Uh oh! Here comes Valentine's Day

[haphazard]

You are right of course if I feel it I should say it. For clarification HD - that's what I meant - when I feel like I love him.

When H and I first got together I knew I loved him because my heart would give an excited little skip at the thought of seeing him again. In these last 8 years or so my heart has sunk to my boots at the thought of him walking into the house. I don't expect to get back to the point of feeling the same excited feelings but I would like to get back to feeling happy anticipation when I hear the key in the door. I do now feel comfortable with him walking in, not dread so that is an improvement.

I totally agree that I am being controlling by not saying it when I do feel it. OTOH H has handed that control over to me. If he loves me he needs to get to the point where he is comfortable to let me be and to let me let him be.

When we had the first talk about it (still drinking) he claimed that love was a constant thing and when it was off it was off like a light and that was that. Kind of like a life really something is either alive or it is dead - no in between. I don't feel like love is like that, I feel like it is something that ebbs and flows. Sometimes it is just oozing out of everything you do for that person (or they do for you), sometimes it goes on vacation, sometimes it just kind of hangs out and reads the paper. So to me it seems like if I say ILY to him in his terms it means that constant thing, whereas in my terms it means "in this moment I feel love for you".

It's a bit like what Deida says about women lying, we don't lie we just express what we feel in the moment and that can change. The love I feel when I feel it is a surge of pure delight in spending that moment with that person. How could that be constant?

Fran