How do you know for sure you love your partner?

Is there a way to keep this thread up still just to see the replies?

 

I'm nor sure why you think the thread is going to be taken down. I didn't say anything of the sort and didn't even mention the thread.

I banned your Pinay account. It's gone. You'll be able to read and reply to this thread under your chelle account. You won't, however, be allowed to create duplicate accounts going forward without clearing it with staff first.

You do understand the difference between the thread and your account, right? It's obvious to me, but sometimes I'm wrong about these things.

 

I think she thought she was getting banned completely. Related... The "Post Anonymously" feature is gone I take it?

chelle: Love is one of those things that, like most things worth anything in life, takes time and effort.

 

Gone - for now. It's coming back. There are workarounds, though, and chelle found one. If anyone needs a point in the right direction, just let me know.

 

This is so true - love is not like in a rom com, where the two parties bumble around but always end up in bed and smiling. Every relationship has troughs - it is how you deal with those troughs that matters.

 

I shouldn't be looking for troughs to want to test our relationship, but I just think it's odd we haven't hit a rough patch yet. Thanks everyone. Oh and I hope the anonymous feature comes back.

 

You've only been together for a few months. Don't worry about love. Just hang out and LIKE each other.

 

I reckon you're probably doing most of the 'thinking work' with him, and my own preference would be for both partners to share that job/exploration, because I reckon you probably know him better than he knows you. However, I believe that what I call your 'thinking work' is part of what serves to smooth out some possible rough patches. He does the 'being him' and you do the questioning and wondering. From your previous posts, I'd say there are some areas where it'd be nice if he'd be a bit different, though it's likely, or at least I Hope, that you will have 'rubbed off on each other' enough that he'll be 'fitting with you' better and vice versa. I mean ... how've the last few weeks been with you and him? You and he got anything nice set up for Christmas?

As for your alter-ego Pinay posting - I've got a thought about that. As the months have gone by, you have transitioned from questions around conversation with him, through physicality, and on to love. This seems like a very natural progression. And as we all get to know each other on this forum, I put it to you that it's the Progression of a member's exploring, rather than any one individual thread, which may become primary ... eg 'Shallow' was an immediate judgment-possibility, given, as @TheJazz said, it was Pinay's first post. But as Chelle, you've got a history of getting your teeth into a question ... seeking and exploring come what may. Nothing, imo, shallow about that. Intent and committed, more like. I've never got the sense that you've self-censored, you've never gone out of your way to look good or to manufacture poise. I've seen you following your nose rather than your pose ... not the easiest path. And that's a quality I've always highly valued in you Even Though, because of it, you've invoked the occasional chuckle or face-palm. Chelle, you are one of my very, very first friends on this forum. I'm so glad you made your mistake and outed yourself as Chelle ... because YOU are the person I appreciate! Through time, some of these questions, and some of these ways of questioning, you will have got out of your system, because you'll have remained true to yourself and asked 'em until you've answered them well enough for you. That's the CHELLE, not the Pinay, of x, or y, or z that I've come to respect and am always keen to read what you've got to ask or say.

Discosure ... part of my vehemence here is because I Like You, Chelle. And part is because most of my younger life, I was afraid to ask important questions - I'd either feel silly, or feel that I was being made to look silly and feck it, there were times when I WAS being judged. So I learnt to become silent. Or to ask my questions in secret ways, whilst hoping the sword would not fall. I believe it's important to be able to post anonymously, in this case, though, you seem to be doing easily what took me a long time to begin to be able to do. Long may you continue to do so openly when you choose.

 

I thought love was a feeling strong enough to make you know you do. "No rough patches" implies no passion & eventual boredom. Being trapped by a public confession of your feelings & ending up bored is a state suffered by many who thought they'd found the one. If I find myself tolerating boredom for comfort, I'll put on the short leash. We're trapped enough in this life without imagining the feelings of the moment are less important than those that ensue. I think you don't love him, but that's for you to figure out.

 

In my book, love is an action, not a feeling. It is also a conscious choice, and not quite so untangible as we make it out to be.

I look at whether I love someone based on how I operate my life when they are in the picture.

Is this someone I support and genuinely enjoy as a person? Is this someone who I am able to be mentally and emotionally healthy with? What do I gain from my relationship with this person?

Does my relationship with them have a positive influence in my life, and do we together have a greater sum of our pretty awesome individual parts?

As a very independent person, I wasn't looking for someone to complete me. I was looking for someone to complement me. My identity as myself is not wrapped up in loving another person - rather I find myself more complete in who I am because in order to love someone else fully and in a healthy way, you also have to be able to love yourself. If you cannot love yourself, how can you even begin to know how to love someone else?

Time can be a source of clarity, but it really depends on the person. I've been with my current guy 4 months. I do not have that head over heels OMG I am in LOVE!! Feeling with him.

What I do have is a quiet, confident steadfastness that I've found an incredible guy who is up to some pretty big things in this world, who I respect respect as a person, and who I have an amazing emotional connection with. The physical side hasn't been as prominent as it has been with other guys but I think that speaks more to the balanced and beginning nature of our relationship. As time has continued to go on, our physical relationship has slowly become much more meaningful to us. You are lovers 5% of the time, and life partners the other 95% of the time is a saying that comes to mind, and it applies in our case.

This is the guy I'm marrying, and I knew I would after being with him for 2 months. The time since then has just been more a deepening appreciation and active love, that will continue till the day I choose to stop nurturing it.

 

^^^ I agree with amonkie

 

Chelle, love is not drama, angst or rough patches but I remember craving all that when I was younger. I thought relationships that didn't include these elements were boring. It took me a long time to get it out of my system.

I say this with the awareness that I don't know you outside of what you've revealed of yourself here, but it's possible you might not be ready for a smooth and steady kind of love. Yet. Sometimes it takes getting horribly sick of the rollercoaster before we can appreciate the carousel.

In any event, I wish you the best of luck and do admire your openness and desire to understand yourself and your motivations. It's a far cry from where I was or what I was concerned with at your age.

 

Wow, thanks for the reminder of what it was like. Yes, that was my 20s also.

 

It is not a choice rather a decision
Love her, did not like her completely, committed to her
No matter how we change with time, it is somehow crystal clear, who she is and who I am
May be I am not explaining it well
I just know it - nothing could change that we are in love, even if we hate certain things about us at certain times
Love goes a long way beyond, likes, compatibility, convinience....
but that is me!
--- merged: Dec 21, 2011 6:09 AM ---

Well said!
In my case I don't even realize anything as a sacrifice or adjustment.... It just almost like you don't who is who. What makes one happy makes the other happy too and same goes for sadness... And every time you come across temptations for example you automatically think in the other ones shoes... No one teaches or watches it just happens with time, may be that is what is love!
--- merged: Dec 21, 2011 6:11 AM ---

Wise comment - I totally agree with you
--- merged: Dec 21, 2011 6:14 AM ---
amonkie, amazing!
Mine started like that idealistic... Discovered a lot of disappointments, but strangely the love only had deepened, committed and caring... I just love being in love

 

To clarify, the sacrifices I was talking about required both of us to relinquish aspects of our life that were habitually comfortable. The decision I've made to leave behind the country I was born in, my grown children, my mother and my extended family, to be with the man I love, full time, will be a bit of a sacrifice, on my part, though I've make it willingly.

 

That is a huge one!

 

Quite simply put....In my opinion, the simple fact you need to ask tells me you are not in love....period.

 

I know i love because i love my best friend and cuddling her feels like love (known her since age 12) and so when i cuddle my hubby i have the same feeling of love like totally unconditional

 

But does your hubby feel the same when he cuddles your best friend???