What’s The Difference: Being in love vs. loving, and how to tell the difference?
When you are truly in love, you have that special unexplainable feeling of need, desire and always wanting to be around that person of interest. There may be times that you are willing to do almost anything to keep that person around and to please them. This could be unhealthy if this is unrequited or your feelings are used against you or taken for granted. Remember, just because you love someone, they are not obligated to love you back. Feelings and emotions are like fine china and needs to be handled gently and with the utmost care. Mishandling may cause irreparable damage or breakage which cannot be repaired. We tend to forget to be sensible and let our hearts rule over what our heads tell us. In most cases our heads are a lot smarter than our hearts.
Now loving someone is so much easier and less painful, demanding or emotionally draining. When we love someone, we want the best for them. We wish them well and want them to have love in their lives, even if we don’t. We may cry/laugh with and for them. Our hearts may even break for them, but when the crisis is over there is no emotional pain left behind or great feeling of loss. Loving someone can make you happy, make you thrive and may even help you to love, but in any case loving and being in love both leaves a permanent mark.
Analyzing which emotion you are feeling, ask yourself these questions. If you answer yes to more than 5, then you may need to rethink what it is that you are really feeling…Is it love, loving or something entirely different? Here are just a few questions:
- Are you relieved when he/she is not in your presence?
- Do you dread spending time with him/her?
- Do you have doubts about his/her true feelings or intentions?
- Are you reasonably sure that he/she is truthful and honest with you?
- Do you often feel like ‘The Other Woman or Man’?
- Is your relationship always on a schedule?
- Does he/she quickly change a phone conversation when you enter the room? (You can tell), or leave the room to answer a call?
- Are there times of the day or night that you cannot call him/her or get a reject or ignore response? (Again, you can tell)
- Do you spend time in public together?
- Does he/she tell you how they feel without you having to ask?
If you answered ‘Yes’, to more than five, then you may have an issue. You may want to pack up your emotions and give your love to someone that deserves it.