What if its love

Christina is the founder of Preferred Match preferredmatch. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed , times. Sometimes, one person feels love, while the other is simply around because of lust. Understanding the difference can help you decide where your relationship with the other person is going.

Additionally, consider whether you have similar values and interests that could support a loving partnership. Did this summary help you? Yes No. Log in Social login does not work in incognito and private browsers. Please log in with your username or email to continue. No account yet? Create an account. Edit this Article. We use cookies to make wikiHow great. By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Cookie Settings.

Learn why people trust wikiHow. Download Article Explore this Article methods. Related Articles. Article Summary. Method 1. All rights reserved.

This image may not be used by other entities without the express written consent of wikiHow, Inc. Identify whether what you and the other person feel is sexual attraction. Having a relationship based entirely on sexual attraction can work for a while, but things can become complicated if one partner feels love for the other while the other only feels lust.

Ask yourself if you or the other person feel love for the other. Love is usually coupled with sexual attraction, but love goes deeper. Do you share similar values and interests? Do you feel a deep connection to that person? Some qualities you might find in a suitable partner include: A commitment to personal growth and becoming a better person. An awareness of their own baggage or weaknesses. Emotional openness. Responsible and respectful. Integrity; they practice honesty with you, themselves, and others.

Loves because they feel good about themselves, not in order to feel good about themselves. Realize that biology plays a role. Lust and romantic love are two of three brain systems that help explain universal human attitudes toward mating and reproduction. Sexual attraction, romantic love, and long-term feelings of attachment work together in different proportions to create feelings of love in a relationship.

Suggest doing different activities with the other person. Try to find events that you would both enjoy. It is not something that they do to you to make you feel bad or hurt you. When you feel true love with someone, you are considerate, generous, and friendly with them.

You are concerned about them and show concern. You think about their needs. You are affectionate and patient towards them. I find many people are kinder to strangers than to their loved ones.

How you treat others compared to your partner is something to think about when you are considering whether you are feeling true love or just in a relationship with someone who you take out your frustrations on. What is true love? It is a dedication to someone and your relationship with them. It is the willingness to do things and compromise for the betterment of the relationship. It is the willingness to put the relationship above other things and remain committed to making it happier, healthier, and more fulfilling.

You do this because you recognize that the relationship is already making you a happier and better person, so staying dedicated to improving it is just a no-brainier. But true love is the willingness to work through arguments. Your desire is focused on making things better and working through the anger, hurt, or annoyance that is happening so you can get back to a happy relationship.

A promise to someone you truly love has a lot of weight. Promises are an extension of trust. When someone you love promises to do something and breaks it, then they are breaking your trust on some level. When the relationship is about you, then your perspective is all that you see. But, when you are in a relationship with someone you truly love, you value that person enough to see things from their perspective. For instance, you can see their true intentions, instead of labeling what you think their intentions are.

You can also see where they are coming from and why they need or want what they do in their life, instead of judging them for needing or wanting something different than you. When they smile, you feel happy. When they are experiencing joy, you feel joy too. When they are feeling loved, appreciated, or on top of their game, you feel good.

Even if you are unhappy with yourself, you feel a sense of appreciation that they are feeling good. You value them so much that you want them to be happy in life and free from suffering. Your partner gets sick, physically or mentally. John admitted his feelings for her and his intention to divorce his wife and marry her. The pastor lectured John that what he felt was not love, but an unhealthy lust that would destroy him and his family.

He seemed pleasantly surprised. He figured I would take the same approach as his pastor and others who defined love in a way that denied the authenticity of his intense emotions. I had no doubt that John deeply loved Sheila with a kind of love that involves a concentration of feelings most types of love cannot touch. For example, your pastor knows that in his Bible the kind of love called agape differs from liking or friendship love. What you feel is a measurable and identifiable kind of love.

So, yes, I believe you. I gently told him that before he made himself too comfortable, he needed to hear the rest of what I wished to share. He had been talking for nearly a half-hour; now it was my turn. Before leading John through considering his future, I guided him through his recent past, starting before he and Sheila connected emotionally. I did not ask him to tell me about his past.

