What is love?

[brandyandcoffee]

How do/did you know that you’re in love with someone?
How do you define it?

Baby don't hurt me.

I was so tempted to put that in brackets!

I think that romantic love is a strange mix of hormones and culturally loaded expectations. If you wait a while, it usually wears off when you find that the object of your desire is actually a twat

I don't know how to define it really, but I fucking love the company of my DP. I would rather hang out with him than anyone else in the world, we piss ourselves laughing together and have loads of injokes, he's my best mate, and every time I look at him I think he's fantastically gorgeous and wonderful. After 9 years I am still ridiculously daft over him and smile at the thought of him. He does my head in at times, but I've never met another person I would rather be with. I wouldn't swap him for anyone, even Chris Hemsworth.

To conclude, love = someone you wouldn't even swap for Chris Hemsworth dressed as Thor.

Balonzz, you are spot on there!!
The man I’m with told me last night that he has fallen in love with me. Im pretty sure I feel the same way but I was curious to hear other people’s definitions of love.
I think about him as soon as I wake up, a lot of the day, and right before I fall asleep. He gives me butterflies, my legs almost give way when he looks at me and the kissing... oh wow. We’re yet to have ‘proper’ sex but what we’ve experienced so far has been incredible.

Love is an action. Its wanting to do something with someoneor for someone. If someone claims to love you look at their actions. Its all the silly little thinks my husband does because it makes me smile.

To me, love is...wanting him to be happy. Being excited to see him when he comes home from work. Knowing that whatever we do, I’ll enjoy it more with him. Trust. I know it’s cheesy but I couldn’t imagine my life without him...I could look at him all day 😍 I think it means different things to different people but to me it’s ultimately the person you wouldn’t ever want to be without

I remember the moment I fell in love with my DH, it's very hard to put into words but he was talking to me about something work related (we had just met the day before, he was new and had to shadow me and the day in question was our first shift working together) and I was listening and just looking at him and I just 'knew' that was it, I'm in love and I felt like nothing could ever change that.

When, leading up to that moment, we got the chance to talk a little between jobs there was just something about him, to me he was one of a kind and I wanted to hear everything he had to say, I was dumbstruck by him (if that's the right word, I don't know), to me he was this amazing creature who invaded my workplace and all I wanted was to sit and talk with him for hours (we did, for 12hrs on our first date a week later lol). But that moment I realised I was in love was not like anything I've experienced with any of my previous relationships.

So, to summarise I'd define it as something that's indefinable but when it happens you know it.

I need to laugh with my partner. And we do. We laugh constantly! That’s a big thing for me

A whole lot of oxytocin and dopamine?
I have no idea.

I think it's easy to be in love when times are good. I knew I wanted to be with my DH forever when I realised he's he one I want around when times are shit.

Love can be seen in a ‘look’. I could tell he had fallen in love with about 20seconds before he said it. He was just looking so deeply into my eyes. Took my breath away to be honest! And then he said it and my stomach nearly kept out of my throat! I’m like a giddy school girl around him. Pathetic at 38!!
I just want to spend every minute with him, talking to him, listening to everything he has to say

I miss him when he goes to the toilet and I get butterflies of excitement when I know he’s going to be coming back into the room! We’ve been together 11 years (married for 2) and we laugh until we can’t breathe at things nobody else finds funny/would get. It’s us against the world!

When you are in love you know it. Or put it another way, when you're not in love you know it.

Been divorced 9 years & no one I've dated since has given "that feeling".......even a 5 year "on-off" relationship I had during that time.

As I said....you just know.

Having a laugh together. If you don't share the same sense of humour, then call it a day

I think there are different types of love - romantic love and companiate love. Most people shift from one to the other at about 18 months when the oxytocin wears off which is also why a lot of relationships fail at this point

To me also I know I am falling for someone when I really want to hear all their stories and tell them mine too - the little stories that make up your life

Missing them when they go to the toilet is something I associate more with the adoration we get from dogs, tbf...

Love? Love is a verb. Love is a doing word

This . I always told my kids "Love is a verb, not a noun" .It's doing things for someone , and they do things for you. All sorts of things, whatever you need they will do it for you.

I just got home - DH was making me a cup of tea when I walked in the door. He'd heard my car pulling in and knew I'd like a cup of tea. That's the sort of thing that lets me know he loves me.

It's all of the things above, plus this absolute welling up of the urge to assimilate myself with him. The feeling that I need to hold him and he I, hard, to be as close as we can be to one being. Needing to touch him, needing to see his face when he looks into my eyes. Knowing he's the only person I want to experience the rest of life together with.

But you have to know someone well before you fall in love with them, don’t you?

Or am I wrong?

I knew I was in love with DH when my Mum picked me up and halfway home missed him. I was 16 and to quote Sabrina the Teenage Witch, "at 16,it is always true love." FF to 34, married nearly five years, I don't miss him when we're apart but I look forward to seeing him. He makes me laugh like noone else, if I'm doing something fun I want to share it with him if he'd also enjoy it. He drives me mad, I simply can't get remotely excited about his main hobby (no, not cycling) but we just fit. He's my best mate who still gives me butterflies across a room but more than that, I know he supports me and has my back.