Isn’t it surprising that there is no such thing as a school of love? During our childhood, we take language, history, art or driving lessons, but nothing that is not about love. This central feeling in our life, we must discover it alone and wait for situations to happen to us to learn to love. And if the adage says that ” when we love, we know it », The specialists do not really agree …

What are the sensations that can help us recognize this feeling so powerful? Acceleration of the pulse, redness, anxieties, longing, excitement, intense happiness, complete appeasement… Is it really love? Are these not the symptoms of desire? One thing is certain: love always escapes all rationality. It is a mystery for those who live it as well as for those who are witnesses to it. 

To fear. To love is to be afraid. Being afraid of not being able to love your partner anymore, of not being able to take care of him anymore. For Monique Schneider, psychoanalyst, “ Love involves taking risks. It arouses a phenomenon of dizziness, sometimes even rejection: we can break love because we are too afraid of it, sabotage it while trying to confide, reduce its importance by focusing on an activity where everything rests on oneself. It all boils down to protecting ourselves from the exorbitant power of the other over us. »

Want to please. Unlike desire, love is selfless. Love, regardless of the physical, is the desire to please others, to bring them happiness and pleasure. “By pushing this reasoning to the end, adds sex therapist Catherine Solano, we can say that in love, we are happy that the other is happy, even if it is without us ”. 

Need the other. Love often induces a void, especially in its early stages, when the other is absent. The degree of this emptiness can be indicative of the love you have for another.

Have common projects. When you are in love, you include your partner in your decisions, your projects, your choices. We always act according to our interests, the interests of the partner and the interests of the couple. To be in love is to want the other to be happy, which also implies compromises. 

When we are in love, we can also: 

• Be jealous, as long as jealousy remains healthy;
• Wanting those around us to appreciate the other;
• Change behaviors, attitudes, tastes;
• To be happy, laughing, playful for a priori few things.

When should you say “I love you” for the first time?

Before I say it, think carefully about what it means to you. We pronounce it with a vengeance, but when it comes to taking a few minutes to define it, nothing works. It is a reflection that invites us to remember moments of happiness, feelings, sensations, looks, scents, sounds, desires … Perhaps, moreover, it is impossible to define love other than by these fleeting moments… Try to make your partner understand what these words mean to you, after or before having said it, because not all “I love you” are equal. Some can be understood as a prayer, a contract, a debt. They induce a question: ” And you, do you love me? “. In this, they act mainly as a synchronizer: if the partner answers yes, he loves him too, the two lovers are still in phase. They can finally be used as an all-purpose formula, helping to streamline exchanges, such as a placebo, which does good to the one who pronounces it and no harm to the one who receives it, or as a torment, when you do not want to be abandoned to your fate. 

In any case, be aware that not all “I love you” are created equal. In general, he does not tolerate adverbs: we don’t like a little, nor a lot, we just like. So stay in the classics. 

To understand what true love is, we must rely on the work of the philosopher Denis Moreau, who distinguishes three types of “love”.

L’Eros is love in its sensual and carnal dimension. It is often present at the beginning of a “loving” relationship and is akin to passion, to desire. 

Agape is a love that is difficult to translate which corresponds to the “gift of oneself” to the other, to dedication and to self-sacrifice.

La philia is an accomplice, “marital” love, which refers to common memory, patience, availability, respect, esteem, frankness, confidence, sincerity, loyalty, benevolence, generosity, indulgence, simultaneous and reciprocal. It’s a very constructed love. 

True love, the purest there is, is the assembly of the three, ” far superior to each of its components ‘. ” The more time passes, the less I understand that we so commonly identify love with the sole fires, or excess, of its beginnings, and the more I am tempted to sing about the beauties, and the benefits, of peaceful love unfolding in the long duration of a common life He adds. So, are you concerned by this “true love»?

Do not confuse love with passion, this “State of dazed bliss into which the transports of the beginning idyll sometimes plunge “! Passion always fades. But this initial conflagration does not necessarily follow misery and desolation: ” love is modified, and can then be commuted into something other than passion, of which the relative lexical poverty of the French language in matters of love makes it difficult to describe ».

« The love that is exhibited evaporates. Rarely do lovers kissing on public whites love each other for long ». Marcelle Auclair Love.

« Where does this feeling of believing yourself in love come from, when the other is just an image of what you would like to love? “. Mary from above Agnès Ledig

« But you know when we’re in love we are a fool. »The Foam of the days of Boris vian

« We never love each other like in the stories, naked and forever. Loving yourself is constantly fighting against thousands of hidden forces that come from you or from the world. ” Jean Anouilh

« There are people who are so full of themselves that when they are in love, they find a way to take care of themselves without being taken care of by the person they love. ” La Rochefoucauld.