Instead, I told it to him, though I had not heard it from anyone. It was not an effort to impress him, but to demonstrate to him how deeply I understood him. Correct me if I get something wrong. At first, your conversations were nothing special, just friends talking about mostly inconsequential matters. However, as you enjoyed being around each other, you became more open and transparent.

Gradually, you evolved to discussing personal matters, trusting each other, and liking the attention and validation. Somewhere along the line, one of you began to slip in words of affection, cautiously at first, and then openly. Well, before either of you openly professed love for the other, you both knew what the other felt. Neither of you considered the possibility that you violated boundaries as friends, co-workers, or Christians; both of you were still actively involved in your churches.

Nor did either of you entertain the idea that by your deepening desire to be with each other you violated your marriage vows to Melinda. You each believed strongly that both of you were good people who had no wish to do anything wrong. That eventually led to warm, clinging embraces. Next came kissing which finally progressed to full physical expression of your emotions.

It reached its peak when you became sexually intimate. Before you left each other after that first time, you wept and prayed together, asking God to forgive you and help you not sin again.

Instead, you thank Him for bringing you together. So what does that have to do with anything? Why is that important? Same reason. He was not enthusiastic about hearing my predictions, but realized it would be irrational to refuse.

Even if you stay together, which is not likely, you will have difficulties in that marriage because of the way it started. Everybody thinks that. Nobody is. Allow me to explain what you have before I predict where you will wind up. You cherish those feelings so dearly that you want to do whatever it takes to maintain them.

We know from science and from our own experience with thousands of people that limerence lasts somewhere between three months to three years and then it begins to fade away. This is real. Very real. Your brain makes the chemicals driving these amazing emotions. Admit it; you spend a lot of time thinking about Sheila.

Do you spend as much time with them as you used to? You still love them, but if you are honest with yourself, you know that you will miss events with them if Sheila wants you with her. Same with your parents and your close friends. Spend much time with any of them lately, John?

Your job requires creativity. I know all about that. It may be more intense than any other form of love. Dorothy Tennov, PhD, named it limerence in to describe what people feel when they are madly in love with another person. Helen Fisher, PhD, and her associates now do most of the research concerning it. We know from their research that powerful brain chemicals are associated with limerence and, as a result, a person in limerence behaves differently than he did before, and differently than he will after limerence fades.

And it will fade, John. It always does. It does not last. In fact, you cherish and adore letters, words, and events associated with her. Those things are special to you. For example, you experience some of these —euphoria, energy surges, insomnia, lost appetite, abrupt mood swings, or rapid heartbeat.

You may even occasionally feel anxiety and panic. For example, to please her have you changed the way you dress, your mannerisms, or maybe even some of your habits. Did you once believe that adultery was a violation of the Ten Commandments?

Now, however, you believe that God sent you the woman with whom you commit adultery. You want the emotional union much more deeply that you desire the sexual union with her. He tried to look smug, but could not pull it off. Instead, he demonstrated a mixture of anger, frustration, and anxiety. Besides, when a person is in love, he feels those things. You described true love, nothing more, and I already told you that I truly love Sheila.

When two single people fall into limerence, nobody worries about them. No one expects them to be in that euphoric romantic stage for the rest of their lives. If we did, we would worry, because we know that life cannot be lived that way for long. It is too exclusive, too selfish, and too unproductive for them as individuals, a couple, and for society as a whole.

We expect them to develop a more mature and broader level of love that is not as intense but is much more fulfilling; a love based on giving as well as taking, a love that is much more secure and less driven by moods, a love that is stable rather than reactive. We know from our work with thousands of marriages in crisis that you have a great likelihood of resenting Sheila. The object of your love probably will become the object of your resentment.

When limerence fades and you comprehend the costs of all you sacrificed for her, it is extremely likely that your mind will exacerbate her flaws.