How long before "I love you"?
 

What are the earliest and latest times into a relationship that one should/could say "I love you"?

How long could you tolerate a relationship before your partner uttered these words? Or how long could you stick with a partner without being able to utter them yourself? Or how soon into a relationship would you dare say it?

Once I was in a cohabiting relationship for over a year before I said it. I didn't say it till then cos I wouldn't have meant it. It caused a lot of trauma. On the other hand, in another relationship (with the woman who is now my wife) I thought "I love you" almost from the very start but held off saying it for a couple of months for fear of scaring her off. She was pretty much the same although I think we both knew how we felt from the beginning.

I think you should say it whenever you truly feel it. In my last relationship I think it took us about three months before we were ready for it.

If I was in love with a person and it had been close to a year and they still hadn't said "I love you" then I'd have to wonder if they ever would. We'd probably talk about it and if he wasn't even close, then I would start looking for someone who could love me back.

I try to hold back on saying it until the other person has already said it. I don't want to scare the guy away if he thinks it might be too soon and I don't want to put myself out there and get rejected. I think when two people are in a relationship for a period of time, they begin to understand where each other are at in the relationship as far as love goes.

First long term relationship (really only one taht counted, 4.5 years) took six months. The relationship I'm in now took exactly 43 days. I felt it long before I said it, but it was important to me that she felt it too because of past relationships. She said it to me and i told her that I'd felt it for a while.

There really isn't anything better than the feeling of loving and being loved back.

With the spouse, we were a couple of months along, I had hurt his feelings and in the apology, it 'slipped out'.....
hardest thing in the world is to say it and NOT mean it....if it's there, it comes without thinking.

Say it when you're ready. Not 1 day before.

And mean it. That's also important.

I use to be deathly afraid of those words, letting someone get close. But little did I know when I uttered them one night.... February 22. And after that, I could not have been happier.

Repeating all that was said above, when you're ready.

*does the inlove dance*

Dave and I will be together 2 years next month, it took us 12 days to say the actual words to each other...it would have been sooner if he had not had to go to Florida for his job 4 days after we met

Martel and I, well, it was about... three days? Something like that. I think when it "clicks" you "just know" and you can't get your head away from the feeling of being in love!

I first said it to my girlfriend after we'd been dating about 4 months after we first met. That's when it felt right to me.

Hold out!
 

Hold out until you can't keep it in anymore.....
Those words can be powerful and should only be said when you can't keep them in any longer and the love is ready to bust out of your chest....but make sure the love is bursting from your chest and not out of your zipper! :hmm:
A beating heart full of love and a throbbing boner full of lust can sometimes be confused as the same thing. :thumbsup:

Yeah, it was about a week with lurkette. I've always been one to say it as soon as I felt it, and to be clear I'm not expecting anything back.

i love that analogy.

i've been thinking about the same thing recently... but im so afraid of my bf not having similar feelings. he has a "thing" about getting too close, mostly due to some of his past relationships.

but at the same time, i really want him to know.

i always say it way way to early and am now resolved not to say it for a long time, cynical bastard that i am.

Time doesn't matter just say it when you feel it's right, you'll know it's the right time if you wait.

i have never said it first..i have had it said to me and liked it..but then i didnt say it bk until i felt it and sometims that has caused conflictingissuess!!


with a certain ex..he toldme if a woman said it , he would run a mile cos it scared him..this mademe A)not feel as much love him as much as i did cos i felt hee dint want my love or it was worth nothing to him..and that upset me,
and B)be so scared to say it that i kept quiet and never said it..even thouugh i was crazy for him..it made me close up-he has since told me he didnt mean it:( :crazy: :confused: :hmm:

i sayit to my friends and ppl i love all the time..but relationships i wil find difficult to understand now!! :)

:thumbsup: chelsea_9

Hmmm I think theres a specific time.... Its when YOU feel it. I don't think a person should ever be scared. Lifes way too short to hold emotions back....

you say it when you feel it!any other time and you'd be lying to yourself and to your partner. how do you know when you feel it?only you can answer that question.there is no right or wrong time, there is no earliest or latest time.

for me it's the bubbles i get in my stomach whenever i open the front door to my house and his on the other side.the way my heat pumps lumps of custard when he reaches for my hand and the way my knees weaken whenever he kisses me.

the way you feel it is different for most people as is when it is said.what matters is not when you say it or even how you say it, what matters is that you say it when you're ready to.

I'm not afraid of saying it too soon or too late. It's not just those words that say that you love someone; it's everything else. For me, the meaning of "I love you" change with the relationship. Such as the one I'm in now, it means a whole lot more now than 2 years ago when we just started dating.

i've been trying to think of when the first time i said i love you to any guy i've ever been involved with...and the only one i remember is my ex husband. i remember saying it for the first time, but i have no idea how far into the relationship we were.

personally, i'm in the no-time-limit camp. this is why i can't recall when in any relationship i said it for the first time--the first time for me, has always been a moment of saying it without thinking. (as in, it was natural to say it and it just slipped out--not that i put my foot in my mouth and regretted the words or didn't mean them).

