I made this same post in r/adhd because I thought maybe the way I experience love is related to my diagnosed but unmedicated adhd. A few people replied and said it was a general issues so I guess I just want to get more people’s perspectives here.
For me, love is something overwhelming that I experience nearly instantly when meeting a girl. When I love someone, they consume my every thought and I will do absolutely anything to be around them for even the smallest amount of time. I compulsively imagine them getting hurt and me saving them. I compulsively imagine a future with them. Other people I can ignore for days, but these girls seem I need to text every single day and know what/how they are doing.
I’ve only ever felt this with two people in my life. One was a girl in high school who I dated for two months before she told me she wasn’t even sure she was straight. Another was with a girl I worked with several years later. She was crazy, she routinely got into street fights, and she was engaged to an abusive man.
My friends said she was completely wrong for me in every way, but I didn’t and still don’t think so. I knew her for 3 months of very passionate flirting/friendship and, 3 years later, I still think about her all of the time. I still love her and I’d do anything to get back with her even though I won’t because things ended so horribly between us. I think she is married now.
See, these relationships were perfect for me, but the only problem is these girls didn’t love me back.
These feelings are important to me. They motivate me to be a better person, to work out, clean my house, do the best I can at my job, even show up to work extra early just to have 5 more minutes with the girl I love.
I’ve been in relationships where we had a great friendship connection, could talk to each other for hours, trusted each other, and even felt deep sexual attraction to one another. But I don’t crave these girls, and I don’t care about them. Then I meet someone I love and I’m completely enthralled and I care so much more about having a relationship with them. I leave the other person for them.
It is utterly impossible for me to care about a romantic partner if I am not in love with them. Because of this, I’ve decided to never date again unless I’m already 100% sure I will marry them before even getting into the relationship.
I think my worst fear is being in one of these “quiet” relationships and then falling in love with someone, because I know I will do absolutely everything in my power to be with the person I love.
I have told other people, even girls I was in the “quite” relationships with, this and they are adamant that what I feel is not healthy love. I don’t believe them. And, honestly, I don’t know how much I care because I need this love in order to have any connection with the other person at all. Otherwise, no matter how stable the relationship is, I just won’t care about it.
tldr: Love for me has always been an overwhelming desire to be with another person, and I absolutely can’t be in a relationship without it, but seem to fall in love with girls who don’t love me. I truly don’t know if this is normal.
Edit: I really do want to reiterate that these feelings are also important to be because of how they motivate me to be the best version of myself for the girl I’m in love with.
5 comments
Sounds like you know what works for you. My advice is to try to think of these feelings as a prerequisite for a relationship, but not a mandate for one. Pay attention to how else these relationships make you feel, other than in love. Do you feel respected, do you respect them, are they someone you’d want to be friends with if you weren’t attracted to them, do you like how they treat you, do you like how they treat others?
You might find that the concept of limerence and a limerent object resonates with you. What you describe is infatuation, and it can be present with love as well. But, to me, love is caring abut someone else’s happiness and well being close to the amount you care about your own. And being in love adds in a strong desire to spend time together, be physically affectionate, and be close.. I believe you can only love somebody to the extent that you know them. All the parts you don’t know, all the assumptions or misunderstandings, are love you apply to an image in your head you created, not love you have for a real person Only the accurate parts of your understanding of someone can matter for your true feelings for them. This is why I think love grows with time, because you get a far better and deeper understanding of someone. Early on, you love a fantasy you created.
This is not love. And if I knew my friends were involved with someone like that I’d tell them to run.
This is stalker/murderer territory you’re describing.
You are falling hard for women who are unavailable and inappropriate to pursue. There are a lot of reasons that people do this. It usually goes back to your childhood. I know that sounds cliche, but it’s generally true. Your early years determined whether you have secure attachments or have attachment trauma. Your parent or guardians’ relationships with you and each other taught you your expectations for what relationships were supposed to be like.
Wanting to be a better person when you fall in love is quite normal and natural.
Obviously you can’t control who you fall in love with but you can engage in introspection and personal growth and this will change the nature of your attractions over time. I know some people say otherwise, but I can tell you with certainty that it’s true.
There are a LOT of self help books out there. You can go to your local public library. Since the topic is new to you just some basic ones about love and relationships would be a good start. Anyway, falling for people you can’t have is a common problem that people have and you’re pretty smart to figure this out now and not when you’re 35.
That’s not love, its limerance/infatuation/a crush. Love comes from actually knowing someone, not just being obsessed with them. Your idea that you’re not going to date someone unless you “know” you’ll marry them beforehand is a bad idea. Just date people, and if you’re not feeling it after a month, end things.