If you tell your partner you love them and they say "Why?", how do you answer?

Personally, I’m of the opinion that people should have genuine reasons that they love their partner, rather than “just because” or “I don’t know why”. To me, saying either of the former suggests that there’s no substance behind the feelings, and it makes love feel cheap. I asked a similar question on fluther before, and I was absolutely in the minority in holding this opinion – but that may have changed since then, I don’t know.

Knowing why, having standards, and falling in love with a person because they meet or often times exceed expectations is what gives love substance – in my reality. I’m uncomfortable with even saying “I love you” to another person, unless I know clearly and distinctly, why I feel that way. Without reasons, it’s not my definition of love.

You should be able to give a few reasons off the top of your head and get out of the woods. But it’s a pretty annoying question to ask or be asked in my opinion. It seems necessary, but I generally don’t enjoy the occasional times my wife wants reassurance I love her. But that’s just me. Someone might think I’m an asshole for feeling that way.

Because I do okay, jumpin jehova. What is this, the Spanish inquisition!?! I actually have said that, her response wasn’t pretty :¬(

cause you’re nice and I like nice people. I don’t like to complicate things. Statistically there’s a great number of people I could love, so I think this is a stupid question. Because we met at a good time in our lives? Because my brain chemicals told me to do so? So I’m less than romantic, but whoever loves me knows that already anyway.

I know why I love people and yes there can be wrong answers,as in…“I love you for your huge ta-ta’s.”

I’m with @DrasticDreamer on this one. If I can’t conjure up one or two reasons why I love someone, that’s not a good sign that I really love them. When I’m really in love, I can rattle off a hundred things about the person, just like that.

In my past relationships, this is a question that was asked for fun, much like What did you think of me when we first met?

It’s a fair question. If they ask you, tell them.

It shouldn’t be necessary to have it asked, as it should be obvious through spoken or implied comments.

As for a right or wrong answer, statements that address respect or admiration towards another is often better than how that person benefits your life. For example, “I love that you care so much about the environment that you make the effort to compost and recycle,” versus “I love that you deal with the trash so that I don’t have to.”

Because I choose to. Love is a decision.
Now if he’s feeling insecure, (and after 20 years I can tell) I tell him how smart and strong and kind he is.

@DrasticDreamer I see it from the other side of the coin. Unconditional love means unconditional – you may love someone that doesn’t exactly meet your laundry list of “good” and “genuine” qualities in a person without any real, rational explanation. I’m of the belief that love just is and there doesn’t have to be any verbal definition or exact points to put your finger on. Rather, a force motivated by any given number of factors – tangible, intangible and all of the spaces in between.

I say this because I’ve already met my “dream” person, who had met all of my standards, who I thought was just the perfect guy. He was a good guy, we had so much in common, we got along well and we had some fun… but I actually didn’t like our relationship and we had no real connection. It ended quickly.

So yes, I’m that guy that responds with nothing but a blank stare when asked the question “Why do you love me?”. The answer quite frankly is, I have no idea – if I knew why love existed in the first place and why it’s such an interconnecting emotional force, I’d probably have had written plenty of books by now. What I am truly certain of is the power of love; when I have it, who I have it for, what great lengths I’d go for it.

Because.

I’ve done a lot of research on emotions, love, sexual attraction, pair-bonding and similar topics.
If someone were to ask me that question I would only be able to answer more fully because I got the coursework for it. Most people don’t get to read indepth about why they respond in the ways they do. So I wouldn’t imagine most people could come up with much more that fairly superficial ideas about why they love someone. They shoot for the poetic. Of course it’s pretty annoying for someone like me to say….“well damn, you just smelled right…you know that pheromonal thing is working for you big time…and you don’t look half bad to me either (a statement of facial similarity to my own and symmetry).” It just isn’t romantic. But if most people were shown how to examine their own emotional history and phenomenological maps they could tell you exactly why they loved you. They would know what caregivers made them feel certain ways and be able to tell you when sexual attraction got added into that mix and when they first experienced a very compatible relationship based on similar life visions or a bleding of philosophical positions on how to move through life.
And of course most people get asked this question off quard and it’s not really the kind of thing you can answer without some thought. Feel free to borrow my standard…“you smell right and don’t look half bad either!”

