How many have you loved?

[canuckhead]

I'm just wondering...this is for guys and girls (little older too i guess)...how many bfs or gfs have u actually loved or fell in love with? and i mean truly love...

 

and i'm sure not all of u have loved all ur ex bf/gfs.

 

i'm asking because i'm just wondering...does love come easily? like i've had a few gfs but i haven't really TRULY loved all of them...maybe just a couple.

[shorty20]

out of all my boyfriends that i've had... and there's been alot... I'd say at least 15-20... I've only really truly loved 2. I think the key to love is meeting someone that is on the same level as you are, and it's all about timing.

[puccie08]

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

[puccie08]

I found this on the internet earlier I hope it helps

[Carnatic]

Never had a girlfriend

But I've always hoped that I would fall in love. If I didn't love a girl, or at least feel I was on my way to falling in love then I wouldn't go out with a girl.

[Confessoress]

4 boyfriends. In honest truth probably only once, with my current boyfriend.

[Demonblade]

I've been in love twice. My first love was my last girlfriend and my last love would be my best friend.

[ocrob]

I am 37 and have had three realtionships. The first was for 8 months, the second was for 5 years and married 1.5 years of that time, and my last was 3 years. I would say I loved two of them. All of the break ups hurt and the last was the worst.

[truckerbabe]

I've dated many guys... 4 of them longer term (over a year) and one was 4 years... never loved any of them, only settled because I thought it was as good as it gets & everyone who claimed they were in love must be full of crap haha. That all changed the day I met my current bf... now I can say it took me 26 years to finally find someone who I fell in love with & see what the fuss was all about.

[RayKay]

Have had 5 long term boyfriends. And I loved them all, but differently and in different degrees. I am one whom thinks love is pretty universal, but how you love may not always be as strong or the same...in retrospect I think sometimes what was I thought as love, not as strong....as I thought...but time does that to you....

 

Would not say I loved the first - not really anyway. Puppy love, but was way too young and unsure of whom I was yet to love someone else. Loved the idea of him more then him - the romantic notion then the true reality.

 

Second one, yes....but more as a friendship and strong care and need. We were together through a lot of tough times, but I felt I lost a lot of my identity. I do wonder how he time to time, he was a lost soul in a way, and I think I really hurt him when I left him. I just knew we were not right long term.

 

Third I loved...as a great friend, as someone whom really was there for me, as a boyfriend too....but he passed away. I still believe I loved him, but I am not sure I really loved myself then so would of been able to fully love, as I needed to, or whether he would of been in love with me for life. We loved deeply, but in a way that made us more like soulmates in friendship, then perhaps in romantic relationship...I dunno. It was a very different experience, I often say he was an angel sent to me to take care of me, and others, and then he was called back. So the bond was very different then one I can describe here really. On another plane entirely.

 

Fourth....more for whom I hoped he would be then whom he really was. Forgot to love myself in the process.

 

And fifth...well this is the one that made me rethink all those past ones I guess in essense! Not so much invalidated what I had before, but put them in a different context, and what I have now is basically what I never really knew I was looking for, but what I knew I wanted the minute I found it Completely reciprocal, enriching, respectful, caring, compassionate, supportive, intimate, strong, deep - it's wonderful! It is truly wonderful and amazing.

[NJRon]

I have had 4 long term relationships and many shorter term. I have been married (since divorced). I'm still unsure as to whether I "truly" loved my wife... it's a tough call as there were a lot of changes. I can say I wish her the best, but we don't talk at all and I find that just fine also. So... it was a moment in my life where we touched each other, did what we had to do, then left.

 

I'm pretty sure I have truly loved once. The one that came after my marriage. However... I think I will have to wait a few years to know for sure. Right now all I can say is she really touched every part of me and I feel better for the experience, regardless of the growing pains.

[Mun]

Loved two. For some reason I loved the wrong guys and the right ones were/are passionless......yikes, but I'm working on that.

[ScreenagerX]

During my life time I have had probably 15 - 20 g/f's (all during my teens). Of those I only really loved one of them & I married her. I spent 11 years with her & I still love her today. A couple of the other I thought I loved but after 3 months (my average relationship length) I found I'd been kidding myself as it was really just the novelty of someone new that had worn off.

[renaissancewoman101]

I have had two serious relationships in my life both of which I did love. The first one I loved and still love as a friend very much and vice versa for him. Sometimes I am not sure if I even let my love for the first one go, although the love that I have for him now is more that of a best friend. The second one, my current ex, I did love and I thought he loved me, but he broke up with me. Do I still love him? I am not sure anymore.

[Gracelove]

I've loved all of my boyfriends, all 4. When I was with them I was totally in love with them.

When I look back, there was one imparticular that I think meant the most to me. We were so compatible, and I was sooooo in love with him, and completely happy.

