Do you love your significant other?

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Do you love your significant other (husband, wife, partner) or are you more just glad they are around and they are good company?

Sometimes I feel that I will never love anyone, that I'm not capable of it. I'm glad my bf is around, and he's good company, but I don't feel the type of love that other people in relationships seem to have, that leads them to marriage etc. Where you feel that the other person like "completes" you or something.

This isn't just with my current bf, I've never felt it with anyone.

I love my boyfriend very strongly. It feels very strong and powerful like a wild stormy sea, very overwhelming feelings, very passionate.

I care about him deeply and want to keep him safe and look after him and make him happy, I enjoy his company hugely and find him the most funny and interesting and nice person Ive met. I fancy him lots and find him very sexy and gorgeous and lust for him like mad.

When I look at him I feel so full of happyness and excitment and peace all at the same time. I look at him and I want the world to stop so I can hold on to him forever.

My wife and I have been together for going on 14 years, nearly 12 of them married. I love her as much as I know how to. After this long, and having had such a good time with her all the way, she feels like part of me, I guess. I mean, I lived without her before and I suppose I could do it again if I had to, but I don't want to. Life with her is nice. We don't argue. There's no drama. I have learned to be a good husband, and she appreciates me for it. I don't behave towards my wife in the ways that you hear how other men do. She never has reason to complain about me to her friends. She tells them of the latest nice thing I've done for her, and they often say they are envious.

I treat her kind because I like her so much. She helped me make my life what it is now, and what it is, is better than it ever was before I knew her. I want her to know how much I appreciate it. So I am always nice to her. I want her to like me, and you can't get a person to like you if you treat them badly. And I guess you call that deep attachment I feel to her, and the massive respect I have for her, and all the things I like about her, by the name of love. I want her to be a happy person, and I will go out of my way to be as good a friend to her as I can.

She loves me back, and makes sure I know it. So I must be doing something right!

Edited to add: I don't want you to think that I'm falling over myself to treat her like a princess. We have a nice, calm relationship. I'm just never mean or grouchy to her, and never talk down to her, and stuff like that. I defer to her, but I don't fawn over her.

I've been with my husband for about 7.5 years, 2 of them married. We were best friends for 2 years before we became a couple, so I've known him nearly a decade. I find him as fascinating as ever. I love him and I am in love with him. I don't ever want to be with anyone else! I want to take care of him, spend time with him, and remember to be grateful I have such a wonderful man in my life! He's not the first man I've loved, but he's by far the most abiding and deepest love I've had. I can't forsee a time when I don't love him and enjoy his company!

How do you define love? A lot of people consider infatuation and "true love" to be the same thing.. but they're not, and infatuation is something that you almost always get over.
If it doesn't last, it's not love.
If it's not dependable, it's not love.

Obsession, however, is not required. You can love somebody without being obsessed or infatuated.

I've been with my lesbian partner now for 13 years, we're basically like an old married couple!

As to loving her? My goodness! Yes! Until I met her I wasn't even sure if there was such a thing as love, but we did the whole young, madly-falling-in-love-with-each-other-thing, and we've started to grow old together.

I know I love her because when she's at work (like she is just now) I pine around the house for her; it feels so large and empty when she's not here, I miss our conversations, our silly games, the way that she is the only person alive who is as comfortable to me as curling up in a ball in bed and snuggling down...she is the only person I can just be ME with, and it doesn't matter if I'm sometimes a bit too loud or I go on about rocks for a bit too long, she understands my aspieness and has compassion, and patience with me.

I jokingly call her 'the daywalker' because on taking the Aspie quiz she has both aspie and NT traits, I think this is why she is so good with me, at explaining NT behaviour, and seeing situations from both perspectives, despite us only having known about my Aspergers for the last 2 and a bit years

I love my wife, and have adored her for years.


M.

OP, I'm wondering if you're happy in your relationship? What struck me about your post is that you're concerned you might be missing out on experiencing love in a particular way - but not necessarily that you don't experience love in your current relationship.

I know that our society is permeated with the idea of romantic love - every Cosmo quiz, movie, book, horoscope is filled with the breathlessness of it. And unfortunately, most of what's out there is someone's idea of love - not the real thing. The idea that someone else "completes" you is really just a theatrical device. Feeling deeply connected to another person, when you can be yourself, when you can be open and honest, and trust each other - that's intimacy. Intimacy is what most people describe as true love - and it's not automatic, or primal, or easy, like romantic love. It's takes a lot of hard work, and dedication, and commitment. Oddly enough, before you can establish intimacy with another person, you have to be "complete" all on your own: healthy, open, healed, etc.

Anyway, I'd hate to see you devalue the relationship you have because your relationship isn't measuring up to something in a magazine. I encourage you to give some thought to the following: if you had never been exposed to the idea of romantic love that you're using to measure your own relationship, would you be satisfied with the relationship you have? Just a thought.....

I love my wife but it isn't always easy and it isn't always fun.

20 years for us now and she is an NT.

I love my husband. I wouldn't want anything to happen to him. He accepts me for who I am and accepts all my traits.