Love is a toxic word

I wanted to say "I love you," but I couldn't

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Love, of course, can have many rather distinct meanings. Some do not present any likely ambiguation, as in the expression, "I love this lasagna."

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Others, however, especially in the romantic sense, are often fraught with ambiguation and lack of clarity, both on the part of the speaker and the listener.

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When I got involved with Ella (let's go back to 1970) when I was living in Elmhurst, New York City, it didn't take long before I fell pretty deeply in love with her. At least it felt deep to me. When I touched her I could feel my fingers expressing, "I love you, I love you!"

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But I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. With some self reflection, I found the reason: I was concerned about her coming back to me later feeling hurt and saying something like, "You said you loved me, but why did you do this or why didn't you do that?"

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What did I mean when I felt the desire to say to her "I love you"?

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This I had to think about. Finally, I arrived at the following:

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"If I were to say the words, 'I love you,' they would mean this to me.

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"Whenever I think of you I get a bit excited and feel soft in my heart. I notice I am looking forward to our next time together.

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"Whenever I am with you, I want to pay attention to you, I want to listen to you and for you to feel listened to by me. I want you to feel safe with me.

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"Whenever I touch you, I feel a spark of excitement and specialness. I often find myself wanting to touch you and make you feel cherished and pleasured with my caresses.

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"Whenever I make love to you, not only does it open up my heart even more, but I have a strong desire to drive you crazy and feel my power with you.

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"To be in the same room with you gives an extra meaning to my life.

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"I know that love is risky. And though I can make no guarantees about you or me, I will do what I can to strengthen and continue this exquisite sense of relationship that I have with you as long as possible."

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I knew what to say to Ella then...

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"Ella, I want to tell you what it would to me if I said the words, 'I love you.' Let me share that with you."

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Then, after I told her what the word "love" meant to me, as I described above, I asked her, "If I feel this way toward you, would it be okay with you for me to express all those words in the simple expression, 'I love you, Ella'?"

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She said she would like that.

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Although we did not end up "staying together forever," I think that I can say for both of us, we have good memories of the time we spent together and who we were for each other during that time.

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Incidentally, Ella loved the old Buster Keaton (think Charlie Chaplin) movies and introduced them to me. She always found out when one of them was playing in one of those small artsy cinemas in New York City and we would go see it together. The one I remember in particular was the black-and-while silent movie called "The General" that was released in 1926.

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Prove that you love me

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"If you loved me, you would..."

"If I loved her, I would..."

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Most of us have a grab bag full of rules and images of what love means, both for ourself and others. Most often we are not explicit, either with ourselves or the other person about what those are. We enter into relationships, with everything seeming great, only to later discover that the contents of our grab bag and the contents of theirs are not so compatible.

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Not only that, we go into love as if there is something to prove, not just something to express. Also, we go into love believing that it's not true love unless it lasts forever, which no one could or should try to guarantee.

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I like the vow that Byron Katie made when she married Stephen Mitchell. "I promise to love you as long as I do."

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Another common context in which we often use the word love toxically

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"I'm doing this because I love you." Parents often justify their controlling and disrespectful behavior in the name of love. Our idea of love often devolves into forcing or blaming someone into doing "what is good for them." Because of their idea of love, it's a big challenge, if not impossible, for parents to stay out of their children's business.

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And, when the children get older, it's often difficult for the children to stay out of their parent's business.

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Is love self-sacrifice?

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This happens between spouses but we most often see it between parents and children, especially in Asia. 

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Parents expect themselves to sacrifice for their kids (message to kids is: "I'm not doing this because I want to, it's because it's my obligation. And hopefully you'll feel obligated to take care of me when I get older.")

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Children expect themselves to sacrifice for their parents (message to parents is: "I'm not doing this because I want to, it's because you went through all that suffering for me and now it's my obligation.")

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The parents sacrifice for the kids and then the kids sacrifice for the parents. There is no win for anybody in any of this.

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