When do you know that you’re in love?
I know that I’m only a freshman in college, but lately the topic of marriage has come up a lot in my life. As mentioned several other times in my blog, I come from a household of divorced high school sweethearts, so I often feel like I don’t know what love looks like.
I realized for myself I am very reserved about using that sacred four-letter word, even when referring to myself. Especially when talking to people who will think I mean that I am in-love with them rather than have love for them. Despite this, I can fall in and out of love with everything, but a man very easily. I fall in love with the way a pair of pants looks on me, how food from my favorite restaurant tastes, with a new haircut, etc. In these scenarios I can easily identify that feeling of love, but somehow I never know if when it comes to my boyfriend that I am in love. Everyone swears they are in love with their high school boyfriend/girlfriend until they reach new life milestones and it’s very much so “out with the old in with the new”. I went to college as a free woman and have now found myself less than six months later seeing my boyfriend three and four times a week. Even being okay with not returning to campus because even at his school he was closer to home than to my school. Stronger than ever, we have protected boundaries, shared goals and I finally began to feel what it meant to be in love.
I would tell you all to stop reading if my grounds for identifying love were purely on waking up one day feeling a little more emotional than the day before. The realization that I not only had love for my boyfriend, but wanted two kids and a mortgage with him came in phases. I made three realizations about myself, him, and our relationship.
Before coming to college I thought that I was a relationship person. I like having someone to talk to everyday, someone to do things with and someone that I just really liked. As I ventured to college I realized not that I was a relationship person —- because if someone even offered to take me on a date I was going into hiding, but that I was a my-boyfriend person. I hated meeting new people and not for the reason that they weren’t my ex; it just felt like nothing was comfortable.
I realized that my boyfriend did not realize that he loved me until I was gone. At the time, I definitely did much more for him than he did for me and for all general purposes, I began to feel that from a relationship standpoint he didn’t deserve me. We haven’t technically been dating the majority of the time we have been in each other’s lives and he has put more than his heart into his fair share of women. It was his life and I am not one to force what does not come naturally, so I finally let him go. After his hiatus, I was fearful for his return (and still have my insecurities) that it was yet another waste of my time, love and money. I took a step back and watched him grow into the half of the relationship that I used to be.
Lastly, I came to the realization that my boyfriend and I have a forever love. Whether it is one that will be the toxic death of all my relationships after him or becomes my greatest love story he will always have a piece of my heart. We come in and out of each other’s lives, but even if I was forced to, I could never get rid of him. I felt the shift in maturity in our relationship and what was once young infatuation turned into a realistic future. I am hopefully only around five years out from marriage and I have not a shadow of doubt that I will be lucky enough to marry my high school sweetheart.
I have always loved, but I have for the first, and hopefully only time, fallen in love.
This is very sweet! I really liked that you talked about the shift in maturity in the relationship – transitioning from high school to college is a big change in your life and I think people often neglect to think about that the relationships (platonic or romantic) in your life have to change along with you. I’m happy for you that you and your boyfriend came back to each other in a more mature and deeper way!
Wow! What an emotional story! I felt a lot of different things reading about the ups and downs of your relationship and your discovery about love. You did a great job conveying your emotions to the reader! It’s super cool that you guys have been able to grow and mature together, and I hope that everything works out! 🙂
This is a powerful testimony to growing and maturing at the same time as another. I admire how you dealt with hardships and have come out the other side as a stronger person, and I appreciate that you shared your story. I am so happy that you have found the love that you had looked for, and I pray that you receive so much love and happiness now and in the future!
In the past I have not had great experiences with relationships, because I was naive and a pushover and not happy with myself, but I grew out of that into the person I am today, and because of that I have been able to develop into who I want to be. It was only when I was completely content with being myself and the path I was on, that I found someone perfectly complementary to myself. It’s a very new thing for me, to have him in my life, but I am so very thankful that he is. I hope to fall in love truly, the way you have!