Love Letters
Q. My girlfriend (29-year-old female) and I (31-year-old female) have been dating for four months and it has been amazing. She is everything I have been seeking in a partner for so long; we are able to talk openly with one another and have a wonderfully positive energy together. We have many shared values and I can truly see building a life with her.
She said she loved me after just two months but I still haven’t been able to bring myself to get to that place emotionally. I often look at her and feel such a swell of emotion but when I think about saying the words out loud it doesn’t feel right yet. She hasn’t been pressuring me and constantly assures me that she feels loved and cared for, even though I haven’t said those words, but I am constantly tinged with guilt that despite my intense feelings they aren’t enough for me to vocalize and commit to the words I love you.
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I keep spiraling about how I define love and what it means to say those words to someone. For friends and family I easily say I love you but I even question if the times I said it in past relationships it was true. I know there isn’t one answer to fit everyone, but I’m really at a loss as to how I can try to determine what my true feelings are.
ILY
A. I say this a lot: “I love you” means different things to different people at different times.
“I love you” at three months is not the same as “I love you” at five years. That’s why I love specificity. Describing love can be the most romantic thing. No wonder poets keep doing it!
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Maybe you’re in a phase that resembles E.E. Cummings’s “i have found what you are like,” as opposed to “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in],” which is the one I hear at weddings.
Maybe you’re in Emily Dickinson mode. I suggest “The Outlet,” for a poem, but I’ll admit there are probably better ones that represent whatever you might feel right now.
For the record, I wish Edna St. Vincent Millay — who, in my professional opinion, wrote the best bangers about breakups (“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied” is my favorite) — gave us a few more poems about the happy part of love. But I get it. She was into sadness … for reasons.
The point is, your description of how you feel, with specifics, is like a poem. “I want to love you. I shudder when you say you love me because I am scared, hopeful — and hope I am worthy. I want to protect us by saying what is true when I am sure, and have courage. But I know right now that every moment you’re around, I want more.”
There you go. That’s some Emily Dickinson-knockoff-Goldstein-written poetry for wooing.
Just say what you feel. If you find, eventually, that you’re not sure you’re in love at all, you can say that, too.
MEREDITH
READERS RESPOND:
Some people are never good at saying “I love you” but they’re good at showing their love. Maybe your girlfriend is smart enough to know this. If you communicate well and enjoy one another’s company, maybe it really isn’t a big deal to her. She’s trying to tell you she likes you as you are. As for your true feelings, you’re still getting to know each other. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself. Let the relationship grow at its own pace.
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PHILONIA
The letter reads as though you’re looking for that one relationship where saying “I love you” just naturally happens. Sort of like how your GF feels about you. Only you will know if that’s ever going to happen in this current relationship. If you don’t think that day will come then you need to be honest with yourself, and her.
SOXSUPPORTER
Stop the hand wringing over these words. When you really feel it you will know.
LEFTYLUCY7
Send your own relationship and dating questions to loveletters@globe.com or fill out this form. Catch new episodes of Meredith Goldstein’s “Love Letters” podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Column and comments are edited and reprinted from boston.com/loveletters.