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LifeStyle

Love Matters...

How to Know if You are in Love
Steps:
1. Clarify what love is for you. Write down all your thoughts and feelings about what a loving relationship would be like for you.
2. Distinguish between love and lust or infatuation. Lust is an intense sexual desire. Infatuation refers to the initial stage of a relationship, when you are "crazy" about them, but this feeling usually fades over time.
3. Ask other people how they define love or know if they love someone.
4. Write down how you do feel about them. For example: you enjoy their company, have similar interests, feel safe, trust them, think they are attractive, etc.
5. Think about how well the two of you relate to each other. For example: How well do you communicate with each other? How do you deal with conflict? Do you bring out good or bad parts of each other? Can you show different sides of yourself?
6. Ask yourself if you see and accept them as a whole person. Love isn't just loving the parts of them you like, but choosing to love them overall.

Tips:
The infatuation phase of a relationship typically lasts about six months. You may think you are in love and he/she is perfect for you. It often takes more time to tell if you are truly compatible and whether you can really love the whole person, good and bad.

How do you know if your spouse is "in love" with you?
If you were asked, "Is your spouse in-love with you?" what would you say. Or better yet, how would you find out?
Most people use two common techniques to determine whether or not their spouse is in-love with them:

1. Ask
The straightforward approach is typically what most people use.
"Do you love me?" one would ask the other.
"Why, of course I do, Honey."
or
"What do you think?" replies the spouse.
And, if there is sincerity in the delivery, the questioning would stop right there.
However, if there was something insincere about the answer, the following technique would be used:

2. Observe
Does the actions of your spouse support the idea that they are in-love with you? Are you treated with care? Are you treated in a "loving" manner? Does your spouse act like he/she is in-love with you? This approach to answering the question of being in-love or not tends to be the litmus test. Most of us judge a person's heart by their actions. Right or wrong, that's what we do. When the actions are in direct conflict with what the person says, suspicion typically follows.

Although the above techniques are used on a frequent basis, they are both wrought with the potential for error.

Ask Yourself
There is a third and more effective way to find out if your spouse is in-love with you. Ask yourself "Should _____ be in love with me?" In other words, are you giving your spouse a reason to be in-love with you?

Emotional Needs and Love Busters
In order to answer your own question, you must first know two things:

What are your spouse's most important emotional needs and how does he/she like them to be met?

What are your Love Busters (from your spouse's perspective) and have you eliminated them?

Without knowing the answers to the above questions, you are guessing. And what's more, if you don't know the answers, you are probably tainting your guesses with how you like your own needs to be met (emotional needs) and what you believe is irritating (Love Busters).

Bottom line
You must be successful at developing and maintaining your skills to meet your spouse's needs and also demonstrate an ability to protect him/her from yourself (your Love Busters). Because it boils down to this: If you're not successful at giving your spouse a reason to be in-love with you, then he/she won't be.