I'm sitting here thinking about life, and wondering, how do you really know you're in love? Is there such a thing? How does it differ from a very long term crush? Or is it just a crush every time, but some last longer and turn into relationships bef...

[mustrunmore]

Can you tell I'm feeling quite philosophical tonight?!

Come on, tell me about yourselves, so I can see how I fit in.

I have often wondered the same thing.

Also wondering why am still sat here when i am so tired.Just can't tear myself away from MN

I was thinking the same thing tonight!

What category do you reckon you fall into then?

isnt a crush just lust,
and do people generlaly have unrequited crushes

Oh, and how about the being in love/having feelings for 2 people at the same time?

I dont think a crush is just lust, as it can often be initiated by strong emotions/emotional feelings towards the person, not just sexual ones.

I don't know the answer. All I can add is that I didn't love DH before we married. The love grew from mutual and absolute trust. I couldn't live without him now. Isthaqt what love is?

wow that title pickled my head

i knew it was love when i waited rather than falling into bed with him

when i stayed up dishing all my dirt til 3am for three nigths on the trot and he still liked me

i knew it when i got incredibly horrendosly drunk and lost all control of my bowels and he bathed me clean

i knew it was love when he asked me to marry him then admitted he was to scared to do it the way he wanted intially

i knew it was love when i told i was pregnant with our lo and he just couldn't speak

and when i got depressed and sought comfort in anothers company he brought me home cuddled me and told me how much i meant to him and how i was ahuge part of his life which he would never recover from losing

all these things have kept me falling in love with him over the last 7 and a half years and i hope they keep happening

i truly believe he is the one for me and i love him dearly

lust is another ball game completely and i do veiw crushes in the same light

they come and go

love lasts a life time [a love life]

crushes are wonderful but usually not real.

noo crushes are painful

Love makes your heart smile.
Love is being content. Knowing what will make your partner smile and doing it without any reason other than to make them smile, and vice versa. Being comfortable in your own skin. No feelings of wanting. Continued feelings of desire. Not seeing a future without them in it but not taking each other for granted. It's not an entirely instant thing. It grows over time. But there is an instant 'click'.

that sounds really soppy probably. But I'm entitled....being a newlywed n all that

Not sure where I fit in really.
I was with my ex H for 11 years, but the last 5 years or so of our relationship were very hard, and he would often say I didn't love him anymore. I was confused whether I actually loved him or not. I think I did love him, which is why the break up was so tough, but was no longer in love with him. The way he behaved had pushed me right away.

I am now with a new man, who I have been seeing for 3 months, and he is lovely. I think a lot of him, I look forward to seeing him, and he makes me smile, but don't know if I really love him yet or not. It is all very different from my last relationship.
We are still at stage where we can't keep our hands off each other, so guess it could still be classed as lust...don't know!

crushes are great

Crushes are 'okay'. They can be all consuming though, and generally not reciprocated. Which can make it painful.

But no one's yet said anything that's clicked in my head. I need t oread the one right thng that'll clarify it all for me!

What's on your mind mustrun

I didn't develop feelings straight away for my new man - they have grown over time, so I guess I wouldn't call it a crush, but not sure whether it is a little early to call it love. I know that I don't want to lose him though.

Are you confused, mustrun?
I'm afraid I won't say anything useful on this subject!

'All consuming' sounds familiar!
Not sure what's on my mind, truely!

don't over analyse.
just enjoy it

Message withdrawn

Christ I don't know, I think I have only recently come to really undestand what love means.
Before I enjoyed falling in love, being in love all the easy stuff. Passionate attachment and sexual ecstasy etc. LAter maturing into fairly mundane but wonderful stuff like shared interests, mutual respect, support and so on.
But in the last few years I have come to a greater understanding of what love might mean. It is about understanding another person completely and understanding the person's faults and accepting them and not trying to change them and it is about absorbing another person into who you are and making them part of you, it is about putting another person's feelings before your own, not in a surrendered way but for love, it is about growing as a person and changing yourself because of the love you have experienced.
I think motherhood has made this growth possible actually.

Oh yes, thats it harpsi.

Understanding, and embracing the faults. Like knowing that when DH is grumpy, and snappy - he either needs me to ask him whats wrong, or he needs feeding