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Why does Ross use Present Perfect here if he's speaking about the past?!

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    Does this answer your question? Present Perfect Tense - Specific phrase Stoney B's answer contains 'the present perfect doesn't signify that "something happened in the past and [is] still happening in the present"; it signifies that the past event establishes [informs; relates to] a present state'. I'd say that it is chosen here to show the continuing reasonably good (if not perfect) relationship. "I did once love her" is far more distancing.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 16:45
  • Thank you! Yes, I understand that present perfect is about the way something relates to the present. I'm just confused with the idea of contrasting their relationship in the past and the present situation. I thought that is what is implied here. And if so then present perfect doesn't seem to fit... Like if he said "I loved her, but now everything is different. Now she is only the wife" - and actually that is what makes the joke here. May be in this case it would have been better to say "I used to love her"
    – Helen
    Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 16:51
  • A possible interpretation is to regard the past as divided into different periods. And in one or more of those periods he loved his wife but not in all of them. It is similar to the difference between "I lived in New York in the past" (implying in all of the past) and "I have lived in New York in the past" (implying in one or more periods in the past).
    – Shoe
    Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 17:08
  • Again, distancing. English uses hedging devices (eg "Could you just shut the window, please, John./?" (full stop is acceptable here) is a polite request/instruction rather than a question). Trying to reconcile this usage of 'could [you]' to others is extremely hard.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 17:18
  • The use of the present perfect here suggests that he may or may not love her again after "now": I have loved her in the past, but at the moment I don't. [Maybe I will again, maybe I won't, but all we know is "now"].
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 18:10

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Think of the famous saying

  • It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Present Perfect also implies consequences and that is what Ross was going for - hence the but now in - "but now she is just my wife"

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