Thank goodness this this thread is here :o Such a relief, because I've been wondering the same thing for ages!

I think it can only be too soon for someone if they don't feel the same as the person who has said it.

The first time I said it, I didn't really say it.
She was drunk and down and she said "you hate me, don't you" and I said "No, the opposite." But she didn't twig.
It was after about a month we said it to each other properly.

I could of said it sooner but held back in case it was too soon for her to hear.

I am happy to see this topic posted. Otherwise I would've asked the smae question myself. I am a bit hesitiant to say it to her only because I don't truly know how she'll respond... the whole "don't wanna scare 'em off" thing. We've been seeing each other for a month, and have decided to be "official" girlfriend/boyfriend about a week ago. I want to say it so much sometimes, but always stop myself. I think I'll give her a chance to say it (in which case I'll reply quickly with the same). Who knows, maybe she is waiting for me to say it. Hopefully...

a while ago I would have said....say it when you feel it, when you just can't keep it in any longer. I have had it said first, and I have also been the one to say it first. It's never too soon, there isn't a time.

But.........from being burned before, nowadays I wouldn't say it before he said it, sadly. I have become less trusting of others to feel able to give them my love first, even if my entire being, both physically and mentally is screaming it silently.

Like others have said, when you feel like you mean it, then say it. With my wife, I think we were a couple of months into our relationship. I knew she was a keeper when we first met, just had to prove my feelings.

I guess when it is a lie to not say it.

I didn't tell my hub until we were talking marriage. I couldn't stand it when other gals would say it a few days into a dating relationship, to nearly every boy they were involved with. Of course I felt it for him much sooner than that, but I was absolutely determined to not let my heart rule my head. How dedicated I was to being right and safe, for a 19-year old girl...but I knew the consequences back then.

I once said it accidently on a phone call setting up a first date (blind date too!). I had call waiting on the phone was speaking to my mom, and well needless to say I heard about that later on...

I wholeheartedly agree... These three dreaded words have been bastardized way too much.

People should not be allowed to say it until they truly mean it, and they should have already made it know to their partner through their actions that they love them a long time before those words are ever uttered out.

I say it depends on the person and the relationship (of course).

For me, my current relationship was about a month until we said we loved each other. Of course, we were completely drunk at the time, but we both realized we meant it the next day.

Nice timing for this thread.. well at least for me anyways. I just so happened to utter those three little words this past weekend. We've been dating for almost two months now, and live apart so we only see each other about once a week/two weeks. But man, for the last month or so I've been wanting to say it to her. I would go to bed just wanting to scream it out. Then this weekend it finally happened. Funny story though, as friday night we were together and very late that night, after some frisky play time we were cuddling in each others arms and very exhausted. We both were feeling great, but I was too tired (5 am) and quickly fell asleep... well I guess she wasnt quite as tired and she softly said that she loved me.... unknown to me. Sounds like something that happens in the movies or something. Well the next night we were laying with each other and talking, and I mean really talking. She kinda made a slip about her feelings toward the future.. (a marriage remark that had slipped) .. so after busting her balls on it for a bit, we got to talking about how we really felt and that she was feeling those three little words, and thats when I grapped her face, looked deep in her eyes and told her sencerily that I loved her, and then she told me the same. It just felt right. I think the previous night we were in a post lust/caught up in the moment time of thing and this just seemed to work out better. I do caution you though, depending on how your relationship is going, not to over use it. It seems in my experience that if you use it too much right out of the gate that it looses its luster. A well timed "I love you" used every now and then goes alot further than saying it after every conversation, moment, ect...

be careful
 

I would be carefull about saying I love you too early. Even though I am a believer that you should say how you feel, I wouldn't want to scare anyone off. I said I love you to my last girlfriend after 3 months, and I think that after our year long relationship filled with breaking up and getting back togather, it lead to our break-up. It made her nervous that I felt the love feeling faster than she did. any way, do what you feel is right.

I've never told a girl that I loved her. I've told many of my buddies many times in a drunken stupor, but never to a girl, no matter how drunk I was.

Telling a girl you love her causes too many problems when you try to break up with them later on.

EDIT: oh yeah plus the fact that I don't think I've ever been in love with any girls. Lying about something like that is bullshit. I don't like to mess with people's emotions.

Now, let us turn to the expert in this field:

I believe Seinfeld has a thing or two to say about the topic, including not only the finer points of the 'I love you', but the 'I love you'-return.

Reference: Seasons 1 - 6 now out on DVD. :p

I guess it just depends on what you are feeling. I'd say a few months at the very least though.