How do I know if it's love?

Isn't that the million dollar question!?

Before we get into that, it's important to remember that love is not a feeling.

A feeling would be something like fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, surprise, trust or anticipation. It's something you feel as a result of something that happens to you. You can feel them even if you don't act on them. You can feel anger even if you don't punch someone or a wall.

However, feelings like courage and kindness can also be felt, but they are useless unless they are actually acted upon. You can't have courage unless you have acted in a courageous way, otherwise you are just feeling brave. Feeling kind is also useless unless it is acted upon, otherwise you are just having a gentle or tender feeling towards someone or something.

Love on the other hand, is an action, not a feeling. Those feelings you feel in your heart and stomach initially and can mistake for love, could be emotions like affection, attraction, desire, chemistry, hero worship, infatuation, jealousy, fantasy, comfort and security or lust. That's how it starts.

[Psychology Today]

Love is an action. Love is doing something for someone else. Love grows when we act in the interests of others and not for ourselves.

"Yet real love is a steadfast promise that repeats itself endlessly through life and beyond death. Love does not increase or decrease in response to its environment, and it does not change with the changing winds. Love is not an emotion; it doesn't behave the way emotions do. Real love is in a category of its own." (From why loves is not an emotion, by Karla McLaren

"Love is a Choice More than a Feeling. Most of us tend to focus on falling in love and use the feeling of love to determine the duration of a relationship. Falling in love is easy to do, almost effortless, but losing that loving feeling is not that hard to do, either. ... Feelings, however, can be fleeting." (From Psych Central)

Love stays, regardless of the other emotions we may be feeling at the time, if we act. Emotions however, get replaced by others all the time. Sadness would replace happiness, not live alongside it.

[123RF.com]

Back to our initial question. How do I know it is love?

There are so many different answers to that difficult question. It's difficult because we all feel it differently, because we are all different. So I will just add some quotes and let you decide.

“One good yardstick as to whether a person might be the right one for you is this: in her presence, do you think your noblest thoughts, do you aspire to your finest deeds, do you wish you were better than you are?” - President Ezra T Benson

George Q Morris said “My mother once said that if you meet a girl in whose presence you feel a desire to achieve, who inspires you to do your best, and to make the most of yourself, such a young woman is worthy of your love and is awakening love in your heart. I submit that... as a true guide. In the presence of the girl you truly love you do not feel to grovel; in her presence you do not attempt to take advantage of her; in her presence you feel that you would like to be everything that a Master Man should become, for she will inspire you to that ideal. And I ask you young women to cherish that same guide.”

Obviously that would work the same for girls meeting boys.

Gordon B Hinckley said “True love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the well being of one's companion.”

Marvin J Ashton said “Love is a process.” “Love demands action if it is to be continuing.”

And then one by Neal A Maxwell “Love as defined by the Lord, elevates, protects, respects, and enriches another. It motivates one to make sacrifices for another.”

So do you think you are in love? Are you willing to act and not just feel?

If you are still in doubt, do as John Bytheway counsels, spend a week together (or an equivalent number of days where you are in each other's company) where you have no kissing or physical contact, and see if you still want to spend time together, if you still have affection for and like each other's company after the week. If so.... it could be love!