Is It Really Love?

Have you been dating someone for a while? Are you starting to wonder if he or she might be the one? Are you thinking that maybe you are ready to really commit to this person? Are you wondering if the feelings are mutual? Are you questioning if what you are feeling is real love?

Or For That Matter, What Is Real Love?

Sometimes it is easier to describe something with actions than with a definition. So, if you are wondering if you are in a REAL mutually loving relationship, here are some things that you will naturally want to do for your boyfriend or girlfriend and that they will want to do for you:

  • Spend more focused time with each other than your other friends.
  • Are excited to be with each other and are happy when you are together.
  • Make each other feel special by the things you say and do.
  • Respect each other. Not only when you're alone, but also when you are around other people.
  • Are patient with each other, even when one of you makes a mistake.
  • Speak well of each other to other people.
  • Protect each other.
  • Communicate with each other frequently. Talk about what's going on in your life and what you are feeling.
  • Listen to each other, looking in each other's eyes while they are talking to you.
  • Are sensitive to each other's feelings and needs.
  • Put each other before yourself.
  • Trust each other.
  • Show respect for each other's parents and other friends.
  • Are willing to make sacrifices for each other.
  • Tell each other you love them.

Love Never Ends

This kind of loving relationship is described in the famous love chapter in the Bible..."Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends."  (I Corinthians 13)

When you read that verse or look at the list above, do those things describe your relationship? If so, then you may be ready to really commit to another person - to live your life together and walk alongside them for better or for worse. To really love someone is deciding to put another person before yourself.   True, romantic love is so much more than just a gooey, warm feeling. Those feelings of infatuation won't always be there, but a commitment to another person will.

Honestly, Is It Really Love?

So many students I talk with think they are deeply in love with someone and yet they have no idea whether or not they are being loved in return. Honestly, if you don't know if you are in a loving relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend, then you probably aren't. I actually believe that many people know, deep down, that they are not in a loving relationship, but they are resigned to being treated in a less than loving way just to keep the relationship going.

This is the situation Leah finds herself in:  I have a boyfriend and I love him, but I'm not sure if he loves me, too. He always ignores me, or I feel so left out. He used to tell me he loved me, and he missed me a lot, but he never does anymore. I really don't want to leave him because I still love him. We've been going out for four months now, today is our anniversary, and he forgot about it. But I still love him, because I know he has problems in his life. -Leah

Many of the same ways you show your boyfriend or girlfriend that you love them are the very actions or attitudes to look for to see if they love you back. If you feel you are the one holding the relationship together and have told your significant other how you feel about them and have yet to see any signs of love from them, you might have to decide whether this person is capable of showing any kind of love or if they really love you.

Maddie wishes her boyfriend would show his love for her in more consistent ways: I have a boyfriend but sometimes when I hang with my friend Nick and some of my other guy friends, I feel like they like me more than my bf. I know my bf loves me and he shows it when he's with me, but when he's not with me or he's with his friends, he just acts different to me. He won't even hold my hand or anything. It's like he's shy around his friends, and I don't want him to be. I just feel he could he show me he loves me a little more and I really wish he would. He doesn't even say I love you¦ is that bad?

The problem for Maddie is that her boyfriend is telling her that he doesn't really love her. He loves what his friends think about him, more than what she thinks or feels.

How Do They Really Feel About You?

Even if we are certain the other person knows exactly how we feel about them, it is always important for your boyfriend or girlfriend to hear or see your love demonstrated. A loving relationship that is maturing will work hard to communicate that love. Put another way, if you are in a committed relationship with someone you should know how they feel about you and they should know how you feel about them.

It takes a tremendous amount of work to continue having a loving relationship. But it's worth it. And it is the type of relationship God created you to have. So please don't settle for less.

There is nothing more powerful and beautiful than true love. Love comes first from God, because God is love. God is the one who will give us the strength to show love to others.

Still searching for answers about love and your relationship?  Read, How to Find A Meaningful Relationship to explore ways to help our relationship.