My response would depend on the setting. If a romantic setting, I’d spill the beans why. If they said that while glancing thru the mail , and acting disinterested, I’d say, “I have no idea” or, “why shouldn’t I? ”

@Disc2021 I’ve had this conversation with others many times before, and I understand your perspective. Honestly, I can see it from both sides. But I also don’t believe in unconditional love – because I think it does more harm than good. Unconditional love is loving another person despite anything. Rape, murder, armed robbery (you name it) and I flat out refuse to love people if they do certain things. Some people think that makes me a bad person, I think it makes me a better person. I won’t love people who do horrible things – whether or not they’re my child, lover, parents, best friend… Doesn’t matter. I can’t sacrifice my beliefs for “love” – if the person doesn’t truly deserve it.

Now, a balance can easily be struck between our two ideas on the matter. Just because you don’t know why you love someone doesn’t mean that you would love the kind of people I described above. Me though? I’m more comfortable having reasons and knowing why.

I also feel that many people are hypocritical when it comes to love/hate. When a person says “I hate so and so”, they are expected to have a good reason why. If we have to have good reasons why we hate someone (and I’m of the opinion that we should), shouldn’t we also have to have good reasons why we love someone?

I don’t think this should be passed off as insecurity, although I’m sure insecurity could play a part in it. I certainly don’t think it is a trivial issue or that there is some magical answer, like “I just do.” That is a very worrisome answer, by the way.

I think people who ask this question are looking for a couple of things. I don’t know which is more important. One thing is that they want a reflection of themselves. They don’t know what you think. They don’t know if it is a trivial thing or something of substance. So they need to know what their attractive points are. They can’t see them.

This is compounded when someone is depressed or deeply insecure. Then they don’t think anything about them is good. They will probably seek to deny anything you say, but don’t give up. It helps for them to hear it even if they find reasons to disbelieve you.

I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know what, if anything, is lovable about me. More to the point, I don’t know what you think today. Just because you told me last year doesn’t mean it’s still true. And don’t give me that unconditional love crap. I don’t know what that means and I don’t believe it anyway. In my experience, people only love you if you do something for them.

This is what I would tell someone who asked me:

You are the hottest woman in the world. I can’t stop thinking about you. I love making love with you. You are incredibly intelligent and capable. I like your values and politics. I like the way you dance. I like your hands and the way they feel when they touch me. I like parenting with you. In general, I like your attitude towards spending money (i.e., don’t do it), but I think we are wealthier than you think. I like your attitude about arts and how we should incorporate them in our lives.

Those are some of the reasons I love you. That’s why I would never voluntarily give up.

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I’m not sure whether anyone has ever said that to me. I had a long conversation with my wife one day when my head was starting to come out from underwater. She was able to come up with a list—a believable list, after a while, although I still wasn’t well enough to believe that was enough.

Now I know she loves me. She put up with me and my infidelities. She values me enough to go through that. All the while, though, I didn’t know, and I believed she didn’t love me. I was afraid to ask her because I didn’t want to hear her say nothing. I don’t know if she thought it was necessary or not. Maybe if I had asked, that other stuff wouldn’t have happened.

But now I know and it’s not really because of anything she said. It’s because she was there for me when I needed saving. It took me a while to figure that out and Lord knows, there’s still a part of me that doesn’t quite get it.

