How do you know when you are in love and how do you know if the person loves you back?

How can you separate it from infatuation with the person? How do you know when the person feels the same way and how to keep yourself from being taken advantaged of foolishly?

You can’t. That’s half the fun.

In my experience, it’s hard to know when you’ve actually found love. But it’s easy to weed out shallower infatuations, which is a pretty good start.

Some questions to ask yourself:

In your heart of hearts, do you believe they’re a good person? Do you respect this person, are you proud of them? Accomplishments aside, how about their personal qualities? If you were describing them based on personality alone, would you be proud of what you were saying?

On the flip side, if you find yourself making excuses for their shoddy behavior or saying things like “you don’t know them like I do,” it’s a warning sign. For me personally, if they didn’t get along with my friends or family that would be a reason to rule them out. (Some family members may have difficult personalities. Is your crush patient, mature, and understanding in these situations? How do they handle adversity generally?)

Do they have double standards, treating you one way and themselves another? Here’s a crazy example from my real life that actually happened. My ex once had a cold and asked me to come over and make chicken soup and take care of him. So I did. Later when I had a the flu, he asked me to come over, because I might as well rest and hang out at his house. Then he said we had to watch a football game at his friend’s house, because they “wouldn’t understand” if we couldn’t make it. I don’t give a shit about football, and this was pretty common knowledge at this point. He wouldn’t let the subject drop, so I went, and shivered miserably in the corner the whole time.

A good piece of advice I heard recently was, “if it feels like pushing an elephant up the stairs, don’t do it.” This goes for trying to shoehorn someone into your life who doesn’t belong there. Infatuation seems to be more about the butterflies, the emotional rollercoaster of wishing for a person. It almost feels like food cravings. I know a few couples who have gone the distance, and they all respect and like each other. They enjoy spending time together, have a strong foundation of friendship, support each other, etc. You get the feeling that if they weren’t married, they would still be really great friends.

The people who return to an abusers sometimes feel they deserve this fate or punishment. Low self-esteem.
Perhaps they grew up watching it as being a ‘normal’ way of life.
Still others have constant fear. Fear if they don’t go back to the abusers. Fear if they do. Fear of being without support, money, or courage. Or if children to support; the fear of not being able to do so.
There are some, a few, that get caught up in this type of abusive relationships because it feeds into a need they may both believe they have.
If you believe all of the love songs, some just want something the other person has in their personality. Because you always want what you cannot have, much more so than otherwise.
@Haleth‘s answer seems to understand exactly what you are asking after. Reread it again.
Hang in there.
Don’t waste your being upon those who don’t appreciate the wonderful things you possess within you. There are many others who will.

Neither of you can know if you’re truly in love unless both of you has experienced it. You can say you love, and the other person can say they love, but where/what is the true meaning?

I read this article about a scientific method of falling in love. It is a fun read but I like the idea that learning the very intimate stuff about someone in a safe and trusting way enables the process of falling in love.

If you die, and are still together, it was love.
You can’t know what grade you have on a test after answering the first two or three questions. You must see it through. So it is with love. You cannot know if it was genuine until you die.

You don’t. Relationships can be compared to two shits passing in the night….