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Relationships

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Original poster

So what is 'being in love'?

26 replies

OrmIrian · 14/03/2009 13:03

Just something I wanted to ask stemming fromp peony's post (hope you don't mind).

Because it strikes me that I don't think of being in love in the same way as most other people.

To me being in love is the acute phase of the process. Exciting, exhilirating, but ulitmately uncomfortable. I've been in love perhaps 4 times in my life and on each occasion I didn't think of it as a particularly enjoyable experience and certainly not something I'd want to comtinue semi-permanently. In the same way as I don't enjoy fairground rides . Once that fades and normality resumes love remains (with any luck) and that grows stronger over the years (again with any luck), but it isn't the same animal as being in love. It's calmer, stronger and sustaining.

Am I the only person who thinks like that?

OP posts:

biskybat · 16/03/2009 10:09

I don't believe you can sustain that 'in love' feeling over a 20yr period it would burn you up. By 'in love' I mean the feelings of jittery excitement every time you see eachother, feeling like having sex all the time, daydreaming about him constantly. Real life gets in the way of all that and you do settle into a more comfortable rhythm.

For me being in love over a long period is cyclical. You have all the jittery feelings at the beginning then you settle into the comfortable stage then you drive eachother crazy for a bit then something happens to remind you of why you love eachother so much and you get those jittery feelings all over again. I think you dip in and out of being in love and just loving eachother. Not sure I'm making sense. I suppose its like brick wall with the two elements of love and lust making up the structure.

I've been with my husband for 8yrs and was crazily 'in love' for 3 but I have enjoyed the last 5 more as we know eachother so much better now and the life we have built together means he is almost a part of me. I get that 'in love' feeling every now and again but it is based on real knowledge of who he is as a person and not that idealised version that you have of each other when you first get together.

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