Wow thanks!

This is the best explanation of his thinking that I've read.

Actually, I believe this is the big question the movie intends to address: "What is love?" What does it mean to LOVE somebody?
This is not a romantic comedy.
Jerry struggles with love throughout the film. The way he's wired, he can't simply say things or adopt ideals that he can't explain to himself. He needs to thoroughly understand what he's doing and why (hence The Memo, etc). He can't say something like, "I love you" it's too abstract. The entire, "You complete me" speech is his attempt to verbalize a definition of love that makes sense to him.
The genius of the picture is that he proceeds down this path of self-discovery in parallel paths with Dorothy and with Tidwell. He discovers what "Love" is
empirically
, through his experience. He expresses his learning and his evolution via his own words and actions all without generally using the one word "love" which many of us might choose to encapsulate all of it.
Just my 2.

it's a chick flick, what did you expect

Um, Dorothy's husband died, dude. She refers to it clearly.

he didn't 'knock her up and then dump her'. he was her husband and he died.

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That's what women do, no? Men need women in their lives for support. Besides, she used charm once she realized he was interested on a certain level.

I really felt for the poor Jerry guy. Some bad guy knocked her up then dumped her, and this Jerry guy has to raise someone else's seed. 18+ years of child support. Yuck! I would never opt for that one. Guess that is why the bad guys are almost always the winners (no obligation, just beep and dump) and nice guys are the losers in the dating game. Dorothy sure used her charm to her advantage for this one

i agree with this. even in the scene of the break up, they show the NFL guy (sorry i'm a girl. don't know who he is. LOL) and he points to his heart and says 'if this is empty' then points to head and says 'this doesn't matter'. by the end of the film, he realizes his heart is full.

My Opinion: He loved her, but didn't know how to show it because he was a workaholic.

I actually enjoyed the relationship portrayed in the film because it is different than the typical perfect portrayal. Jerry and Dorothy are not a perfect couple. They are not a pairing like Rod and Marci. However, they can still be happy together. Part of the issues with the relationship were Jerry's trouble opening up. If Dorothy was willing to look past that and accept him how he is I believe they would work.
Also I agree with everyone saying that after the Dallas game was the pivotal moment for Jerry. He realized he didn't want to lose Dorothy. Again they may not be a couple like Rod and Marci but they can still love each other. Also I think when Jerry came back, Dorothy finally accepted he does love her. Before she told him to leave because she didn't believe he loved her, but then he came back on his own. There are different types of love and relationships, and I think this movie did a good job showing that.

no i think he did love her, for longer than he realised, but it just took him a while to recognise his feelings.

It's annoying how kids on here don't know how to give educated analysis on movies and take every scene the wrong way.
You want to play the game, you'd better know the rules, love.
-Harry Callahan

This movie has more interesting layers than most romantic comedies. Next to Vanilla Sky, Crowe's best film.

I don't know.
In that scene, he kept mentioning "his wife" and not "Dorothy", which made me wonder if he was not missing any close female with him, not that one in particular
At the beginning of the movie we are told how he can't be alone, and there he was alone

Yes, he realizes after everything happens with Rod that it all means nothing if he doesn't have someone to share it with. (Happiness is not happiness unless it's shared.)
Also, I think they were a family. Being married is about more than just romantic love.

Yeah, but just cause they're holding hands with the kid doesn't mean they don't love each other. The final living room scene demonstrates his true feelings.

Or c'est la mort, as the case may be.

Exactly, he loves ray more than her at the end of the film, but like in real life his love for her could grow. Or it could all end with murder suicide, c'est la vie.

I think you're missing a bit of it.
Notice how in the last scene, as the Maguires are walking around, it's not the two of them holding hands, it's each of them separately holding Ray's hands between the two of them.
It seems to me that he still loves the kid more than he loves her and their relationship is not like the one that Rod and Marcee have found ("not everyone can have what you have"). But he's working on it, and that's where the relationship is at.
It's not some fairy tale "Happily Ever After", but they're both trying. And at the end of the day, I suppose that's the modern relationship.

you guys missed the point, he realized after the road trip with rod and winning the dallas game that although he felt happy for rod and his success he didn't feel complete because his wife wasn't there to celebrate with him so that's when he realizes that he loves her and needs her. The ending made sense to me.

I disagree. Sure, he's had trouble with intimacy, and it's rough going for him and Dorothy for quite a while (along with everything else), but the point of the ending is that he's really come to love her despite himself. There are telltale signs of this along the way. Note, for example, that when Dorothy is about to leave for San Diego, she tells Jerry not to forget that he's better than all the Bob Sugar's, and that's when he realizes (perhaps unconsciously) that he loves her and proposes. At the end of the movie, after Rod's trial by fire, he discovers he's found the right kind of success, the real love of family and true friends instead of the fake love that's demonstrated by his colleagues at the beginning.