How do you know you're in love?

[RockPaperOh]

I married DH because he's kind, generous, makes me laugh, and was a lot better than the abusive ex's before him. It felt like a sensible choice.

I've never felt in love, or have any idea what that even means?

I care very much for DH, wouldn't want anything negative to happen to him, I support him. We've been together 14 years now.

Do you feel in love with your partner? How would you describe that?

I feel like if you're in love you just ‘know’. It's hard to describe and possibly different for everyone. For me it was intense feelings and thinking about them all the time. Just wanting to know everything about them, noticing all the little things, wanting to be near them. A combination of excitement and fear. Excitement because it feels so lovely, but fear because you suddenly have a lot to lose if things go tits up!

I have no idea either op!

How do you not?

I know (mainly from reading MN) that not everyone is like me, but it still boggles my mind.
I've always been in love with someone or other my whole life. Not always reciprocated, but falling in love has always felt natural to me. The question has always been what to do about it, rather than am I actually in love. I know people will quibble about "is it really love" but I maintain that falling in love is a time-honoured and magical human feeling that need not bear any correlation to the actual state of affairs between the two parties! People will call it chemicals this, limerence that, but I call it being in love and I'm glad of it, although it's massively distracting and can result in heartbreak. The art, of course, is to be in love yet keep your feet on the ground... Enjoying the ride and knowing you will survive it whatever happens. Easier said than done!

Look up the triangular theory of love. To be in love you need intimacy, passion and commitment.

To just love someone you can have 2 of these. For example good friends have intimacy and commitment but no passion.

A short term romantic fling would be intimacy and passion but no commitment.

Passion and commitment with no intimacy is infatuation rather than consummate love.

This is so interesting!

We have commitment and a version of intimacy but definitely no passion.

I love him, but perhaps not ever been in love with him.

I don't think I've ever been in love.

I think it would be wrong to assume that there is one version of "in love" that everyone either does or doesn't feel....

I think I fall into what I would describe to myself/others as "in love" quite easily, so I have felt this for several different people in my life. Sometimes I have gone on to have LTRs with them, sometimes just short flings. I have even been totally unrequitedly "in love" a few times when I was younger.

The exact nature of the feelings has differed each time, depending on how well I knew the person, what they were like, the nature of my relationship with them etc. As I got older and grew into my sexuality, the sexual aspect became more pronounced. I have not always particularly even LIKED the person. In a few cases I have found them slightly ridiculous....

What categorised the feeling as "in love" for me was that I desired to be with that person above pretty much any other considerations. Would have risked a huge amount to be with them. They have been the person I most wanted to hear from. I would never have chosen another person over them.

When I had my daughter, she automatically came first above the person I was "in love" with. But they were still the second priority.

I'm not sure it's always a nice feeling for me. But I must crave it on some levels because when I fall out of love (or am driven out of) love with one person, I always seem to go seeking love for someone else......

It's definitely a companionship marriage.

Is that common? Would you stay in a marriage without passion?

I can be my worst, and he adores me.
He can be his worst, and I adore him.
We can do that, because even in our worst we never take each other for granted.
We are a team.
We want to have sex (we don’t always, because we have small children, but if we don’t it’s not for want of trying!)
We support each other financially.
We don’t exploit each other, whether that’s emotionally, physically, sexually or otherwise.
We are partners in life.
We respect each other.
We wouldn’t die for each other - because we wouldn’t want to take the other away from our children.
We have boundaries and can imagine life without each other, but actively choose not to.

I think the last one is my clincher.

No, caveat. The last one but also: we find each other interesting. It’s been nearly 15 years and I still find him interesting. That’s got to be worth something.

I think though that passion can take different forms.

We imagine passion to be like what we see in the movies - erotic, “I want you now”, “If I can’t have you, no one can!”.

I don’t think either of these types of passion are always healthy, or carry much longevity.

Before thinking you have no passion, you could ask yourself - What does passion look like for you?

My DH and I aren’t tear-your-clothes-off passionate, we never have been. I could let that convince me we have no passion, but I think it’s just not our vibe. For me, passion shows up in the context of protecting or providing for my DH - I would burn cities to the ground for that man (metaphorically speaking… probably). Same for my DC. I don’t feel great pangs of overwhelming swoons of love for them, but I feel fiercely about them.

Everyone is different!

And if you want to be more romantically passionate, then it is a skill that can be grown through practice. Do romantic things and it’ll become more like second nature. Don’t chuck a marriage because it’s not automatically what you want (or you’ll never have what you want!).

would you put his needs before your own? would you die to save him? could you live without him? how many times a day do you think about him? finally- this is deal breaker. if he murdered someone in self defence what would you do a) report him, b) help bury the body?

Surely love changes as you age - your first love when you’re a teen / early 20’s can be really intense and passionate. When you are further into adulthood you’re looking for more stability and that early version of love isn’t as appealing. You prefer commitment etc so it’s a different version of love. Like elderly couples probably aren’t super passionate in a rip your clothes off way, but deeply love and respect each other.
And even within that, everyone is looking for different things in a partner. What might be a massive turn off for one person could be what keeps someone else interested in that person.
I guess I know I love my husband because I don’t ever think to question it. And putting each other first E.g. I don’t care if I don’t win an argument, I care more that we find a good resolution that is best for the both of us.

I read once you like someone for their good bits. You love someone despite their bad bits. My DP can be a grump and is messy but when I look at him and he smiles at me, it makes me smile too. I want to be around him and I’d always have his back. It helps that I think he’s super cute 🥰

A companionship marriage can work if you're both happy being companions.

It will get tricky if one of you has your head turned and gets passionate feelings for someone else.