You know what really gets me now? She laughs at some of my jokes. Not all of them. She still takes me too seriously and so she doesn’t recognize some of the things I say are supposed to be humor. Maybe I’m too deadpan. But she laughs sometimes and she even makes her own jokes, and we she does, me and the kids will chant Mrs. Wundayatta made a joke! It’s nice. I love her because she tries, and sometimes she lightens up, and because she was there for me when I never thought that was possible. Actually, when I think about it, it still doesn’t quite make sense, and therefore I am so grateful that she does love me, despite my disbelief that anyone really fully could.

You might consider answering with another question, such as…
“Why not?”

I do think you should have reasons, they don’t need to be specific but general reasons, ya know? You make me feel good, you make me happy, you inspire me, whatever. But if you really can’t think of anything, that strikes me as odd.

If I had dated my friend and he asked me that question I would’ve said: “I love you for many reasons. The way you’re always there, the way you always thought good of people, the way you laughed, the way you accepted me without question, your eyes, your perfect lips, your hair, your looks in general. Just everything about YOU! I could go on forever. I loved your generosity, how you were honest, how you were always hopeful, your sense of humor, your magical enticing eyes! Oh I freaking love you! Forever and forever and forever!” or something along the lines of that.

With the back of my hand.

People ask this of each other with different agendas. There’s the crazy in love asking which wants affirmation of the joy and a feeling of joint luckiness. There’s the the difficult relationship where the couple wants to work on it and the reasons why are important to note and appreciate. There’s the beyond salvage asking when pushed to annoyance, when routine lip service and not rocking the boat don’t work and the question is more to find out if the gains are worth the emotional disappointment.

” I just do .”

But it depends on the agenda of the question like Neizvestnaya said..

My wife asked me this same question, many years ago. here is the answer i gave her then and i will give her again, if she asks:

“I love you for just being you. i love the way your nose wrinkles a little, when you laugh. i love that certain look you give me, that no one else could ever understand. i love you for the unending support you give me, no matter what. i love the way you always look like you just stepped out of a fashion magazine….you take pride in your appearance. i love the way you accept me “as is” with my good and bad faults. but, most of all i love you for just being you.” john

I’ve asked my husband this and he returned the question to me. I shrugged and told him that I didn’t fall in love with him, he tripped me. :P

When it comes down to it, he makes me happy. I care about him, and that quickly translates to love. I figure that we all are motived by the desire to be happy, so regardless of what you’re doing there is a selfish motive.

As for whether it is okay to ask this question? Just make sure you’re ready for an honest answer, which aren’t always pretty. And make sure you’re ready for the question to come back to you. Hell, maybe you should answer first, if you’re asking. Honestly, I don’t care why my husband loves me. Just so long as I still make him happy, and he makes me happy, we’re good to go. Maybe a better question would be, “Do I make you happy?”

It sounds selfish, but I’m with him because he makes me happy. If he stops making me happy, then we’ve got problems. I somehow make him happy as well, and that’s why we’re together. Trying to figure out what exactly he’s doing that makes me happy can be difficult, and some people aren’t good at describing things (like me), let alone describing emotions (which aren’t very logical in the first place), and then figuring out what is causing those emotions and describing that.

I could try coming up with a list of things, but they’d sound weird and I have a hard time describing things. For my husband, in short, our weirdness is compatible, and we make each other happy.

I wouldn’t mind being asked that question. And I’d have an answer.

@john65pennington‘s answer, which I think is a good one, helped me to understand something. When asking why I am loved, what I am asking underneath that is who am I? Or who am I, to you? That’s pretty important, I think, but it’s especially important to those who are on rocky ground concerning self-image.

What do you see in me? What are my good characteristics? Who am I to you? Honestly, I don’t know for sure. I might make guesses, but what I think is good about me might not be what you think is good. So let me ask you. And if you turn the question back on me or you don’t answer with anything besides “you’re you,” that’s very damaging, because it sounds like you are dodging the question. You would only dodge the question if the answer were bad. This is what I would think, whether or not it was true. And I certainly wouldn’t follow up on it to see if it was true.