Think you are "just buzzed"? It is called drunk driving.

Sierra called me. She told me her best friend died right in front of her when a drunk driver hit them.

Listen here:

Sierra used this tragedy in her life as motivation to try to help others and keep them from experiencing the same type of loss that she did. I commend her for what she is doing, and I want to show my support by lending my voice to the conversation about drunk driving.

There have been good campaigns to raise awareness about drunk driving. Yet even so, alcohol-related car accidents claimed one life every 52 minutes in the United States or 10,000 lives a year. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). This is the equivalent of 20 Jumbo Jets crashing and killing everyone on board. Can you imagine the public outrage if 20 Jumbo Jets crashed in one year? 10,000 lives a year this is unacceptable.

I hope you are not under the misconception that the drivers in these drunk driving-related accidents are all alcoholics or raging drunks. Many times it is someone who had one too many drinks and still thought they were o.k. to drive.

The Ad Council put out a series of ads a few years ago highlighting the fact that Buzzed Drivingis Drunk Driving. This message is important to repeat.

Today I want to dig a little deeper into what buzzed driving might include, so that anyone reading this will no longer be able to say, ¦but I thought I was fine.

Here is a statement from the NHTSA “

Alcohol not only impairs your ability to drive, it impairs your judgment about whether you can or should drive. Too often, people who drink think they are okay to get behind the wheel because they only feel a buzz. The truth is you don't have to be falling down drunk to be a menace to everyone around you on the highways. Remember, Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving.

Here's another way to look at it “ If you have been drinking enough to say "I'm just buzzed" then basically you are already drunk. Your ability to drive safely has already been impaired. One doesn't have to be falling down drunk, reeling from wall to wall to have their judgment and coordination affected.

Now I'm going to get a bit technical for a moment because I think this is important to understand.

In all 50 states, the LEGAL Blood alcohol limit is .08. However, let's look at how the body is affected at even lesser levels of blood alcohol content (BAC).

With a BAC of 0.03 - 0.06, you experience feelings of warmth, relaxation, mild sedation; exaggeration of emotion and behavior; slight decrease in reaction time and in fine-muscle coordination; impaired judgment about continued drinking.

By 0.07 - 0.09 you demonstrate more noticeable speech impairment and disturbance of balance; impaired motor coordination, hearing and vision; feeling of elation or depression; increased confidence; may not recognize impairment.

So how much do you have to drink to get to these BAC levels NOT? THAT. MUCH.

For an average 150-pound person, if they have 1 drink in one hour, they will be right around a .03 BAC and after two drinks they would be at a .06. (A drink equals 12 oz of beer, 5 oz. of wine, or 1.5 ounces of hard alcohol.) You need to ask yourself already, is it worth the risk to get behind the wheel?

Also “ you may have heard it said, It's been an hour, since I've had a drink so I'm fine. But the truth is that the body absorbs alcohol more quickly than it processes it. This is why alcohol concentrations build steadily while drinking. On average, your blood alcohol content only decreases by .015 an hour. So if you had two beers in an hour raising your BAC to .06 you can only subtract .015 from that for the time allowance.

I share these detailed numbers because I want you to understand how little it takes to become impaired. There are so many misconceptions and I want to shoot straight with you because I KNOW you don't want your uninformed actions to ever take life. Find more information by clicking here to go to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

If you are ever in doubt, just get a ride!

The point of cutting is ultimately to cover over a much deeper emotional pain.

Self-Harm Defined

Self-harm is a way of coping with overwhelming emotional feelings such as sadness, self-hate, emptiness, or guilt by purposefully inflicting injury on oneself. It is a secretive and incredibly harmful addiction. It can take on many different forms such as cutting or burning of skin. And it is destroying too many lives.

This is why Samantha says she cuts: Every time I cut, everything that I feel is GONE! This fall it will be three years that I have been addicted. And I can't help it. I can't go over two days without it. It is what brings me up so I don't have to feel emotional pain, because I've learned physical pain is nothing compared to emotional.

