Have you ever loved anyone?

sniff....i have felt this kind of love you are talking about. i have always had a conflict with my partners because they expect me to say 'i love you' so freely. for me it is really precious words...i cannot just say it to anyone, even if i DO feel love for them. there is LOVING someone and BEING IN LOVE with someone. they are different. you can have a girlfriend/boyfriend,and love them a lot....but it doesn't mean you are IN LOVE with them. that is possibly one of the reasons for some couples' failed marriages or cheating on each other, because one of the partners found the REAL LOVE they were looking for. for me...i have a boyfriend. there is love involved...BUT i am IN LOVE with someone else who i can never be with. this kind of love is one i want to share with this person, but i don't want him to change his life to be with me. he found his love without me, and i don't want to ruin it for him. so for me, if i can simply tell him my feelings, that is enough. just for him to know someone loved him if one day he is feeling alone or sad. i don't want anything in return from him. my true feelings for this person are the greatest gift (even though it also makes me sad since the love cannot be shared) if i could give him one present, it would be just a small thing...maybe written on a scrap of paper just with 'i love you'.... but i won't do that. that makes it a selfish thing....if i would tell him my feelings, even though i don't want anything in return, it would change his life. he is happy, and i don't want to change anything for him. so i suffer, but the most important thing is that HE is happy. so i will never ruin his happiness by selfishly telling him how i feel. maybe as old folks, when we are 80 and both lost our wife/husband/etc...i can tell him as a friend. nothing more.

I don't think many people love someone wholeheartedly, because love is an ongoing process, and needs work from the lover. It's not easy to love someone without the effort of actually working at it, because there are so many things about the person who's being loved that can stop you loving them. Loving is when you keep coming back to that person and keep loving them in spite of what's happened in the past.