How Do You Know If You Are In Love?

This week in my Family Relations class we were discussing falling in love. We were discussing how you know whether you are in love or not. Sometimes you may think that you are falling in love but really you are just infatuated with someone. These loving feelings might be a case of misattribution of arousal. This is when we think we are feeling passionate love because we are aroused. We can wrongly attribute this arousal to romantic feelings. It might not be the best decision to define your feelings as love when you have just been aroused in some way. Arousal can happen through drinking, exercise, caffeine, etc. Love at first sight might just be the result from these circumstances. So how can we tell if we are in love? In the book Marriage and Family The Quest For Intimacy, it gives questions that you can ask yourself. These questions can help you decide if what you are feeling is a healthy relationship or if it is infatuation: Do you and your lover each believe in your own personal value? That is, do you think well of yourself as a person? Do you have high self-esteem? Has your relationship improved each of you? Are you in some way a better, stronger, more attractive individual? Do you value the relationship because of that improvement? Do you each maintain some separate interests? Do you have meaningful relationships apart from your lover? Is your relationship an integral part of your total life rather than a kind of side interest? Are you each capable of respecting the other's growth and interests without being possessive or jealous? Are you friends? Would you still want to relate to each other even if you weren't lovers? It might not be possible to answer all these questions early on in a relationship. According to the book, "The ultimate test of a loving relationship is time." So just don't jump into anything!