[Ghostrider4042005]

i've only had 3 gfs but only really did love one TRULY but she ended up breaking my heart cuz i was "too immature n i changed when i was around her" but i guess that's the way things work but yes only 1 i've TRULY loved

[Caterina]

Like a lot of people, I have a difficult time figuring out what Love is. My parents loved each other in the conventional sense, I think, and they have managed to stay together for a long time. But their lives were bereft with lots of terrible things to: cutting each other down, hurting each other, grumbling about divorce under the breath...

 

In my life, I believe I have the potential to love deeply, but I have never had a long lasting love, b/c the people I loved were friends, women (I am a heterosexual woman). Meaning, they eventually move, or marry or something like that. I've loved my family, but at the same time, I've hated my family and the love I had for them was extremely tainted.

 

When it comes to relationships, I only really liked three men, two that I never actually dated and the one I am dating now. I've dated quite a few more then that, and with those I definetly was not in love, altho they managed to hurt me and visa versa so I probably had at least an affection for them. I don't know what it is that makes us love one person over another. To me, it does have something to do with how you are treated. If they are nice to you, thats something that is really important.

 

I am sort of sad, because I don't think I have ever been in love. I could fall in love with the man I am dating now, but there are a lot of things that make me cautionary. I don't want to be like my parents and he's already said some things (unintentionally) that have really hurt me to my core. I don't want to just have a happy relationship that eventually debilitates to bickering and further unhappiness. To me, Love should have a strong connection to happiness. Let me know what you think.

[Carnatic]

I empathise with Caterina in not really knowing what love is. Although I've never had a girlfriend, there have been a couple of occasions when I thought I was in love and then later, after rejection, I realised I wasn't really. One of my friends at the time said I was 'in love with the girlfriend, not with the girl' and this is true, I hadn't really thought through the girls' personalities, looks, compatability, I had only picked up on a slight sign of interest and let myself get excited that I might finally have found a girlfriend. This kind of naivete is dangerous, becuase had I not been rejected then I could have ended up in a relationship I wouldn't have been happy with.

Because feelings of 'love' for me have only been false alarms, and because I'm starting to find new optimism and noticing the female attention I seem to attract (completely oblivious as to why I get all this attention), then I am now in a position to worry about next time I 'fall in love' and how I will know that it is a real feeling (people say 'you'll just know' but that's not true, otherwise I'd have known the other feelings weren't love). It seems too complex, people talk about pitfalls of falling in love with the idea of someone, or falling in love with looks alone, and all kinds of other instances of getting love wrong. I can certainly say that love does seem to sound very elusive... and though I have many friends who I can definitely say are in love it seems to be too improbable to happen me, so much has to be right, and people's descriptions of what wonderful people they have fallen in love with seem to be way beyond anything I could achieve. So I don't know what love is, and empathise with anyone who worries whether they are finding love when they think they are.

[renaissancewoman101]

Carnatic, what your friend says about "in love with the girlfriend but not with the girl" really rings true for me, except for me it was with my current ex. When I met my current ex I was kinda desperate to find a bf since I felt lonely and unappreciated and I was having problems with my best friend and his bf. When I met my current ex, I found him to be interesting and exciting although, in the beginning, I knew we had very little in common. I thought that was ok and that I could deal. When he responded postively to me, I was so happy that I found a bf. Things were great and I was willing to overlook all his shortcomings, and there were MANY. We lasted for a year at first and then he took a break from me for a week because he was confused about what he felt about me. We got back together and went on for almost another year, until last Feb. right around Valentine's Day weekend, when I took him on a weekend getaway. During that weekend, I realized that my feelings had changed for him and I began to regard him with distaste. That led to me pulling away from him, and him to eventually dump me. Sometimes, I think that why I am so angry and upset right now, and want him back is that because I feel so rejected and because I wanted a bf for the idea of having a bf.

 

If I really look at things in retrospect, I think the only person I really truly loved was my best friend/first ex. Too bad he turned out to be gay. That really did a number on me, but we are good friends right now. He proved his worth to me because he never let me out of his life even when he found his bf.

[Carnatic]

Renaissancewoman if you were confused about your feelings for him maybe it wasn't love. I mean I'm in no position to say how you know when you are in love, but I certainly know what signs might indicate you aren't... I only say maybe though because I don't know whether it's possible to love someone, yet become confused about your feelings. Well it is natural that having been together for 2 years, you will be unsure at first whether it was love, because you will have developed feelings for him and these could be confused for love. It could be of course that it was the fact that you were desperate for a bf when you met him, that made you doubt whether it was real love. I have always felt, that having had false alarms in the past, and heard about other false alarms friends have had, that if I do fall in love then I will also be in doubt as to whether I am in love really, and will mainly be wondering if the fact I have been desperately lonely up till now in life has made me too quick to think I'm in love.