How old were you when you were 'in love' for the first time?

[bullah]

• how many times have you been 'in love' in total?

I think it's interesting to see the different answers for stuff like this.

I was in love with my first boyfriend who I started seeing at 19. Think we said it after a few months.

Had a few relationships after where I didn’t fall in love, then met and fell in love with current long term partner (10yrs now).

I feel very lucky.

16, when I met DH.
He’s the only person I’ve ever been in love with.

I thought I knew love at age of 15 with my then BF but really I think it was infatuation and when he broke up with me it did hurt but it was more my pride that hurt.

I had a string of short lived relationships and dates between then and meeting my "first love" who I was with throughout Uni. But once we left uni and went back to our home town we really drifted apart, I think it was not living together anymore made us perhaps realise we were not the best for each other and preferred doing our own things.

Now at 25y/o I do believe I am in actual love with my DH. It is just different from previous relationships - no mistrust, no 2nd guessing just pure bliss and comfort with each other.

I thought I was in love with various boyfriends over the years. And then I met DH, and I realised it was never anything more than infatuation/lust. True love is very different.

So 28. And he was 40.

First time when I was about 19. I've been in love probably 4 times but in a different way each time. One stands out. I'm not with him now!

I was 20 and still love him 20 years on.

About 7....with Terry Wogan!

I thought I was in love with my arsehole abusive ex who I stupidly stayed with for ten years.

It was only when I got the courage to leave him and met my DH two years later and fell completely in love with him, that I realised that I’d never actually loved my ex after all.

Only with my dh and we met at 22.
I thought I was before at 17 but honestly it was just infatuation.

13. Was recently looking over my old journal- it was hilarious.

'i was talking to Sheena and she thinks it's real proper love!'

'i was trying to think about Captain hook in drama club but it didn't really help because ('True Love') was wearing this shirt and indigo jeans with like a chain on and he was wearing this jacket with a shirt on the back and he is so perfect'

'Natalie thinks it's so obvious he likes me but he's going to Lanzarote next week!'

I was in hysterics. Because obviously he can't love you if he's going to Lanzarote

Very outing if 'Natalie' is on here because we're still friends and I was quoting it to her when I rediscovered it! But oh the drama. I was 'in love' with this boy for the best part of two years. I was 13- he was 15- he told me I was too young for him.. then went out with someone my age!! The scandal. 15 year old me was heartbroken.

In total, god knows. 6 or 7 times including being 'in love' with random celebrities but I did meet DP at 16 so being 'in love' with him was alright, given it lasted 8 years...

Also * a ship on the back. Obvs sooo cool.

Pointless infatuation 16
Real love 20

I was fifteen. And I've been in love several times. Maybe ten times, to various degrees.

First time, at 16, and it lasted 2 years. Second time at 18, married, and are still going strong 20 plus years later

Never 🙁 in my 30s

18/19 - I had the whole jolt of emotion thing- we'd been going out a while, met when I was 18 at University about to turn 19, but walking home one night together I just got hit with it.

Still together I’m now early 40s.

17. He was a dick.

Been madly in love with DH for over 10 years, since I was about 19.

First love when I was 15, we stayed together until I was 18. Two serious boyfriends in my late teens / early 20s. Then DH. So I’ve been in love four times.

15, we were together 2 years and I was heartbroken when he broke up with me.
Then I met DH when I was nearly 20 and we’ve been together for 19 years.
I’ve had a few in lust relationships but it wasn’t love and they never lasted long.

16 for the first time. He was very abusive and although i did love him it was very unhealthy. Emotionally it was intense and overwhelming.

18 the next time. We've been happily together for over 16 years now and unless something unexpected happens I imagine this will be my lifelong partner. This is a deeper, calmer more pure love. It's a healthier love.
I could live without him but my life is enriched by his presence in it.

Long way of saying twice

I was 14, he was 17. This was over twenty years ago, in another country. We were besotted. It was so so much more than a teenage crush.

I wasn't from that country either, I had moved there with my parents when I was a baby as my father had been offered a job.

I was sixteen when my father's job came to an end and we had to move back to my home country. He came with us to the airport, my heart was shattered saying goodbye.

We kept in touch for a while, but it was too painful for us, for me mostly.

I grew up, got married, had kids, got divorced, moved continents, jobs, fourteen years went by.

Then one day( ten years ago now) I thought "fuck it" where is he, what happened to him, why am I still thinking about him. So I put my big girl detective pants on and spent a good week trawling the internet. No joy. I had a phone number from way back then, it was a public telephone kiosk next to the peteol station opposite his parents house! We didn't have mobile phones back then, I used to call the kiosk at seven each evening! God that sounds crazy now but it was perfectly normal back then

I worked out the area code and called the number a few times that week, obviously nobody answered. Tried again and a woman walking her dog picked up. Strangest conversation in my life followed but she knew who I was talking about because the family still lived in the same house. She mentioned that he had moved away to live in another country and was working for a huge, very well known multi national company.

Googled and googled and then BANG!

His picture on their website, email and office number! Holy fuck!

Long story short. Emailed him, got a response. A few months later we met up. Still living in different countries though. We got back together for a LDR. But due to the crash, and visa issues it just proved impossible.

I am married again, and he is also now married. We still email eachother every week, nobody knows.

I will love him till I die, simple as that. I love my husband too, but in a different way.

What a strange world we live in.

So now, with my own daughters, who are the age I was when I met him! I listen to their "men" troubles and think

"Is he another him, maybe it's not just a teenage crush after all.

Very weird place to be . . .

I was first in love at fifteen, stayed with him four years, and I've been in love twice since, one a six month fling and with current DP. But none of them have ever really loved me back imo despite in two cases long relationships, I think the meaning that individuals have for love and the way they show it can be very different, and that is what causes a lot of relationship difficulties. I can't even imagine being loved to the same extent that I have loved others, which has been making me feel very down lately.

14-16 My first boyfriend
18 -23+ My uni boyfriend
27+ My husband

Had crushes and infatuations in my teenage years that felt like love at the time. One in particular was a proper unrequited thing that felt worthy of a Shakespeare play - to my teenage self! Oh the drama.
Met DH when I was 24. There was this spark of something and then we got to know eachother and fell in love.
14 years and counting. Can't entertain the idea of being with anyone else.