How do you know?

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sanctamaria17

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When you’re dating someone, how do you know if you love them, or merely like being in love?
 
There’s no way to explain it…you just know. I know it’s cliche, but I believe it’s true. Obviously if you’ve been dating the person a week it might be harder to tell if you’re really in love. But when you share a special connection with someone, a similar faith background, similar views about life and the future, there’s a better chance you are compatible. Good luck!
 
I prayed the rosary and asked the Blessed Mother to help me understand my feelings and God’s plan for me. After I finished praying, I knew that the man I was seeing was the right one. I married him 3 years later (and have been married now for 2.5 years). Everyday I thank God that he gave me the strength to understand my feelings.

If your heart is open, you will know. You will know that you are with someone that you love and respect and vice versa. It will be shown through his words and through his actions. I know that my husband loves me everytime he gets up to get me a glass of water or does the dishes or fills up my gas tank. It is through the simple everyday actions that we know we are loved. You will want to do the same things for him because you love him.

God bless
 
Beware the soulmate theory because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. so long as it works out, you believe it’s the one. When it doesn’t work out, you spend some time mourning and then say you were wrong and it must be some other person and so on and so forth. So long as you are able to admit error, the soulmate theory will always work. 😉

In reality, though, there is more than just one person compatible with you, although there will likely be an outstanding best pick within a given environment - doesn’t change the fact that in another environment a different person will stand out etc.

This doesn’t preclude the possibility of God’s choosing someone special specifically for us, though honestly, I don’t know if God prefers to help picking or to make the pick for you (or what criteria He would use). It might be a good idea to pray for whomever it will be and for a timely meeting… St Raphael is the saint believed to be a good matchmaker. The prayer goes thus (there are others too):

St. Raphael, you were sent by God to guide young Tobias in choosing a good and virtuous spouse. Please help me in this important choice which will affect my whole future. You not only directed Tobias in finding a wife, but you also gave him guidelines which should be foremost in every Christian marriage: “Pray together before making important decisions.” Amen.

And the practice is to say it on nine consecutive days starting with a Wednesday.

As for gut feelings, hunches etc, they may be right… or not be. One will always have doubts, sooner or later, even if it’s the right choice, while if it’s a wrong choice then well… one will obviously have bad feelings about it. It’s hard to choose what’s real bad feelings and what’s just unnecessary worrying.

As for love, you may love a person without being in love. You may be in love without really loving. You may neither love nor be in love, but just be attracted (strongly perhaps). It’s often hard to tell and it complicates things.
 
sanctamaria17 said:
When you’re dating someone, how do you know if you love them, or merely like being in love?
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The best answer to this timeless question came 20 years ago on the TV show “Moonlighting”: “Maybe you can’t always know for sure when it’s true love, but you can always know for sure when it isn’t.”
 
Gamera said:
The best answer to this timeless question came 20 years ago on the TV show “Moonlighting”: “Maybe you can’t always know for sure when it’s true love, but you can always know for sure when it isn’t.”
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I think thats totally true. I’ve dated a lot of not mr right, but will do for a mr right now. Theyre usually a lot of fun. Lots of adventure, but ultimately no substance. Sometimes they were Yankee fans, and as cute as they might have been… it just could never have worked 🙂 I can compromise on a lot of things, but I could never allow my future kids to wear pin stripes.

The key thing for me personally, is questioning is good. Asking if I could tolerate this guys socks being all over the apartment, or chin hairs in the sink for the next 70 years of my life, is part of dating. But the key is, you may get him to wipe up the hair after shaving, but you’ll never change him, so if you can’t stand his quirks, then it’s probably best to get out now.
 
