Love vs. In Love

I think "in love" involves sexual attraction whereas "love" doesn't necessarily involve sexual attraction.

great answer


I agree with InfraBlue. I also think that when you are in love with someone that you think about them nonstop. You feel warmth and happiness all over at the sound of their voice, and that you can't get enough of them.
Love is more general. Think of how you love your mother or your siblings. It's a thoughtless love. You're love for them lie deep inside always and you never have to question it or think about it much.
Being in love is a much fresher more exciting feeling I think.

I am one to believe that once you are "in love" ...there is no climbing "out" of love. Of course we can tear this down and bring up factors such as divorce and someone choosing to deny what you are offering to them, but I'm trying to be basic.

Though I do think there is a difference, ultimately I feel there isn't. Problem is, people use both words/phrases too often and without fully understanding them.

Both are meant to be permanent feelings to me. ...and I do not think "in love" means you have to have butterflies in you 24-7.

Loving a person is wanting what is best for them, being patient, being kind, not quick to judge, not boastful or envious, not proud. Love never delights in evil, but rejoices with truth. Love always protects, trusts, perserveres, hopes. Being "in love" is an imitation of these things, and always seen distorted, as though you are looking through a glass darkly...

Being "in love" is the stuff of good romance stories... think of "Romeo and Juliet", or Nicole Kidman and Jude Law in "Cold Mountain..." They are both couples "in love," who don't know each other well enough or long enough to have developed "true love..." They are both hot and passionate when they are with each other, in love. But really, it's more like they are high off each other, and scientists have found that biologically our bodies make a stuff called phenylethylamine, PEA, which makes us feel good. That is the stuff we identify as that heady feeling when we identify ourselves as being in love. Most people are unhappy, so when body chemistry kicks in, when they have been programmed from babytime by stories of romantic love, we(most people) get confused by the sensations of PEA high, and then try to make relationships work with the person who makes them feel so good. PEA highs work, the scientists say, for you up to 18 months, then, just like a caffeine addiction, you become desensitized to its effects, need more to get that same feeling.

Oooh, that was a good movie. I watched it a few days before my FI left for Iraq though, so bad timing.

I think one thing about love - and this is reinforced nearly every day that I read this particular forum - is treating each other well, better than you treat yourself. In other words, if you're being treated like cr@p, or are doing that to your "lover", then chances are extraordinarily good that you don't love one another, or don't love each other any more.

Radical, I know. :-D

Bottom line, there seems to be a rather disturbing trend, at least among posters (and I realize most people don't post unless they're having problems, so of course the way too tiny sample is hopelessly skewed anyway), to treat one another terribly, or to accept it when someone does dirt to you. Love is certainly about forgiveness, but one need not be a doormat.

People who care about each other are concerned for each other's welfare. They don't worry each other unnecessarily. They take pains to not, well, do painful things to one another. They listen to each other. They work together, in whatever manner and proportion works for them - but no one just sits around and waits for the other one to wait on him/her hand and foot. They don't always have perfectly synched or common interests, but they have enough so that they're not at each other's throats and enough differences so that their conversations are interesting. They treat each other with respect and that includes treating the other's family with respect, even if that means swallowing words and smiling when they don't really mean it. They defend each other to others, and don't drag down their lover or tear him or her down in public, and criticisms offered in private are offered gently. They don't try to humiliate one another. They take an interest in each other's lives. They don't isolate their lover from his or her friends; there's room in their relationship for other friends. That isn't seen as threatening.

"In love" involves the feeling of potentially getting something you want and is ego centered. It is selfish.

"Love" is sacrificing self-interest for the benefit of the relationship, not sacrificing to the other person but to the relationship. If both don't do it, it is bound to fail.

Think of the French motto, "Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood." Both exclusive freedom and exclusive equality are sacrificed for the balance between the two, and brotherhood arises. Identifying with either freedom or equality against the other creates ego, but seeing the two as interdependent creates an egoless balance which is brotherhood. This same principle works the same in a love relationship.

To bring politics into it, the present administration focuses on "Freedom" and becomes totally ego-based. What is called religion and morality is self-centered interest. Negociation and cooperation with other governments becomes impossible, and war becomes the only apparent solution.

If the feeling of being "in love" becomes more important than the relationship, then only conflict is possible, and the children become pawns of each side.

I wonder how many people that are fortunate enough to be loved like that.

I think I can love like that, and I try very hard hoping I succeed, but I have yet to find a woman who loves me like that.

jespah, that is certainly a very pretty ideal.

I think the practice of giving negative strokes is very common not only on this website but in life. It begins early in childhood when the child is not given positive strokes and learns that it's better to get a negative stroke than none at all. He becomes an expert at giving and receiving negative strokes. (Many sitcoms are based on this practice.)

A person like this is uncomfortable when not only giving but receiving positive strokes. But, it's easy to change this behavior through a therapy called "redecision therapy." A skilled therapist in a very short time can make the change. In my experience, the therapist waits until you're in a very emotional and vulnerable state then makes you state over and over again that "you will not give or receive negative strokes, and you will become an active expert in the giving and receiving of positive strokes." (I believe a person could state this redecision on his own while in an emotional and vulnerable state, but most people wouldn't be willing to do so, because the resistance from the original programming is so strong.)After this redecision becomes firmly implanted, you will feel uncomfortable giving and getting negative strokes and won't be able to respond to the latter.

Another behavior that's common on this site and became raison d'etre to Abuzz is crossing the lines of communication. This was diagrammed by Eric Berne in his book "I'm OK, You're OK." It's when you have, for instance, an adult to adult statement or question by one person responded to critically from a parental position by the other person. This is a very simple concept when you see it diagrammed, and crossing lines of communication is extremely common, immediately causes conflict, and is a conversation killer.

I think that to have a loving relationship both people must be positive and respond so. Two people can sustain a negative relationship—not a loving one—but if only one changes and becomes positive, the relationship cannot sustain itself. I believe that's why one partner protests so vehemently when one of a partnership goes to therapy.