I Love You... Does Anyone Struggle With This?

[fly away home]

It just struck me that not hearing these words and therefore not learning how to say them has shaped me. As a child I never heard the words 'I love you'. I remember visiting a friends house at about the age of 13 and she just said those words to her mum out of the blue, her mum said those words back to her. I was astounded that people speak like that. People say those things without any thought or any shame attached to saying it, they just came out. I felt very uncomfortable being there. I knew I longed to hear those words but certainly not from my parents.

I remember trying it out on my horse a few weeks later. Saying 'I love you' to my horse had me bursting into uncontrollable tears. It was then that I realised these words were powerful.

Later at 16, I fell in love with someone. He had a broken childhood too and I can be quite sure he would never have heard those words directed at him. I remember feeling many times like I wanted to say 'I love you' to him but they would get caught in my throat like it was truly impossible to get them out. I felt the love deeply but could not express it. He died and his last words to me, his final words he ever spoke were 'be a good girl, promise me you will look after yourself' I just nodded. I was mute. I had nothing to say. THIS WAS WHEN I SHOULD HAVE SAID "I LOVE YOU" but I did not. I could not. I feel like he would be alive today if I had of shown him that he mattered, it sure would have altered my perception if I had of heard those words directed towards me in such a dire situation. I cant begin to express the regret I feel for not saying it to him.

I ended up falling in love with this friend whom I heard saying 'I love you' to her mother. We had an intimate relationship. It was sexual but there were a lot of drugs involved so I wonder if this helped me to relax and say 'I love you' to her or perhaps because she was comfortable with the words she said it to anyone and everyone including me. It felt special to me though. Was the challenge saying it to a man? Is that somehow harder than to a woman? (I am female by the way)

Now as a mother I feel the deepest love I have ever felt towards another person. I had to train myself though, to say the words to her, I forced myself to say them when she was a newborn. I distinctly remember breast feeding in the middle of the night, whispering them at first, seeing how she would react. Now I say the words ever day to her, many times a day, she has taught me to be comfortable with saying them she throws them in the air with so much joy that I have started to relax with the words.

But this is different to saying the words to adults. Her father and I are not communicating well. He is the first adult I have ever said the words 'I love you' to. It was a hard thing to do but was helped by him saying them first. The problem is that I don't feel love for him anymore. After all this time the words were the most powerful and scary thing I knew and now they feel different they have changed. Have they lost their potency? I am also wondering if maybe I have no idea how to express love to another adult other than physically, sexually. I get them confused and mixed up and cant have one without the other, or can I? What does sex mean to me? I don't know... Is that why I ended up in a relationship with another woman? I have never questioned my sexuality just knew that I was capable of falling in love with anyone and that doesn't bother me at all just wondering if I have used sex as language. There is no question that I loved her.

Sorry this is totally rambling and long winded but I was wondering if anyone else finds it hard to use these words. What do they mean to you when someone says them to you? Do you find if you cant say them, you would do something else? Are they powerful or do they mean nothing? Have I destroyed my daughters sense of these words being special by over using them? Have the words left my vocabulary now that I have lost the loves I had? I can say I love you in a fun way to friends but it still evokes passionate feelings. I don't throw the words around like some people seem able to. I'm probably over thinking the whole thing. I guess I'm just after a general idea of weather I am overly sensitive to the words or are they actually as important to others as I think they are to me. Good on you if you made it to the end of this post!!!

 

[LokiBell]

I don't know that I can help but I can say I am very impressed with your strength to reach out. As I have had a near death experience, and went to the other side, I can say that I KNEW without a doubt that certain people loved me, no words were needed. And I am very proud that you are able to tell your daughter that you love her. That warms my heart.

I grew up in a home where "I love you" wasn't spoken. As I got older I found that I had to force myself to say them as they weren't natural to me. I loved people, but just couldn't verbalize it. My first step to saying them to a man I had those feelings for were to do it over the phone. Now I am 44 years old and I can say them freely. It took years and years of practice. I don't know if this helps, but it can get better. I just had to work very diligently to keep those words in my vocabulary.

