Women fall out of love every day. However, the loss of these loving feelings doesn’t happen suddenly. Usually one or both partners get too comfortable and stop paying as much attention to each other as they used to. As the relationship begins to slowly break down, the union enters a point of no return. One day you wake up next to each other and realize you’ve become strangers — or worse — enemies. If the woman in your life has recently broken up with you and you can’t seem to figure out what went wrong, here are some reasons why she may have fallen out of love.

1. She doesn’t feel appreciated

If you want your lady to stay in a relationship with you, you’ll need to show her how much she means to you. Make her feel like she is important and loved. If you treat her as if she’s an afterthought, she will begin to feel unappreciated. Expressing your love and appreciation for the woman in your life is one of the best ways to nurture the relationship.

Relationship coach Jordan Gray said not showing appreciation is a quick way to destroy your relationship. “Remind your partner that you love her. Tell her that you appreciate what she brings to your life. Show her how much she means to you. The fastest way to run your relationship into the ground is by ignoring your partner and taking her for granted. Appreciation is the opposite of those things. Appreciation is embodying this mindset: ‘I am aware of what you bring to my life, and I want you to be sure that I am aware of it as well.’ So tell her what you appreciate, and tell her often,” said Gray in his blog post.

When a woman feels appreciated, she will make more of an effort to make her partner happy in return. Don’t reason that she should already know you appreciate her if she’s still with you. She might just be toughing it out until someone better comes along.

2. The relationship lacks intimacy

We’re not talking about sex, but emotional closeness. A successful relationship needs this element just as much as (and possibly more than) sex. When a woman feels emotionally connected, she feels a greater capacity to love and be loved.

Psychologists Judith Sherven and James Sniechowski said a woman needs to feel that her partner wants to know and understand her deeply. “Most people associate the word intimacy with sex. But real intimacy is so much more than that. It’s about being open, sincerely wanting to know about, understand, learn from, care for, enjoy, like, and love the person you’re with — for who she really is…No matter the occasion, or even at the end of the day, don’t miss out on being emotionally intimate with the woman you love. Offering genuine emotional intimacy is the foundation of treating your woman as special. That’s how she’ll know you really care about her,” said Sherven and Sniechowski in their article for Power to Change.

3. Someone else is paying her more attention

An attention-starved partner is bound to stray. A woman needs to know that she is desired and that you are happy to be with her. As soon as someone starts giving her the attention she craves, this can be enough to make her fall out of love with her partner and fall head over heels for the person who is fulfilling her need for love, attention, and approval. Affirm your partner often and don’t take her for granted.

4. You don’t protect and defend her

If your family or friends say something disrespectful, do you come to her aid? Or if a random person at a bar tries to make an advance, do you step in? Of course, women aren’t weak human beings in need of protecting, but they do need to know that you care enough to show concern for their physical and mental welfare. If you demonstrate a lack of concern for her well-being, this sends the message that you don’t care about her at all. You are only in the relationship to get your own needs met. If you really do care, show it with your words andyour actions.

5. You don’t support her

A woman needs someone to share her hopes and dreams with. The last thing she needs is someone telling her she isn’t smart enough to get that promotion, or not pretty enough to land that acting role. You should be each other’s cheerleader. So cheer her on and let her know she’s pretty, smart, and doing a good job at just being her. We all need some encouragement from time to time, and there’s no better person to hear it from than the one we love. Nothing is more wounding than being put down by the person who is supposed to be in your corner.

When it comes to what women need to stay in love, Gray puts it best. “Women want partners who care. Women don’t want perfect partners; they want men who are striving to be their best selves… So put in the work. End the stalemate. Decide that you want to be in the kind of relationship that most people don’t have and you want to put in the effort necessary to become that kind of partner.”