My high school theology teacher answered the question “How did you know when you wanted to spend the rest of your life with your wife?” (they have 14 children and over 50 grandchildren and are still a happy couple) He responded “when I knew that I could sit in an empty room at opposite corners from her, not looking or talking to her, and was happy and at peace to know that she was just there in the same place as me”
 
sanctamaria17 said:
When you’re dating someone, how do you know if you love them, or merely like being in love?
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When you haven’t gotten “tired” of them yet:) How do you feel about this person? Has he told you he loves you too? I think sometimes women tend to overanyalize every word, emotion.actions guys make. So we sometimes get so caught up in is this love or is it just me thinking i am in love when as long as you prayer about it, you’ll be shown the right way
 
gmarie21 said:
My high school theology teacher answered the question “How did you know when you wanted to spend the rest of your life with your wife?” (they have 14 children and over 50 grandchildren and are still a happy couple) He responded “when I knew that I could sit in an empty room at opposite corners from her, not looking or talking to her, and was happy and at peace to know that she was just there in the same place as me”
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A very wise person, but you can have the same feeling with a friend. Sometimes you can have that feeling with the person as a friend, but not as a boyfriend or girlfriend (and upwards).

My personal variation would be long walking and talking, the ability to talk about most of things, the ability to solve problems through talking - and willingness to do so, and indeed the feeling of being at peace. But I’ve had it with friends or even strangers sometimes. By that theory, they would have been potential “right ones” (like that girl I knew for a grand total of two days several years ago, including a twenty mile sandwalk to the dunes and back in the wind, and didn’t end up asking for any contact info, that I still remember ;)), but it’s never so simple.
maria29 said:
**I think sometimes women tend to overanyalize every word, emotion.actions guys make. **
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I’m a guy myself and it’s my female friends who tell me I do too much of it, so it can’t really be female-specific. 😉
 
I think love is an odd thing. We can fall in love with numerous people - and at times we even fall in love with people who are not necessarily the best people for us. The googly feeling of love is a fun, exciting and emotional thing.

True love is several steps above that googly emotion.

The better question to ask…Is this the right person? Does this person enhance my life and bring out the best in me - bring me closer to God? Have my best interest at heart?
 
Jrabs said it so well - being in love is an emotion. Can you commit to this person, exactly the way they are today. No chaging the other person, no differences where you think “if we love each other enough it will work out”. Do you have the same values, the same faith? Do you love God more than this person - and are you sure they love God more than they love you?

The butterflies in your tummy, well, we all know that butterflies do not live long - of course, they do lay eggs that turn into lumpy caterpillars then go dormat then the butterfiles come back again. Just make sure that you will stick with this person through every lumpy caterpillar and dormant butterfly stage 🙂
 
jrabs said:
The better question to ask…Is this the right person? Does this person enhance my life and bring out the best in me - bring me closer to God? Have my best interest at heart?
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…And I his/hers? 😉
 
if you love someone all your concern is for their welfare, their feelings, their good. If you are infatuated your thought is all about concern for your own feelings, your own needs and desires, your own gratification, and you think of the other person only as they affect you, not as a person in their own right.
 
Also, just remember Love is a decision, not a feeling. That is the difference between the long term marrages, and the ones based just on feelings. Father Corapi has an excellent talk on the subject.👍

Prayer is also imperative :gopray2: every day before and after marrage.

May God Bless you in your decision, and give you the perserverence in that decision.
 
Some of the questions my mom told us to ask ourselves when we thought we’d found Mr Right…
“do I want to have this man’s babies”
“do I want this man as the father of my children?”

Those are big things!
If I was willing to birth, and raise this man’s children, and have him care for and influence MY children, that said alot about how serious my feelings were.
 
That’s something like my best pal’s GP mother said and she’s seen quite a lot of people’s situations.
 
Also ask yourself if you could happily give up your life to this person. How extremely would you gladly sacrifice yourself for them? To what end would you go to give them peace and happiness? We know how far the Lord went, and imitating His love is what we are called to. Of course we will never completely reach it, due to our sinful nature, but I think it is something to give great consideration to.
 
I think that you know you are with the man you are meant to be with when everything fits - you both compromise, you both want the same things right down to the number of kids, pets and the lifestyle you plan to lead. You know he is right when you disagree with his opinion but you don’t care in fact you find that your differences make you a better couple and I found that I knew I was with mr right when he would do something he didn’t want to do because I asked him from going to see a chick flick over the latest sci fi right through to not applying for a grad job because it would interfere with my grad job and of course the all important chastity my choice not his!

My h2b just gets me, he knows what I feel and I know what he feels, I knew he was the one in the summer between college and uni because the relationship kept getting stronger and we grew closer and I found that he makes me whole our differences make us a lot better and that was when I knew we were right!
 
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