 

[The Albatross]

My stock thing for a long time with a lover was, "No you don't." and I meant it. It is not something I say often and it is not particularly comfortable for me to hear very often either. I think that is because to me "I love you" comes with a boatload of complications and constraints when I have enough to deal with on a day to day basis.

I probably don't tell my mister I love him often enough. Conversely, knowing me as he does, he sometimes forgets to say it meaningfully at all now. Working on that one.

The "what does sex mean to me?" thing, I don't know either but I'm back in therapy with a CBT shrink who is also a sexologist and I guess I'm gonna find out.

My gut refutes "I love you's". My basic knee jerk response is that it is a lie. It is difficult because of my traumas for me to try to understand that a well intentioned/good willed person who loves me would do some of the shit that has happened to me I think.

Best I can do after a really draining day... but appreciate your topic, well timed for me.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Hearing those three words is like listening to nails on a chalkboard. To me, love is an action. Words are cheap and can be used for manipulation purposes. If I listen to the words and not the actions, I go astray. I'm pretty good at figuring out who is dishonest, manipulative or just a bad person. Thus it's easier for me to trust the action. I don't know if I'll ever separate the word from the meaning of manipulation.

 

[Sally sue]

That's interesting that you started this thread, I have always had a problem with those 3 words. When my kids were little I hated the show Barney because of the "I love you" song, because i felt that it was not real love.

Once I tried saying it to my mom and she became hysterical and thought I was calling to tell her I was dying. :(

I did not hear "I love you" as a child and because of the way I was brought up I didn't feel I was a good enough person, I was bad, so of course nobody said they loved me...that's what my little mind reasoned.

So many if my friends tell me they love me, but I can't seem to spit it out, because I don't really believe them in my heart, it's feels like a lie.
:( I guess it all comes back to feeling I'm unlovable.

I told my children often I loved them, and how much I cared about them no matter what! I have no regrets about it. :)

Last week in season with my T I felt an overwhelming desire to tell her I loved her, but I thought it would be wrong and because she's a T she can't love me.

I obviously have a lot if issues with it, but as I write, I feel that it is my own lack of feeling lovable that stands in my way. :( How to feel more worthy of love? That I don't know.

 

[fly away home]

Thanks guys, for your responses so far. I will have a good read over later tonight. It's fascinating to see how other people feel about the words.

I've think I'm just terrified of the power they hold over me. So it's good to know what they actually mean to other people. I feel love deeply. It's the words that scare me.

 

[The Albatross]

Conversely I don't feel it as deeply as I used to... that scares me too.

 

[fly away home]

I don't know that I can help but I can say I am very impressed with your strength to reach out. As I have had a near death experience, and went to the other side, I can say that I KNEW without a doubt that certain people loved me, no words were needed.

Thank you. This means a lot to me, @LokiBell more than I can explain.

 

[fly away home]

My stock thing for a long time with a lover was, "No you don't."

My gut refutes "I love you's". My basic knee jerk response is that it is a lie.

I can understand this response. I think if my mother did say those words to me now I would feel the same way. Total lies! At the same time I have really wanted to hear those words from others because they were so lacking in my life. Like a craving. I feel pathetically weak for wanting this yet I know I have that gut feeling of mistrust. That inkling that they want something from me that it's a ploy. And because the words weaken me so much I am vulnerable to them.

 

[billie]

Its a very uncomfortable phrase indeed.

 

[fly away home]

@Solara could you please tell me what you mean by action? What actions describe love to you? If you mean intimacy then at times I've gone the opposite direction to you and seen actions as the manipulation. I don't really know how you would act out love. Gosh. It all feels like manipulation in my current relationship.

 

[fly away home]

Maybe I should just stick with the words for this thread. ... actions are a whole other world of confusion.