And Christina said, "I know a girl that started cutting a couple years ago. She was doing it because of some family problems, so I started doing it too, not because of what they said but because it's the only way for me to help myself deal with all of the feelings I hold inside."

For those who struggle with painful, emotional issues, self-injury is a way to release their internal suffering and deal with feelings that are not easy for them to express. It is a way for them to feel in control. Since they can't control their emotional pain, they control their physical pain through cutting, etc. People who self-harm are not trying to kill themselves; they are trying to cope.


Related Posts:
A Door of Hope
Why Do People Self-Harm?
Real Story: Artist Michaela Hatfield
How To Quit Cutting


Listen to what Cassandra had to say when she called into my radio show.

Self-Harm Statistics

  • Each year one in five females and one in seven males engage in self-harm.
  • 90% of people who engage in self-harm begin in their teen or pre-teen years.
  • Nearly 50% of those who engage in self-harm have been sexually abused.

Exact numbers of people who cut are difficult to come by, since most cutters conceal their addiction and injuries. Yet rates of cutting are much higher among younger people, with the average age starting around 12 years old.

Common Forms of Self-Harm

  • Cutting or severely scratching skin
  • Carving words or symbols into skin
  • Burning or scalding skin
  • Biting
  • Sticking objects into your skin
  • Pulling hair out
  • Swallowing poisonous substances or objects

Facts, figures, and definitions are all fine. But if you are a cutter, you know the agony can not be described in numbers or words. You may be cutting and not even know why. And now that you've started, it is hard to stop. Your brain has connected the false sense of relief with cutting, and the addictive cycle begins. You self-harm¦you feel guilty about it¦you don't know how to deal with your guilt¦so you self-harm.

If you are self-harming, I am here to tell you there is hope for you!

With a little help, you CAN stop the addiction and you are not alone.

We all have things we deal with...problems, conflict, abuse in our lives.  It's hard to know who to talk to, who will listen and not judge, who will offer good advice and not just say the first thing that pops in their head., who will understand but not let your issues affect the way they feel towards you. That's why TheHopeLine is here. It's a safe, non-judgmental place to talk about your struggles.  Here are a few courageous people that reached out for help and found TheHopeLine in time to help them in their time of need. Talking about it - CAN HELP.

I made some bad choices over the summer resulting in therapy to try and better myself. Once the therapy stopped, my feelings got worse. I tried reaching out to friends and family, but no one was really there to help and some friends and family members even caused more problems for me. I started to have suicidal thoughts once again and harmed myself for the first time in several years.
The conversation with my HopeCoach helped me get these things off my chest and showed me that I mattered.

They made me realize the good things I have to look forward to, helped me realize that I do matter, and showed me some new resources in case I get worse again.

My conversation with my HopeCoach helped me immensely! ~Jordan

When I found your site I was skeptical at first, I never told anyone about my dilemma. When I was very little my brother, who is ten years older than me, started abusing me. He would make me do sexual things to him and do things back to me that I didn't want. He repeatedly did things to me that was and never will be right. He threatened to kill me and my mom (he was my step brother and we shared the same father) and I was scared to tell anyone in fear of being hurt by him.

When I was 5, he went too far and took my virginity. When I was 5 years old! That was the line for me and I had the guts to tell my parents and he was sent to jail. I blocked these things out of my mind until a year ago...memories flooded back and I couldn't control myself. I started self-harming.  When I found out he had been allowed out of prison, I was so scared that I tried to commit suicide.

When I found this website I was in lots of pain and telling my story really helped me and I'm in a better place now.

Thank you, you really helped me. ~Jessica

Dear TheHopeLine,

Talking to a wonderful person through email over the past few years (I am now 25, started talking to him when I was 22) has really helped me. He checks in on me once or twice a month to see how I am doing. This guy has really helped me see the good of life and I learned a lot from him. I am now in college being successful.

Thank you for saving my life before it got too bad where it could have killed me. You all rock!
~Charles

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