I like the comments that are coming with different peoples perspectives and I am sure there will be more, however, as I expected and I asked this earlier, I think you cannot answer the question without knowing what love is. I took some things from peoples posts and I am trying to see what peoples take on this might be.
Love is: (I will add to this list as people post)
- commitment
- understanding
- respect
- honesty
- bonding of feelings
- friendship
- smiles
- peacefulness
- selfless
- hope
- how we treat each other
- compromise
- sacrifice
- compassion
- patience
- forgiveness
- an intentional decision – Choice
- unconditional
Is love any of those things none of those things? Something completely different. I asked this before and discussed that there are many types of love, but love itself is such an ambiguous term because it can mean so many different things to so many different people. Can it even be defined or is it too different from person to person? If so then maybe love could be enough if your definitions and expectations of what love was matched with your partners. This is something I have never been able to understand, but would love to know. Maybe I am to literal and tangible of a person. I need things in categories, labeled so I know what they and what to expect. How can you do that with something that is so hard to define?
Surviving the affair....the cheaters perspective 
Your list seems fairly exhaustive. I disagree with the one point about it being at all connected to feelings. Feeling are deceptive. Feelings are subjective and each person will feel differently about something dependant upon the filter of their own world view. Feeling can be good, bad and destructive…so no, love is nothing to do with feelings. It can evoke feelings and passion. But love is NOT feelings. Love is above all else, a CHOICE.
The characteristics of love are patience, and kindness, hope and forgiveness. Love chooses to look beyond the surface of someone and see the best. Love chooses to put someone else first. And in the midst of conflict, chaos, or indifference…love is a choice. Choose to love when you don’t even like them for the moment. Choose to love even when your own pride is telling you to put up walls.
Anything else is simply the characteristic of what love produces. It’s why when we are so broken, we still have this gnawing feeling to reach out for the person who broke us. It DOESN’T always make sense, and it doesn’t always make us feel whole. Love can hurt us sometimes. Love can destroy us at times. But love will always bring us back again and make us stronger. It’s when we choose to tune out love and we opt instead to allow the “feelings” to take over do we get lost in the anger, the hatred, the lust, the pride, the envy…
The reason it’s hard to define is because everyone experiences it differently. Love has a language all it’s own, and while people can feel it…touch it…experience it…talk about it…hate it…crave it…its like the blind men and the elephant, we all describe what we can touch and feel and perceive, but we never experience it the same way. What’s true for me is not going to be true for you…I think that’s why you are having such a hard time finding an actual definition that satisfies. Love has to be chosen, and then it has to be experienced…pain, euphoria, joy, sadness…all! So while you have a great start on the characteristics of love…I hope you can take what you can relate to and start there. And I hope that you and your wife can begin to heal and experience love in a whole new lense…
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This is a great reply. Thank you!
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I was madly in love with my husband for 30 years, married 26. He died by suicide last year. None of those words describe what we had. In fact, there are no words really. Those words are all conditions and we had a true unconditional love. I suppose that would be the word I would use to describe it if I had to. Unconditional. Our life together was perfect and beautiful and he truly was my better half. Life is very hard now without him, but I am still the luckiest person alive for having that for so long. This is probably no help, but I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts and I understand how hard it is to describe. I have added unconditional to the list.
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I really don’t know if you can choose to love someone. You can choose to spend your life with someone, you can choose to have a relationship with someone, but you can’t force love. You can want to love someone and you can try as hard as you want but if it doesn’t happen it just doesn’t happen you can’t force it even if you choose you want to love that person. And yes, love is unconditional.
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So love isn’t a choice?
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I think once you have fallen in love, it becomes somewhat of a choice? You don’t choose who you love, but you can choose to continue to love that person? Through tough times, through times when as angrywife said, you don’t really LIKE them at that moment? With work, commitment, passion, communication, etc. But I am a person led by emotions, and I think I understand what KC means, love kind of HAPPENS, and your choice is to stay with that love, or not. Not the actual loving part.
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yes, love is a choice. don’t be deceived by the idea of Hollywood romantic love. Love is a choice.
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Not even close in my books. Love is the force that is born from with in. Blooms and blossoms whether you want it or not. Do you love you children because you’re obligated to? No, I don’t believe you do. Love is just natural you can’t force it, you can’t choose it.
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I have two children I adopted and they have made some terrible choices. One now is 30 and living with us again with her children. None are “mine” and I choose to love them, though at times i do not like them.
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**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr162OZ2Z0w
You may really like this comedian, he puts some things in perspective 🙂
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“Love” the problem is it is too ambiguous!! I lived in Germany for a couple of years at one point and I remember learning that there is some outrageous number of words for states of drunkeness in the German language (something like over 200 varying words?). Love: I love my mom, I love pizza (a LOT), i love snow (in December – i hate it in March), I love great sex, I love my wife, I love my kids . . .
I guess what we are talking about though is “i LOVE my wife.” I think this is a decision, not a feeling. This love is a verb, not a noun. It is a choice.
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I got my first tattoo this year, after 8 months of suicidality and my own affair was discovered. It reads, “…for you, I will….” It was originally intended for my children, that I wouldn’t kill myself and turn their worlds inside out. But I realized, too, that I could apply it to rebuilding our marriage…I still want the “other man,” and honestly wasn’t ready to leave yet when I was caught…but when people ask about my tattoo, I tell them that it is part of my wedding vows when we renewed them this year. It’s a reminder of my own definition of love; that even if I want to (cheat, kill myself, etc) I know they need me to stay. And, “for you, I will.”
(namaste, my friend)
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It certainly a difficult journey no matter what side you are on. It all hurts. It sounds like you are doing better, so that is hope in itself.
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Progress….
Maybe someday when you look back you will be able to share all that you have learned. I know I am fighting my own demons ever day and today they are winning.
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Hmm as you know I’ve been trying to define this myself. I think truly loving someone is a inner motivation to do what it takes to care for someone, to protect them, and to put their wellbeing and happiness at the forefront. How this manifests itself will then depend on the circumstance. When things are good, love is a strong feeling, a deep connection, laughter… When things are tough, love is compassion, patience, persistence, respect. When you are tempted, love is commitment, loyal, faithful. When things are hopeless, love is hope.
Love is a promise you make to yourself and to the person you love – that you will love them no matter what. And in doing so, you are making the choice to love.
Love should be pure, and should not be carried out in shame, lies or deceit. It’s about being open, honest, and transparent. Loving someone is a process that should in the end, make you a better person. And love should be shared, so that in the end the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts.
Love is love. And I think we’re trying to put it in a box, when it’s a pretty complicating thing. I think you know what love is… it’s not always easy to love, but I think you always know what it is – even when you can’t put it into words.
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