elsewhere. when affection becomes transactional you feel it in the metrics. hugs with time limits. texts optimized for brevity. sex without aftercare. i remember sitting on the couch thinking about attachment styles and feedback loops. i wondered if i was misreading the data. maybe i was biased. maybe the noise drowned the signal. but my gut kept flagging anomalies. i asked myself a simple question. if this were a service, would i renew. the answer scared me. i still loved him but love without reciprocity is technical debt; it compounds quietly until the system fails. that thought hurt but it also clarified things.

the hopeful part came when i stopped chasing patches and started designing my own architecture. i talked to him honestly, without blame, using plain language. i said i felt unloved. he listened, truly, for a moment. maybe it was too late for us. maybe it was the first step. either way, i learned the signs are not punishments. they are signals. they help you pivot. i began investing in myself. better routines. stronger boundaries. community support. i noticed how my mood stabilized when i stopped overclocking my heart. love should be scalable and resilient. if he couldn’t meet me there, someone else could, including me. i still believe people can reconnect if they commit to refactoring together. i also believe walking away can be an act of love. if you are reading this and nodding, ask yourself what your system needs right now. clarity. rest. courage. whatever you choose, choose with hope.

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