 | You probably do love him as much as you can at your age. Love, and what it means to one person, changes as the person gets older and more experienced. I am 23 yrs old and married to a 23 yr old man. We met when he was 14 and I was 13. We "loved" each other then too, but looking back now, it wasn't "real love". What "real love" means is nothing that is easily explained. Just know that you are NOT who are are going to be later, therefore what love means to you will change along with you. Make sense? Even within our relationship (my husband and myself) we have changed and therefore our love has changed. It is that "changing" that is the hardest on a relationship. Thankfully, we didn't date exclusively during our high school years. We dated other people and got to know what we like/ don't like. I would suggest this to anyone your age talking about love. That word, "love" was thrown around too much even when I was your age, so I can imagine that it is still that way now or more so.
It is easy for adults to say that people your age do not know what love is, but I do not know if that is true. I think that people your age do know what love is...to a certain extent.
Let's put love on a depth scale of 100. You probably can love someone deeply as about 20-30. I can probably love someone as deeply as 50-60. As I get older and get to know my husband more, it will grow. I will discover what love is on a deeper, truer scale. The same with you. Old people who are married and have been married for decades probably love each other with a very deep love that you and I would think is boring and unexciting...no first kisses, no butterflies in the stomache (for you) and no sexual desire, no new stories to tell, no more growing together since they have already developed intellectually as they are going to, no more career succuess to share with each other (for me), but then again they have something I won't know about until then.
Love is a complicated thing. Even at your age. It gets more and more complicated as it gets deeper. Maybe at some point it gets simpler (like with the old couple), but I will find that out one day.
Love is an ever-changing thing. What you know love to be now will be different when you get 2 yrs older and have been with the same guy for 2yrs. Then it will be different when you get 2 more years older and are with some other guy for about 6 months. Then it will be different when you are 10 yrs older and are married to a man for about 5 yrs and have 2 kids together. And I imagine that it will be different when you are 50 years older and all your kids are grown, you have grand kids, you are retired and are traveling the world with each other. Love is as ever-changing as you are. Keep this in mind when you get into a serious relationship. When love fails, it hurts, no matter what age you are. If you get yourself into a serious relationship now while you are too young to stay in this serious relationship, you are setting yourself up for a failed reltionship and heartache. Heartache stays with a person. You want to keep your heart (as well as your body) as pure as you can for "the one" you will be with forever. Stay away from heartache so you can give your whole heart to that one person one day.
As for the "love-don't love" thing...True and deep love doesn't fade. I know that is a very used up saying, but I never understood its meaning until I married. My husband and I have gotten into some pretty terrible fights. There have been times that I have wanted to leave. I didn't because I know that I can never be happy without him. It is worth the effort it takes to mend the damage and go from there. What we have is true, deep love. If somehow he turned into a person I could no longer be with (like he started beating me or whatever) I would still love him. I may be able to marry someone else, but I would always love him. |
PREVIOUS MESSAGE
PREVIOUS DISCUSSION