I think love is a long process. Sure there’s that exciting time at the beginning when you are new to each other, and crave each other. That’s when you feel like you are “in love.” In the old days, this time usually resulted in a baby, and then maybe another baby, and that’s what kept a couple together for five years or so.
Later on, the relationship might turn into something different. It will be less exciting, less compelling, but you’ve been with the person long enough, and come to know them well enough that you feel really comfortable with them, and there are still occasions where you feel that initial love kind of feeling.
Nowadays, with birth control, children don’t have to come so quickly, and you can have a more extended childless time. You have a lot of fun together, but without the demands that children place on a relationship, you don’t necessarily have a focus for the relationship, and a lot of people go through many relationships during this time.
After a while, though, the family urge comes calling. Women hear the biological clock ticking, and men stop wanting to “play” so much. They’re ready to “settle down.” Relationship hunting becomes serious at a time like this.
Unfortunately, a lot of people feel like they are looking for their perfect match. They have bought into the Disney myth that there is a perfect match, and they should keep looking until they find it.
This simply isn’t true. Love, I believe, is made, not discovered. If this is true, you can’t tell if you are in love until you have been with the person a long time and gone through a lot of troubles together. These things temper a relationship, and turn it into something longer lasting.
However, you can also deliberatly work these things. I don’t know if there are relationship classes, but there are things you can do to build love—ways of communicating, things you do. These things can actually be done with almost anyone and you can still build love. They don’t have to be your “perfect” match.
But, in many developed countries, we believe in romantic love. It’s not true in other parts of the world, where parents arrange matches, and the couple sometimes comes to love each other very powerfully, but occasionally does not.
Here, we let hormones lead the way. We go all googly-eyed. We trust that if we feel that way, we will live happily ever after.
Nope. Sorry. You still have to work it. You still have to learn, to make it last. Fortunately, if you get over this idea that your mate has to be perfect, you can build a relationship with almost anyone you “fall in love” with. If you expect perfection, then you will fall out of love sooner or later. Then you will think that your hormones lied to you, and you will ask a question like, “How can you tell if your [sic] in love?”
You can’t tell if you’re in love that way. You will always question it.
You’re in love when you make a choice to commit to the other person. At that point, all the things said above by Marina and gailcalled will come into play, and become true.
Here’s the thing most people in the West don’t believe: you can choose to make that choice of being in love any time you want with anyone you want! So, if you “fall” in love, or have a crush, or whatever, it can be love, or not, depending on what you and the other person choose. Sometimes, even if the other person doesn’t choose it, the strength of your choice can make them come around to the idea they love you that powerfully.
I’m sorry I can’t give a nice romantic answer, but, personally, I think it helps if people open their eyes, and see beyond the romantic myth. Fewer marriages will break up if people realize that love is a commitment, not a discovery.
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