How do you know you love someone?

[limegreentree]

For me, it's about becoming completely selfless. It's about being willing to give up all that you are and everything you have for someone.

 

[Gaze]

When you can imagine them old, wrinkly, and hairy and that doesn't scare you off.
Ideally we meet someone who we can grow old with, so thats a good test: look at your boyfriend or girlfriend and try to imagine them as an old HAG. LMAO!


-Anna

Agree with this. You don't put restrictions on looks. Yeah, you want them to look and feel good, but at the same time, you don't stop loving them because they're getting older. Not that you don't notice that both of you are going through physical changes, but you make adjustments for those changes and don't expect each other to look 20 when you're 50. It's more about enjoying being with them, not making them change to fit some unrealistic image of youth that can't be regained with copious amounts of cosmetic surgery. You focus on making the best of your life together rather than whether or not you're getting everything you want or deserve.

 

[Matt3737]

When I care more about their well-being regardless of my own.

 

[barbad0s]

When you feel like you've turned into a magic pony from being around them or thinking about them, no matter what you're doing.

When it gets easy to lose track of your own needs for theirs (but they don't let you if they care about you in return). Feels like your life is interconnected with theirs anyway, that's why it seems like it doesn't matter. I think a more developed, healthier sort of love involves people staying true to themselves and their own needs though. It can be hard to balance.

 

[sevenx]

When everything you thought you knew about yourself comes crashing down and you realize that nothing else matters. Making sure everything is in its place doesn't matter, making sure that you appear strong even though you sometimes feel weak, your job, your home, absolutely nothing that you've obsessed about really matters in the grand scheme of things, because as long as you are with this person, it will be ok. You can cry and freak out and close youreself off to the world and it doesn't matter! This is true love, someone who knows everything about you, and you feel safe with them. Safe to cry, safe to yell, safe to run away and hide....come back later and its still safe!

 

[sevenx]

Although staying with this person is a challenge....and will likely take many attemts...a perpetual battle of not judging or finding a negative when there wasn't one

 

[sevenx]

sometimes though, it's right in front of you...and you wont let yourself have it.


[video=youtube_share;GDvybJ3sgSc]http://youtu.be/GDvybJ3sgSc[/video]

 

[Jana]

Dido: Look no further

I might have been a singer
Who sailed around the world
A gambler who wins millions
And spent it all on girls

I might have been a poet
Who walked upon the moon
A scientist who'd tell the world
I'd discovered something new

I might have loved a king
Been the one to end a war
A criminal who drank champagne
And never could be caught

But among your books
Among your clothes
Among the noise and fuss

I've let it go

I can stop and catch my breathe
And Look no further for happiness
And I will not turn again
'Cause my heart has found it's home

Everyone I'll never meet
And the friends I won't now make
The adventures that they could have been
And the risks I'll never take

But among your books
Among your clothes
Among your noise and fuss

I've let it go

The love is when we are prepared to let go all other possibilites and work on only one. Without regret.
​

 

[Jana]

Btw, if I ever meet a man that I could marry with peace in my soul, I will sing him that song at wedding. I promise. Though I can't sing, really.

 

[Grey Wolf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHy5OvJJN1A

answer starts at 0.30!

 

[Angelbabe2000]

Love.
We've been together for about a year.

For me; I cant stay mad at him. He smiles at me and it melts my heart.
I will love him regardless: old age, blindness, missing limbs, none of that matters.
Meeting him filled a hole in my heart I didnt know existed and removal of this love would leave a gaping, sucking hole.
I need him. I dont like needing him--I've NEVER needed anyone before in my life. Not my mother, father, siblings, etc and this need feels very strange and uncontrollable and I fearfully accept it. I have no other choice.

He and I feel the same way: this love is unlike any we've known before. It scares us. We're locked into each other. It feels like "fate". Inevitable.
I dont know where it's going to go. I am afraid, but very, very happy.

 

[Gaze]

The more I think about love, the more I believe it's not something that can be simply "known" just like that without going through the experience. For example, the idea that you can know you love someone before you marry them seems almost foreign to me today. How do you know you love them until you've gone through life with them, shared good times and bad, hurts and pains, and survive those things together, and stay with each other through all those things, how can you know you love? How many people say they love someone but when they are asked to live out that love in their actions, in their committment and put aside personal happiness or feelings for someone else, they can't. How do you know you love someone? When you stay with them although they're being daft and flawed, not only when they're being the perfectly lovable person you want them to be. Love is something you learn or realize after the fact, not before. It's not something which is always immediate. It changes you. It teaches you something about yourself.

Edit: Love is not just promise, it's the fulfillment.

 

[Angelbabe2000]

Cedar, you speak with much wisdom.

 

[emerysfriend]

I am so here right now. I've been seeing someone for three months, afraid of getting my feelings hurt, so afraid I'm going to do something to destruct the relationship. He had his feelings badly hurt in a relationship about a year ago so I think he's slow to trust and now I wonder if he's out seeing other women and maybe I should be seeing other men so I'm not an idiot here. I'm afraid to ask him this question at this point. Just a bunch of destructive fears that could get in the way of everything. He's very warm and sweet with me every weekend, but maybe he's seeing other women during the week and just as warm and sweet with them. Fears and doubts.

I wonder how often doubt and fear kills love, or stifles it before it even begins? A pattern I'm learning to recognise in myself.

 

[Gaze]

yeah, it can be difficult to stay mad at the person even when you know they're being a you know what. And it can also be frustrating not being sure about whether they are who they say they are or whether they're using your feelings for them to deceive or manipulate. It can be tough. One of the things I've learned about feelings which are strong as love is that they don't just go away even when the relationship is struggling to survive. The feelings don't stop. This often why people fight to save their relationships, even if chances are it won't last. It's difficult to let go of those feelings and the relationship you've developed with that person, the intimacy you've come to know, is tough to let go. You stilll have those thoughts and feelings for them even if you know the relationship is not headed in the direction you want. You may keep trying, overlook things for a long time, before it hits you that things aren't going to change, and that you have to either accept that the person will be who they are despite your wants if you want to be with them, or help yourself realize you need to leave the situation and move on. Not easy though, not easy.

 

[flower]

I feel like I have known the person forever from the start. Powerful, special and strong connection.