How can you be sure that you LOVE SOMEONE ???

When you are no longer interested in others... you simply can't imagine yourself with anyone else and your focus switches from "I" to "We".

I'm sure I love many people, for different reasons.
That doesn't mean they love me for any reasons.

Love is felt within.
Most people know how they feel, even when they refuse to admit it.
Sometimes feeling love doesn't seem rational but you feel it all the same.
Sometimes ya can't help but feel love for someone, its automatic.
Sometimes ya feel love you know you shouldn't.
Sometimes the love you feel is crazy/beautiful.
Sometimes the love you feel hurts.
You can also not feel love when you think you should.

Its possible to substitute any emotion or feeling with the word love.
This is because many people do not have control over their emotional states.
Some people do possess emotional control.
Some people are more emotionally mature than others.
Some people are able to control some emotions yet are unable to control all emotions.
Some people become emotionally bankrupt, unable to allow themselves to feel any emotional state naturally.

Many emotional feelings spike and flutter out only to spike again. Repeating the cycle over and over thru life.
Some people allow these highs and lows to occur naturally.
Some people try to preserve only the ones which make them feel good.
Some people will try to hold on to the bad ones.
Holding onto an emotional state longer than natural can lead to depression.
Trying to always be happy, no matter what can cause one to feel sad because the mind knows when feelings are false, even when ya don't want to admit it.

Depression can sometimes be prolonged by trying to hold on to some emotional state longer than its natural cycle. Doing so drains the meaning from the emotions ya do feel.
You make yourself feel happy all the time and when the true happy feelings do come along, they feel washed out or empty.
The same can be said about love.

If you love someone, let them go.
It may not mean what you think it means.
It may mean to allow the feeling of love to wax and wane naturally.
If you truly do love that person (or thing) the love will persist without much focus.
This is because feelings are natural and have different intensities at different times.

When fighting my severe depression I was forced to really examine my emotional states and set them free so they rise and fall naturally.
It allowed me an emotional maturity that had eluded me most of my life.
I found a state of contentment is my baseline. My emotions rise and fall from that baseline according to what I feel in the moment. I no longer try to hold onto any emotional state past its natural cycle. This allows me to feel my emotional states in a deeper more vivid way. I feel more in control of myself than ever before.

I know my feelings better now and I know when I feel love.
I can embrace it fully while I am feeling it yet allow it to pass when I am not.
One side effect is the fact I feel empathy towards others more intensely and more accurately. Knowing my self, completes me.

Looking at each of my kids when I had them , I knew this feeling was undeniable , and it was like nothing else . Pure love

That too passes ... sometimes !

Basically when you never have to say Sorry .....

I agree, and it is such a powerful feeling like nothing else.

We see the world suffering, but we still get married , , have kids .... that is love ..

When you don't have to ask yourself that question.

it s a word that is quickly losing its true meaning.... and it's getting harder to find and difficult to define ...

Not sure I agree with this? I think to many it seems harder to find, but harder compared to wot? To when you were still undamaged goods? Or what? (general question, not per say you).

It isn't necessarily hard to find, it all hinges on whether someone loves themselves. And in order to get there, you have to work on Self, personal growth & development etc.
You cannot love another, nor find someone to really love you, if you don't even love you.
And I think with the large number of divorcees, and a vast number of them never really recovering from that, the levels of self-love drop, and then it seems as if love is hard to find.

And another thing is... many seem to compare or focus on what they had with the ex, usually first partner. But was that actually 'true love'?
If I look at myself, I DID love my husband, but I experience deeper levels later on. That did nothing to diminish what I had with my hubbie. At that time neither of us was ready for more, deeper levels.
But if you end up comparing all potentials new ones to one that wasn't 'it' -otherwise you'd still be together- then you end up with a pretty depressing thing: it is hard to find.

Excellent.....Riverspirit you are wise beyond your years.....

absolutely no dispute with what you say !!
point I was trying to get across was how meaningless the word , love , was becoming !
i love my shoes my car my house ... list goes on.... yes to love oneself is paramount to loving another .....
i have been single too long and too set in my ways to really relinquish all ...

To expand on the usage of 'love'....
I actually love that this is happening, hahahaha.
Isn't that a sign we're sort breaking out of a straight-jacket? The one to be always modest, prim and proper, not exaggerate and blablabla.

I really love when people now much easier express how they feel about something or someone :)
I think in the past -like my grandparents and parents days and before- it wasn't really done to tell your kids "I love you!"
I have not grown up with that either to be honest. I on the other hand have ALWAYS said this to my kids. Not out of habit, but meaning it. And I still do. The beaut is that my kids very easily use that too, while in the past I think it was a taboo, too vulnerable? But my kids very often tell me they love me. And vice versa.

I know, deviated from your point, hihi.
I was also not nit-picking your post apart, mind you. I know it looks that way. But sometimes -okay often- others' posts inspire me, and then I end up waffling like now, hihi.

ha ha .... again ... inspire hmm ...
its true ! our parents never used that line ... as far as i can remember .... but then they tried to be parents ... not friends...
today we use that line with our kids and vice versa....... and we think thats a good thing ???
Spare the rod and spoil the child ......

ha ha .... again ... inspire hmm ...
its true ! our parents never used that line ... as far as i can remember .... but then they tried to be parents ... not friends...
today we use that line with our kids and vice versa....... and we think thats a good thing ???
Spare the rod and spoil the child ......

If you can't figure it out yourself, ask someone or people that know you.
Describe what you're feeling and thinking honestly to them.
See what they think.

Other than that, be mindful of your commitments, responsibilities, behavior, and choices.
Despite what a lot of books, songs, and movies portray, love doesn't conquer everything.

One of my Algebric Theory is that Men often Falls in Love with thier Eyes and a Woman either with Her Smile or Ears !

In romantic love, I think one possibility is how much you are prepared to concede in your life. For example, would you move home, move out of the area, move out of the country, away from family and friends to be with the one you love, or are there limitations, deal breakers, to how much you would do for love. If there are no limitations then maybe you are truly in love.

The replies make me think of the Unconditional Love myth.

The way I see it, unconditional love is impossible for a human being.
Especially in today's world.

No matter how much you love someone, there is always the possibility of that one condition which could break that love you feel.

People will argue I'm dead wrong but human beings are capeable of such dreadful things and even someone very close in morals to yourself will never have exactly the same moral fiber as you. That is because there is only one, you. Only one, him/her. Each of us have our own limits and once someone violates your limits, it would be impossible to feel love for them.
Even your own children.

Reality is the fact. In reality, the world is full of conditional love.
People claim they know of unconditional love between two people but they are not the ones experiencing those people's lives. They are not living behind their eyes. They are making a guess or agreeing with someone else's assessment.

People do not possess the purity to have actual unconditional love.
Many never realize unconditional love requires that forgiveness and apology never happen. It would never be needed because unconditional means without conditions.

Conditional love is normal love.
Unconditional love is a fantasy, a delusion, a pipe dream.