You Know This Time It’s Real When …

You know when you find the perfect shoes. You know when you get your pillow just right. But how do you know when it’s love?

Or do you? Or do we just call “love” what we’re feeling now and “lust” or “infatuation” or “insanity” what we felt before?

Noreen: “I was mistaken the first three times I thought I was in love. My most recent boyfriend, Kevin, was my biggest mistake. We ‘fell in love’ and moved in together after only three months. All along there were clues that he might not be ‘the one,’ but I ignored them. He smoked and drank, which I detest, but he vowed to quit for me. In addition to lying, he was also very irresponsible with money and quickly put us both into debt.

“Still, the first year with Kevin was good. Then, halfway through the second year, I realized he was never going to change and I gave up on love. By the third year, we were roommates, not lovers.

“So, I had a dead-end job and a dead-end boyfriend. I decided to quit both and move on. I got a new job and a new co-worker got me a new boyfriend two weeks before I moved out. New boyfriend, Scott, wasn’t a rebound - the previous relationship had been over for months. Scott is the exact opposite of Kevin.

“It seems we fell in love from the start, but I know it was really love because we have always felt exactly the same thing. We often think alike, we have a lot in common and we share the same values, goals and opinions. Spending time together is his top priority. (With Kevin, beer was No. 1.) We’re marrying in six months.”

Staci: “I don’t think you ever know if it is really love. I have thought I was in love many times, but it wasn’t love the way everyone says. I don’t think everybody loves the same way. Your idea of love may not be the same as mine. I know that I am in love now with my fiance. At least the way I want to love is the way I am loving. It all sounds very confusing but actually, it is very simple.

“When you are in love, you are yourself. You don’t even feel uncomfortable. You’re best friends. You share everything. You can count on the person. They make you feel good about yourself and you do the same for them. You have no doubts that this is the person you are supposed to be with. You are soul mates.

“I have had relationships in the past, many as a matter of fact, and each time I was in love with the person in some way. Like I loved the way they looked or the way they acted. But there was never full love where you accept the good with the bad. If it is really love, you know. And passion doesn’t mean love. People feel that around strangers all the time. That is human nature, not love.”

Lisa: “My mother once told me that marriage is a risk no matter how long you’ve known the person. I firmly believe that. When Tom and I met, it wasn’t love at first sight. I was just looking for someone to date and have a good time with. I knew that our dating wouldn’t last long because he was a traveling salesman and we were from different areas of the country.

“Imagine my surprise when after a week it got serious, after two weeks we were planning to be married and by the third week, we were. People always ask me how I knew. I didn’t. I knew the feelings I had were deeper than physical attraction. He treated me like no other fellow had, with good, old-fashioned respect, and I liked it, even if it was the ‘70s. Sixteen years and three children later, we are still together, happily. Sometimes I think we had fewer expectations of one another than most couples and learned to accept each other as we grew to know one another.”

xxxx