[ihateit]

What is love, to you?

I asked my wife if she could say she was in love with me. She had told me a while back she wasn't in love, but loved me. To me, there is no difference, but, let me explain my thoughts...

1. "In love?" - Consumed by the person - First stages of a relationship, all you can do is think about that person, what they are doing, do they miss you as much as you miss them, the passion is overwhelming, all you want is to be with that person and nothing else matters. I call this the pine fire phase...why? Pine lights fast, but it burns fast too. This all consuming feeling will soon wane, it doesn't last forever, it's, imho, impossible for it to last forever, it's the newness stage and it goes away. This is where I feel most people fail at understanding real love. This is where you feel you have fallen in "in love" with someone, when it's actually a stage all good realtionships go through (even some bad ones I am sure). Lust has a big part to play here as well, feels like you're in love, but that all consuming fire will soon die down...where we fall into #2.

2. This is what I call the burning oak stage, or a higher love. The "in love, all consuming, newness of the relationship" is gone, but the love you now have IS true love. You have reached a higher love, where you accept the faults you didn't even notice at the beginning of the relationship. You accept them, and look past them. Some times you become complacent, not good, need to keep things going...communitcation is key. But that newness feeling, the pine fire phase is gone. You realize you have a life, work, friends, maybe kids now...you are comfortable around you significant other, he or she is your best friend, and you do things for him or her that you just wouldn't do for other people, because you love them. Here is where I find "in love" and "I love you", synonomous. You have been through the pine fire, and now your love is there, burning slowly, but burning, not gone. Reality hit you and you're now living your life with your significant other as a part of that life, not ... how do I say this, your significant other isn't all of your life, all consuming...anymore, but that's ok, it doesn't mean you don't love that person, it means you realize who that person is, you love them, and you live your life with them, and to some extent yeah, for them, but not like before. This is a higher love, a truer love, a deeper love.

So, that is my opinion, what do you all think?

[ihateit]

No one has any thoughts on this eh?

[scoobywho]

Originally Posted by ihateit

What is love, to you?

I asked my wife if she could say she was in love with me. She had told me a while back she wasn't in love, but loved me. To me, there is no difference, but, let me explain my thoughts...

1. "In love?" - Consumed by the person - First stages of a relationship, all you can do is think about that person, what they are doing, do they miss you as much as you miss them, the passion is overwhelming, all you want is to be with that person and nothing else matters. I call this the pine fire phase...why? Pine lights fast, but it burns fast too. This all consuming feeling will soon wane, it doesn't last forever, it's, imho, impossible for it to last forever, it's the newness stage and it goes away. This is where I feel most people fail at understanding real love. This is where you feel you have fallen in "in love" with someone, when it's actually a stage all good realtionships go through (even some bad ones I am sure). Lust has a big part to play here as well, feels like you're in love, but that all consuming fire will soon die down...where we fall into #2.

2. This is what I call the burning oak stage, or a higher love. The "in love, all consuming, newness of the relationship" is gone, but the love you now have IS true love. You have reached a higher love, where you accept the faults you didn't even notice at the beginning of the relationship. You accept them, and look past them. Some times you become complacent, not good, need to keep things going...communitcation is key. But that newness feeling, the pine fire phase is gone. You realize you have a life, work, friends, maybe kids now...you are comfortable around you significant other, he or she is your best friend, and you do things for him or her that you just wouldn't do for other people, because you love them. Here is where I find "in love" and "I love you", synonomous. You have been through the pine fire, and now your love is there, burning slowly, but burning, not gone. Reality hit you and you're now living your life with your significant other as a part of that life, not ... how do I say this, your significant other isn't all of your life, all consuming...anymore, but that's ok, it doesn't mean you don't love that person, it means you realize who that person is, you love them, and you live your life with them, and to some extent yeah, for them, but not like before. This is a higher love, a truer love, a deeper love.

So, that is my opinion, what do you all think?

I agree with all that and well done you have hit the nail on the head.

[AAAAA]

I do think that there is a difference although I don't know that I can define it, but I definately feel the difference. I don't believe it to be a lust thing either, at least what I'm talking about isn't lust. Sex doesn't factor into it at all. I remember watching my great-grandfather looking at my great-grandmother, he was madly in love with her. It was plain for the world to see, and I highly doubt they were having sex into their 90s (this was before viagra), but they were still very affectionate.

The best way I can describe it is that our love is a living thing, a block of living tissue if you will. When something negative happens in our relationship a bit of that tissue dies. It will regenerate itself and grow further if you nurture it, but if more and more negative things happen you can actually kill it completely.

My husband and I have been married a long time. I would love to be able to say that I've been in love with him each and every day of the last 25+ years we've been together. But I can't, there have been times when we've neglected our relationship and it's withered. I can say that I have loved him with all of my heart and soul each and every day. We happen to be in the "madly in love" stage.

In my opinion, you don't need a sense of newness to be "in love" with your partner, you just need to re-discover your relationship, look at it with new appreciation.

Maybe it's a woman thing, but it sounds like you wife was telling you that your relationship needs some nurturing. Romance is not the end all, but it does help. I'm not talking about seduction, I'm talking about romance. Expressing your desire to be with only her because of who she is.

[ncguynva]

To me, there is no right or wrong answer. There ARE diffrent TYPES of love though.
my personal definition of loving somebody is wanting to make them happy, being there for them, thinking about them when there is nothing around you to remind you of them.
IN LOVE- Wanting to do whatever it takes to make a relationship last with that person. Sacrifice.....dedication.....support....everything that love is plus more. JMO

[ihateit]

Thanks guys...just needed to see what's up. I know I am in no way the end all be all authority on love, that's for sure. I guess really it's a personal thing too, to each person it's gonna be diff. Cool, thanks!