The L Word

Lately, my brain has been a treacherous sort of brain.  I’ll just be sitting there, driving my car with the boyfriend beside me and out of nowhere pops, “You love him.”  This is causing me so much stress that I think it’s actually causing me to have migraines because I’m unable (or unwilling) to actually say the words out loud for a multitude of reasons.

The first one being, I’m not sure I can trust my brain yet when it comes to this.  Those words should never be taken lightly – and I can’t tell if my brain is just reacting to similar situations and automatically making me think that.  I mean, I was in a long term committed relationship for however long with someone else, and I more or less jumped right into this one.  It’s possible that my brain isn’t really processing the person I’m with, and more the fact that I used to be able to say it often (and mean it) and now my brain feels like it’s a necessary part of the relationship.  If that’s the case, do I really feel it?  How do I know when it’s real and not just my brain thinking it’s real?

The second part is, I don’t want to put myself out there like that – I’m not ready to be hurt again like I was before and for some reason I suspect that saying those words out loud gives them power to hurt me.  I mean, we’ve been together for two months at this point, friends for ten months, and there are still times when I’m in a state of disbelief that we’re actually together as a couple.  He’s so much more intelligent, hotter, older, wiser, you name it, and I feel like he has it on me – and when you feel like a relationship is so unbalanced, that just means that eventually he’ll want to get rid of me and find someone who is more his equal.

(Of course, if he heard me say that outloud he would tell me I’m being too harsh on myself and that there are plenty of areas where I’m at his level or better – but I can’t shake the feeling when it comes to opening myself up for a world of pain.)

So instead of actually saying the words when they pop into my head, I ignore it.   Not quite sure how long I can keep doing this though…

How do you know when you’re truly in love?

  • chemegirljaime

    that’s always a hard decision… when to say those three little words. Only they’re not little… they’re huge. My mum once told me that if you don’t know whether you love someone or you’re IN love with them.. you’re not IN love. It never made sense to me until a few years ago when I split with my ex… see.. I loved him.. but I wasn’t IN love with him. It’s a distinction that you can only know if you’ve experienced it.

    my heart is with you.. because I know where you’re at. When the bf and I started dating 3 years ago… we both said it really soon… 3 years later.. we’re still saying it.

    • http://www.howmanyfrogs.com/ Stephanie Dorman

      I guess my biggest problem is that I can’t trust my judgement when it comes to this anymore – because I was so sure with Zack and now I feel like my relationship mojo is all out of whack.

      What I do know is that the boyfriend is pretty much perfect for me in every way – but I’m not sure how that conveys in terms of emotions and feelings and I’m REALLY annoyed that my brain keeps popping those three words in my head when I don’t feel like I’m ready to say them.

      • chemegirljaime

        just give it some time… maybe discuss it with him too… see how he’s feeling about those three little words.