What is meant by "your are the love of my life?
How do you know if that person is "the love of my life"?

Youngrose,

I firmly believe that even though the saying should be readily
understood, it may mean different things to others- so this is only my
thoughts on it. I imagine my grandfather standing at his wifes
funeral, recalling the one that  truely was the love of his life. It
was not that she was just a great love of his life, but she was the
one love that touched deeper than any other. It defines a love that
casts shadows on all other loves, both before and after. The phrase
brings to mind the love of my life, one which out shined all others. I
believe there are great loves out there, but then theres the greatest.
One which can not be matched by any other. It surpasses your
expectations, is felt deeper than any other love which you may have,
and when lost can hurt more than anything emotional or physical. I
don't know if everyone finds "the love of their life", but if they do
I imagine it being like the Christmas you always remember the best
after you are grown. The one that you held your breath for the night
before, the one where you got everything you had asked for and then
things you never even knew you wanted- but after having them couldn't
live without.

As for knowing that someone is the love of your life- personally, I
just know. I don't love him despite his imperfections, but because of
them. It's knowing that never could I feel so deeply about someone as
I do him. I don't care for the "he completes me" thing because truely
you should never need someone to complete you- you should be able to
function as a complete person without the assistance of someone else-
however I feel that its more like he draws out a better me, and I draw
out a better him. I knowing even at the roughest time for him I
wouldn't trade it for the greatest time with someone else.

**Then again I am still a hopeless romantic, so there may be a more
scientific answer to your question.

lru

Wow Iru....

You sound like you are truly in love.
Great comment!!

Steph53

Nice one IRU, This is what I call emotional expression.
Inorder to answer the question one needs to really understand the
pivotal point of the question which is "love"
Love is a mixtue of neurochemical reactions in your brain combined
with your personality (mixture of your genetic and acquired
experiences, hardcoded as your neural pathways), strength of your
Amigdala (part of brain responsible for emotions) and the lack of
processing power of your Frontal Cortex (part of brain responsible for
cognition and judgement) to suppress amigdala.
This unique cocktail of actions, reactions and chemicals result in a
feeling which goes above and beyond of just mammalian sex and results
in a bonding environment, which can be short term (infatuation) and
long term (love).
  Long term doesnt mean it would last forever, love can change if the
pre requisites and empathic base criterias are not constant or
exceeding the values on which it started, it can resist some time lack
of such thresholds, but not for long. In any case it is a feeling that
we all adhore to bits.
Now back to the question,
What does "Love of ones life" means
It is a combination of english words to form a sentence that explains
and emphasises ones empathic strength of the phenomena called love (as
explained above) and stretching it to ones whole physical life to
potray that the have the feeling for the person in question that
encompasses their being and not any part of their personality or being
is out of it.
Having said that it also can mean that if we divide or break down a
persons life in parts, e.g a part for selfpleasure, a part for family,
a part for business, a part for emotions etc then the part that refers
to emotions and subcategory love is dedicated to someone in question.
Success results when one multitasks all aspects of all the parts
effectively according to their own priority in their own categories,
laterally and doesnt mix and prioritze everything vertically.
Hope it makes sense. Thanks

In order to answer the part, "how do you know if they are the love of your life"
This is experience and time based. If through time you see that the
bond developed is "unconditional" and still gets the feeling described
as "love", then one should know that they have hit the spot!

Rose,
    " The love of your life " is the person you have loved the most up
until today. Tomorrow you may find a different " love of your life ".

These are two questions and I'm not from english speaking culture,
but here is my thought...

If you want to be analytical... I would "measure" that, by how deep
or/and long you feel about a person. If you want to be more precise:
research how do YOU (yourself) experience/define love?

Hi Youngrose,

I asked this very same question some time ago on my dating tips site
at www.dating-tips-online.com and the most popular answers were as
follows:

1/ If your partner truly IS the love of your life then you will not
have to ask yourself the question ..... You just KNOW IT.

2/ There is no such thing as 'THE love of your life'.  If you're 'in
love' with someone today then effectively, right now, they're the love
of your life. However, in 2 years time, you could be 'in love' with
someone different .... and at that time THEY will be the love of your
life.

3/ We very often need to feel that what we have now is better than
anything we've had before and so calling someone the 'love of your
life' is what we do to distinguish love we feel now to that we've felt
in the past ie "I was in love with my last boyfriend but this one
truly is the love of my life".

Chris

Interesting question and interesting answers. My input doesn't have
much substance, but I can say that over my life of 43 years I have had
many "love of my life" relationships. And I have had many, "I'll never
find another girl that loved me like she loved me" and "that I loved
like I loved her". But, obviously I did. Or else my "love of my life"
would only have happened once.

So, for now, until I find a "love of my life" that sticks, there's
always the online dating sites. Doh!
http://www.local-singles.us/dating.html

i have 8 lovers and the one who reciprocates least is my love of my life!