Dictionaries define love by the symptoms, and the feelings, that love can give us, but not by what love really is that causes those symptoms.
“Strong affection, feelings of attachment, sexual attraction in romantic love”, and so on, are all valid descriptions of the feelings that love can give us. But those feelings can be gone instantly when a nasty argument or disagreement occurs, and those feelings of love can return when the people who love each other get over that episode.

This would be like defining a broken hip as “severe pain and being unable to walk”. Again, those are symptoms and results of a broken hip, and do not define what a broken hip is. You can have severe pain from a heart attack. You can be unable to walk due to a stroke or because you’re in deep water.
A broken hip means a bone in the area of your hip joint got fractured, usually at the upper part of a femur bone; femurs are the largest bones in our body, going from our hips to the knees.

So, what is love, and why does that matter?

My definition of love is, “The ultimate, the maximum, of caring and trust in the relationship of two people”. This covers love between family members, and between friends, as well as romantic love. Romantic love does include a mutually shared physical, sexual, attraction as a symptom not part of other love relationships.

Here is what is so important about the true definition: Let’s say two friends, or a parent and child, or a romantically involved couple in love, whether married officially or not, is disrupted by a severe disagreement. The two feuding, disagreeing, parties need to remember and remind each
other that, underneath the bad stuff currently going on, there is something that is more important… there is the love! Love, the ultimate, the maximum of caring and trust for each other.

Yes, one or both of the two people may have made a mistake, or more than one, that was seriously hurtful to the other person. Guess what. Humans make mistakes. We need to try to apologize and to correct our behavior going forward. Violence, divorce and severe depression are not the best answers.
Remembering and talking about the underlying love can make things better. Resolving disputes on the same day they first occur, is a plan that works well. There need be no cost involved, either long term emotionally, nor financially.

Forget about the dictionary definition of love. Those emotional feelings can be gone in an instant. But, those feelings can return quickly with the proper definition of love. What you believe, determines what you will do, what your behavior will be. What you do, determines the results you will get for your life, barring unavoidable injuries or illnesses.

Your SELF LOVE, which includes self respect, self esteem and self confidence, can even help you deal more successfully with non-fatal injuries and serious illnesses. Without self love, SHARED LOVE is not easy, and without both of those, SELF EXPRESSION, showing yourself and others what you can do and accomplish, is also very difficult. These are the three fundamental emotional needs of our lives.

We can also love things in our lives. I hope you love this blog, intended to help solve problems.

Your friendly problem solver,
Dr Ed