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.

love is selfless, not about you

a crush is completely and utterly about you - your feelings , the rush, the thrill that YOU get.

love is much more, love is taking your wife to the toilet when she is so ill she cant make it.

love is triumph through adversity

love is workng a shitty job under minumum wage to bring home some money

Today for me love was seeing a man who had gotten up at 5 am and not gotten home until 5.45 make dinner for 6 - all cooking when i walked in 15 mins later.

love is the little as well as the big things. love is a knowing look which in its eyes say "i love you" without the words. love is laughter, love is concern. love is hardship.

love is selfless

Custardo- that was lovely....now have lump in throat!

harpsi, yours was lovely too.

It's badialy a mutal agreement that this will do. It comes down to meeting someoen who wants roghly what youwant at the right time.

Oh yes indeed.

Love is definitely him clearing up my vomit throughout my period of morning sickness. Or driving 45 minutes home from work in the middle of the day to clear up DS's projectile vomit because he knows I cant cope with it.

nice work custy.
love is sticking at it even though it is hard work and painful
I am glad I have lived this long and through so much tbh, because everything I thought I knew about love at the age of 18 or even 25 was nothing compared to what I have felt. though I have the lines to show for it

you know you love someone when you don't have to ask the question 'what is love?'

love is commitment. That you are going to be there unconditionally under terms accepted by both parties.
You decide to be monogamous or not.
You decide that you can do with a platonic relationship or not.
You decide if you are happy with a routine or you decide if you want to work on it to make everyday sparkle.
You decide if you accept your partner's shortcomings or not.

Bottom line is I think it's a state of mind ............ that can change. You just have to be honest with yourself and your partner every step of the way.

And yes custy, hardship is probably the best test.
knowing that whatever the pain you can and want to be there.

I am a bit of a cynic on this front. I believe we have the biological capacity to 'fall in love' - strong infatuation characterised by heightened levels of hormones like phenylethylamine and oxytocin, producing symptoms similar to OCD - on a reasonably regular basis as one of the ways the species perpetuates itself. What this experience 'means' in someone's life is mediated by their personal, social and cultural history and setting.

When it is experienced in relation to someone of the 'right' age, social setting, availability, etc, this can be the start of a lasting relationship. The quality of any resultant relationship depends on a lot more than the 'being in love' - personal, social, family compatibility, wanting the same things, shared history, attitudes to commitment. When in inauspicious circumstances (teenager and pop star? best mate's girlfriend?) it is in our culture labelled 'just a crush', though the feelings may be just as intense.

When 'being in love' is believed to be the most important thing for a relationship, some people manage to sustain those feelings long-term. Most don't, and I think it is a tragic indictment of the central place romantic myth in our society that when these initial feelings start to fade away (or worse, start to be felt towards someone else), perfectly good relationships get wrecked because of the central importance we attach to the 'being in love' experience.

I've been with dp since we were teenagers and in that time have felt 'in love' feelings with several other people - normally at times when dp and I were rocky, or there were other things going on in my life that I wasn't happy with. It's at times been incredibly painful but each time I've been glad in the long run I didn't do anything about it. So far, for me, hanging on to the love, respect, history, family and wanting the same things that dp and I share has been more than worth giving up the ephemeral, irrational obsessiveness of regular fallings-in-love. But then, like I said, I am a bit of a cynic

Sorry, turned into a bit of an essay there!!

Well I remember before falling in love myself that my mum and sisters and auntie and any other older married women would say "when you know you just know" and I always felt that was a totally inadequate description of love.

But, when it does happen you do, you just know. At first, for me and for anyone else I've known who has fallen in love, you just feel like you are the luckiest people on earth, the walking on air thing definitely applies.

I remember my sister (long time married) saying something about looking forward to her hubby going back to work to get some peace and saying to my love in disbelief "I can't ever imagine ever not wanting to be with you" - and both of us genuinely meaning it. hahahahaha

You find each other utterly interesting in every way and want to spend every waking minute in bed and if your not at it just talking about each other.

Then when the love dust wears off your shared values and shared long terms plans as well as your deep affection keeps you together as time gets a bit tough.

And then, hopefully, the love dust comes back every now and again and you kind of fall in love all over again.

Falling in love really is as good as the movies and songs make out. And as awful at times as you are taking such a leap of faith to trust your soul with someone else.

Long term love is all that harpsi said too, thats what it ends up being and that is the best love of all.

And I've only ever been in love once and I married him.

One absolute rule I've found over the years (and having done it myself a couple of times) - if your trying to convince yourself of whether your in love or not - then your not.

I only loved once, so far. It was like people say, you just know, you just want to be with them every minute and no matter what they ask you to do, you will do it because you love them. And when they are hurt and you are far away from them, you cry for their pain and you wish you could take it for them. And when you breathe it is for them, and when you make love you go into another plane, a kind of heaven. And you see them everywhere you go, only it isn't them, you're imagining it...and you feel you are him, and he is you, and you walk as he walks, you move with his movements...and when he is inside you, you are one entity.
And you love his children because they are like him, and because he loves them.

And when he leaves you, you are empty and lifeless. I thought I would die when he went. It's been three long years and I still can't think about it.