Describe Love

[user1475842882]

Those of you in/have been in genuine love, please, please describe it to me.

I think I (and some people I've been with) get a bit swept away and say it but it's not true, life long relationship love.

I'm either completely disillusioned with it or going about relationships wrong and as a divorced nearly 30 year old I don't want to keep repeating my mistakes. I'm happy being on my own but would like to hear your experiences to give me a bit of optimism!

Thank you.

To me love is effortless. Natural. Not having to think about having to behave. Trusting. Not having to think whether they have ulterior motives. Finally, knowing that you are doing your best for the other person, and knowing they are doing the same for you. I used to feel this way, but then she betrayed me. So this is an ideal, not what I have. Just my view.....

Wow that's beautiful thank you. I'm sorry it's only an ideal and I hope you find it to be a reality one day. I'm in the same boat to a degree. Hoping it does exist and isn't a facade.

For me it felt like coming home and just knowing I belong.

I miss it so much.

When you know you can say anything, talk about anything and just be you with that person, you don't have to pretend to be anything you're not, you don't have to hide things, you can laugh hysterically about stuff (even during sex) and when you lay in their arms, it just feels utterly perfect.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in love..thought I had but I realise now much later in life, that it was only ever infatuation. I get caught up in the first flushes, then I’m hooked.

I imagine love to be a joining of souls, so comfortable you are like one person. A genuine respect for each other, and caring for their welfare and emotional wellbeing.

I’ve never experienced it sadly, but the infatuated feeling was pretty good, and I did genuinely care for them too, it just never lasted.

The first person who loved me properly taught me that love is acceptance. You feel that everything about yourself is totally acceptable , do you can utterly be yourself. And you give that to your partner, just delighting in who they are , and having so much respect for them.

It’s such a healing thing.

OP - there is also a difference between the early in-love feeling and love that develops later.
In the early phase - you see the idealised image of the new partner.
And this is often when people first utter the L-word.
I think - this may be what you are calling - ‘swept away’....
However - that early feelings doesn’t always survive (or get converted) into the true love.
As people get to know each other better, and interact more, and encounter conflicts - if that special effortless feeling persists, and that desire/need/importance of wanting to make the other person happy is still there - with the full recognition that they might not be an ideal and perfect person they seemed at the beginning -
Then - real and actual love is there.

You seem down and sad.
But - you are not even 30 yet.
It will get better!!!

I said I was in love before, and I meant it, entirely. Until I met him. It took us both so long to admit we loved each other it's almost embarrassing.

He taught me what love is. It's nothing grand, it's not simply sharing the mundane either. It's just accepting someone, being there, trying to make their day better, or life easier. It's knowing that you would walk to the end of the earth for them without being asked. You think of them and you immediately smile. It makes you feel anchored in some way, secure. In their presence, you feel totally at peace - you don't have to talk, just a look is enough, or even just lying in silence together. It's companionship, it's silly shared jokes, it's taking the strain when you know they're stressed, and they do the same for you.

Never loved anyone like I love him. If I had simply seen him on the street, I'd have walked past him a hundred times without a second glance. I got to know him first, and I fell for him. That isn't to say I haven't argued with him like I've never argued with anyone before. But we argued because we both knew we could never be apart.

And I was mid 30s when I met him, he's a fair bit older. But he just has something, and together we have something more. He got me from the first time we talked, and it's only ever deepened since.

I think what's worked for us is that we have something quite specific in common, so that's what got us talking initially. Neither of us were looking for a romantic thing, we became friends first, got on really well, and then things developed. I am complete and whole in myself, but he is my other half.

For me, love is being peaceful in what you have together. That person becomes just like home to you. When you're in love I feel a huge amount of inner peace, like whatever life throws at you it's not just you dealing with it. You have trust, and you know you have someone always at your side. It's so hard to describe.

"Love" is attachment. You can develop attachment to anyone, including someone who is absolutely terrible for you, who hits and abuses you. In fact, abusive behaviour frequently deepens attachment and victims often experience very deep, very strong feelings of overwhelming love for their abuser.

The difference comes in when you are in love with someone who is actually good for you, and you for them.

When that happens, usually the defining feature is a sense that you are accepted as you are. That the other person even is delighted by you, just as you are. And that you feel the very same about them.

Don't get stuck in the whirlpool of "what is real love" or "true love". Extremely deep love can exist between folk who ruin each other's lives. Feeling deep love isn't a sign that a couple should be together.

What you should be looking for is a sense that both partners deeply love and accept each other. They don't ask each other to change. They respect and adore each other equally. And it just works - just like that. No negotiation, no need to compromise or change or talk yourself or them into it

For me, it's faith (in the least religious sense possible) rather than feeling. Faith that this other person has my best interests at heart, faith that he'd always got my back no matter what and faith that we're each other's best friend.

Love is an agreement we've entered because of this shared faith and a trust that we both want to work to sustain it.

Here are some definitions:

"When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as one's own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists."

But I'd go one step further and say that if someone wants to break up with you, do you love them enough to respect their feelings and want what is best for them, even if that means breaking up with you?

There's a school of thought that "love" essentially boils down to physical chemistry - or the elusive "spark".

Desmond Morris put it more directly: "Love is just a polite word for sex".

Another disagrees, saying: "Love is not about what goes on between the legs, love is between the ears."

On balance, I think I agree with Des Morris.

To me it was feeling like I just fit with that person, physically and mentally. They never annoyed or irritated me. I adored him, I loved the tiny hairs on his ears, I loved his beautiful green eyes. We had many in jokes and daftness, we just were together, could spend hours saying nothing.

He was a cunt in the end, but whatever he ever thought, I loved him with all my heart and was never so happy when we were together. It was like whatever was happening in my life, when we were together and embraced each other nothing mattered and I just felt at peace. Damn I miss him, even though he was a selfish numpy :(

I can't describe it because I'm not feeling it right now. Just wanted to post to say how lovely and affirming it is to read this thread (mostly!).

It is lovely isn't it, confusing but reassuring at the same time! Thank you for all your responses xx

I believe that there are different types of love. Love yourself first. Love your family. Love your friends. Love people that you meet fleetingly. Love animals. Love nature. Love life. Love the simple things in life. If you have some or all of these things then you are very fortunate.