How Do I Know If I Am In Love? (Part 2)

The third thought on my mind... (Note: If this is your first eGrace, you should realize at this point that you need to visit the lifetime.org eGrace archives and get caught up.)

Someone said that love is blind. I think he was right, and this assessment is both bad and good.

I do not look today like I looked the day my wife agreed to marry me. While never a chick magnet, what magnetism I did have no longer turns any lovelies' head when I cruise by with my gimpy hip. However, my wife's love is somewhat blind to my age, and she still thinks I am the greatest thing since sliced bread. In this way the blindness of love is a good thing.

On the other hand, when you are attempting to determine if you truly are in love with someone—like you are right now—and trying to do so while enmeshed with the other person, love is blind as a bat. This is a bad thing! When you are toying with the rest of your life, and another person's heart, it is a bad thing to lose your objectivity.

My point is this: If you find yourself wondering if you are in love and there are no friends around who can give you TRULY honest feedback about what they are observing in you, then you are on dangerous ground. Love is not isolated. Love works best when there is someone close enough to you to provide objective perspective every now and then.

Fourth, love does not hurry, does not get in a panic, does not force the issue, does not try to conform you into their image—or themselves into yours—does not reduce your emotional bank account in order to increase their own, and does not demand things of you that will place you in jeopardy should you decide in the near future to part ways.

While love is blind, marriage is a truth serum. It is fairly easy to talk a great game when it comes to love. As close as you feel when you feel like you are in love, you can still bob and weave, dodge and duck, and evade really being laid bare for the other person to clearly observe you and all that comes with you.

Marriage is infinitely closer than being in love is. You can't get away from it! The naked honesty of marriage can be incredibly grand and disarmingly raw given its inescapable candor.

Take your time. Marriage is not a sprint. It is a marathon!