Talk is Cheap - What Does it Really Mean to Tell Someone “I Love You”?

What does it mean to tell someone "I love you"? 

How many times have people said that to you in your lifetime? 

The words are great to hear.  They make us feel all warm and mushy inside.  Of course, there are different kinds of love. Our minister may say "I love you" but it means something different than when our child says, "I love you".  And of course it means something entirely different when our lover says, "I love you."

How do we know what those words mean and are the words enough?

Here’s another great article by featured author Melody Brooke. I know on some level we can all relate to what she’s saying…

Love in Action

What does it mean to tell someone "I love you"? 

How many times have people said that to you in your lifetime? 

The words are great to hear.  They make us feel all warm and mushy inside.  Of course, there are different kinds of love. Our minister may say "I love you" but it means something different than when our child says, "I love you".  And of course it means something entirely different when our lover says, "I love you."

How do we know what those words mean and are the words enough? I know women like to hear the words, too many years of living with the silent types who can’t say the words can grate on a person after a while.  But its possible to hear the words over and over from people who don’t show it, and the words become meaningless. 

A child who is regularly beaten by his parents hears the words "I love you" and begins to think that love means being hit.  A child whose parents left her at her grandparents for weeks on end hear the words "I love you" and learns that the words mean abandonment.  The words are only meaningful through the action that accompanies them. 

Love then is an action. The actions teach us what the words mean.

I was married to a man who was wonderful on Valentine’s day, on Mother’s Day, on Christmas, and sometimes on my birthday, but the rest of the year failed to take the actions to show me that I was loved. Do I believe he loved me? Yes, I think he did to the extent that he was capable. But I needed him to show me. 

Small things help us know that our partner is thinking of us, sometimes they are microscopic…