How quickly did you fall in love?

[callmehannahbaker]

Asking for a friend... obviously

I don't think it is possible to fall in love quickly TBH. If it is quick it normally isn't love...

You need to know someone really really well before you can honestly say you love them.

i said i love you within 2 months and luckily he said it back!

my dh said it after 3 months, I wasn't in love until around 6 months, the initial period I think is infatuation and lust but not love. You need to know someone to truly love them. I am far more in love with dh than I was at the beginning as we know each other so well

After my second date I knew that I would never have a reason to dump my (now) DH. I know that that isn't 'falling in love' but I had never met such a person before.
Falling in love, probably a few months. Staying in love, a constant exercise that is easier at some times than others.

I know it's lust/infatuation right now. I just feel like I've never met someone I click with so well instantly

Two months for me this time around. In my past experience in other relationships it's rarely been longer than that. And it has always turned out to be actual love that's lasted years, not infatuation. it is cheesy and you have to keep your wits about you but for me when I know I'm in love, I know.

It was over a year last time for me (lasted 5 years). There's something different at the moment!

I think it depends how much time you spend together. If you're just seeing each other a couple of times a week then it will probably take longer. I fell in love with my husband in about 3 weeks but we were spending all day every day together.

DH and I said it very quickly (within days of meeting). Looking back we realise now it wasn't quite love, more lust. But, 7 years later we are still together and definitely in love.

I think love is very easily confused with lust and the heady rush that comes with meeting someone you click with. This is not love at all. This is why people get hurt when they are told 'I don't love you any more'. The truth is they probably never did, even though they might have thought they did. I have just come out of an 11 month relationship and we 'clicked' instantly. It was a happy, relaxed and respectful relationship throughout really. However despite the fact that he ended the relationship (in a very rotten way actually), and I would not have chosen to end it, the harsh fact is that I did not love him. I think I really really liked him and I could have seen some sort of future with him but I did not love him. That said he has hurt my feelings very badly and it is still very painful no matter what. Just be careful. In my experience when you think you might be in love you can find yourself compromising on things you would not usually and losing your own sense of self.

With DH and I it was weeks . We had both come out of long relationships and just "knew".

We met in August, decided to marry in October and married the following March.

We've been together 28 years!

I will add that we both agree we didn't know each other very well and that came afterwards. I often say we were "lucky" that when the gloss had worn off we still liked each other and that one of us wasn't a lunatic.

I think i first started feeling it about a month in with dp. He was slightly quicker.

It was on our first date. Everything he said, everything he did, the way he looked at me - just made me melt - made my heart grow bigger in his presence. I knew from that date that we would spend our lives together, he knew too. From date 3 (at his parents for Sunday Lunch!) we were talking about our future together. Sometimes it happens like that. We have been married 25 happy years this year.

I was with someone for 10 years beforehand, I never felt anything beyond infatuation followed by companionship.

I'd say we fell in love gradually over two years. We were friends when we met, then in lust (which lasted a long time)then grew to depend on one another, then we were 'in love'. We met at uni and got together quite quickly but the real, deep meaningful love came when we moved in together and joined our lives (try not to vomit everyone!)when we left uni. It was 20 years ago now mind so I struggle to remember!

About 3 years! I now love him with all my heart. Thank God he didn't meet someone else in the 3 years it took me to get my act together!

About a month

My dh and I also clicked instantly. We just were immediately close friends and I felt like I could talk to him about anything, depend on him, we just got each other. So the closeness happened pretty quickly. But I don't know that I can say I knew I was in love with him until maybe about 6 months into our relationship. We were friends for about a month before we started dating and we kept it very casual (neither of us seeing anyone else, so definitely were exclusive, but we were both expats living temporarily on assignments in a developing country, we both eventually had to go home to our respective countries, so didn't really know if a serious relationship could ever be in the cards for us). I thought of him as my boyfriend though (so we were like 'official,' put it on Facebook, etc.) after about 3 months. I have absolutely no idea when we first said I love you to each other! I really don't remember! But though we were always close and we had a really solid relationship from the start, it wasn't until after about 6 months of dating when a lot of stuff happened in our lives (really stressful, traumatic stuff) that I just sort of realised how in love with him I was. That was about when we decided we were both in this for the long haul and we saw a future together and we put a plan in place for how we would handle a long distance relationship and how one of us would eventually move to live in the other's country.

So it was a slow progression to realising how much we actually loved each other, but then a really big jump to planning a life together and moving countries. That was 9 years ago. Now we're married with a school age child and a baby on the way. So I don't think it has to be instant, but I think the closeness and respect and connection does have to be there from early on for you to get to that point eventually.

I knew I would love DH straight away. Had never felt anything like it before - it was a physical click in my chest that felt like coming home. Totally different to lust or infatuation - just an overwhelming sense of rightness and goodness, like my whole life had been perfectly aligned to lead up to meeting him. It even restored my faith in God, as cheesy as that sounds. He felt the same (and I knew he did without him even having to say anything). It wasn’t so much that I was in love with him or even loved him in that instant - I didn’t know him well enough - but I knew that I WOULD, and I knew that he was the one.

We moved in together 3 weeks after our first official date, and now, four years on, we’re married, buying a house and having a baby. And blissfully happy. I love him more every day.

Hopelessly in love at the moment and it will be 2 months next week. I think it's just lust so far for him though! Hopefully it will turn into something more for him too in time, scares me to pieces to be honest....when you love someone and don't know how they feel about you it makes you vunerable.

I knew I would love DH straight away. Had never felt anything like it before - it was a physical click in my chest that felt like coming home. Totally different to lust or infatuation - just an overwhelming sense of rightness and goodness, like my whole life had been perfectly aligned to lead up to meeting him

I have had two relationships that began like this. Both of them abusive and both were 'too good to be true' in that they were both lying about who they were at the start...

I think that's when you meet someone and on the odd occasion you just feel a connection with someone you are very suited to straight away. I don't think it is love. For the love to grow you need to know the person as IME this connection can be faked by disordered people who present themselves as exactly the kind of person you would connect with in order to hook you.

Offred exactly right

@offred Like I said - it wasn’t love, I didn’t know him. But I knew it would grow to be, and it did.

I’m sorry for your experiences but they certainly don’t mirror my own.

I don't mean that it is love or that your experience is the same as mine.

I mean that you can have that feeling about someone who you are very suited to but it doesn't necessarily mean it will develop into love. It might be a good indicator that you are well suited and therefore the chances it will develop into love are high or it might be that the person is disordered and is very good at quickly realising what you want and displaying it so you will give them a chance to control you.

Oh, I see. I don’t agree (this sense of ‘rightness’, the physical ‘click’, all happened before we had even spoken, so there was no time for him to ‘present’ anything!) but I understand that I sound like a crazy person when I talk about it, so your reaction is fair enough!

No, I don't think it's crazy. I think it's 'a thing' not necessarily what happened with you but someone who gives you (one) that feeling is not necessarily suited, may be manipulative and toxic.