what's the difference between having a crush and beeing in love?

Having a crush is just liking/admiring their looks and/or personality especially if you don't know them that well. Love is deeper, you love their soul and it's not just about looks or even personality sometimes. You feel connected with the person. Deep trust

crush: when you admire them, get a nice feeling from them, and if they're the gender you're attracted to it's likely you'll have a "crush"

being in love: I don't think it can be explained as easily

A crush is more intense and it's more lust. Love lasts a lot longer.

The difference is very slight.

And neither ARE love.

A crush:

Our unconscious reads the other person's unconscious signals. Our unconscious recognizes that this other person will treat us in a way that reinforces our unconscious attitudes. Since 97% of us grow up in dysfunctional families, almost always our unconscious atitudes are painful. And so we pick someone who will cause us the pain that we expect to receive.

Accordingly, our unconscious then starts pumping out neurochemicals that literally make us "high" over the other person.

We obsess over them, we feel a compelling draw to them, our heart skips a beat, we may get butterflies in our stomach, we can think of nothing else, we yearn and lust to touch them, when they smile at us we are elated

A crush is a fantasy we construct about the other person. And we are indeed "crushed" if they walk by us and don't smile at us.

IF we actually get together with them, reality ends up crushing the fantasy we have built We usually end up deeply disillusioned, and often hate the other person..

Being in love is usually the same thing.

A crush is when we do not relate with this person in a relationship way .. and being in love is a crush over someone we ARE in a bf/gf relationship with.

It is being in love with being in love, and believing that the other person is the cause of our elation. The same excitement as with a crush, except that now we think we will DIE if they leave us. We feel we cannot live without them, and we are in ecstasy when we relating with them. We spend almost all our time away from them yearning to be with them.

(which, interestingly, robs us of our abiiity to actually enjoy ourselves and to enjoy LIFE, since we have invested everything into someone else).

Here again, we see that our brain is pumping out those chemicals that make us high.

And the infatuation will die out anywhere from 2-3 days, to 2-3 years, after getting with the person. That is because all body systems - including our brain chemistry - always seeks to restore itself to normal. This process is called "homeostasis" and it is the reason why a dieter's weight will yo-yo ... the body tries to get BACK to what it weighed before the diet began.

At any rate, most "love" dies out when the infatuation/crush phase ends. One or both is propelled ONLY by the enthusiasm and high of the infatuation, but they mistake it as being love for the other. So when the infatuation dies out, they no longer "love" the other, and often they don't even know why they no longer feel the same way.

Infatuation/crushing/being in love with being in love .. these are all the same. It is a feeling. A selfish attachment to the other person and especially to how they make US feel

Love is never about things that are selfish, never about attachment.

What we mistakenly call love always ends up hurting.

We need this person to understand us and love us, but since no one is perfect, no relationship will be perfect either. It only SEEMS perfect during the infatuation stage, when neither of us are being our true selves, because we are both literally high, drunk on love . and are not behaving as we normally do.

Sooner or later, problems start, and unless we are emotionally mature enough to work with our own emotions and cognitive formations, we blame the other for how we feel and the disillusionment, the resentment and alienation and fighting begin and it drives a wedge into the relationship.

The MORE we look to love to "fix" our life for us, the more we overreact and poison the relationship once the infatuation and honeymoon phase has ended.

So what IS love?

It is an action. An action that arises from setting aside our OWN interests, attachments and self-concerns, and addresses what the other person needs.

Love is never about us.

We can love a stranger our neighbour, our family/friends/lover/spouse .. and when we DO love, it is always a gift.

We set aside our own needs and expectations and emotions, in order to act in ways that benefit the other.

In romantic relationships, it is not until we start living WITH them, as their partner, handling and balancing the issues and tasks of life as a team, and learning to work together and to trust each other .. not until then will true love even START to grow.

Dishonesty crushes it. Fighting threatens it, and it takes 5 good events, equally as strong, to balance out the negative effect of one bad event.

In the end we find that we have to work with our own emotions or we cannot BE loving .. instead we try to make the other person change, and that only tells them that they are not lovable to us. So you either accept your partner, hurts and flaws and all ... or you end up losing them. It takes a couple of decades to learn to accept,, but once you have accepted each other, then the true companionship and easy affection starts .. This is when love starts.

In a marriage, acceptance is the "for better or worse" vow.

Which means that when you are hurt or upset or irritated or whatever by your spouse ... nonetheless you continue to treat them gently and with kindness. This is what love does. You are able to treat them this way only because you have come to see how you are the one who causes your inner emotions, and instead of trying to make your partner responsible for your emotions and your happiness, you learn how to work with yourself emotionally.

And it requires a tremendous emotional maturity and abilty to work with your own feelings.

Which is why only 12.5% of all married couples ever create a truly loving marriage, and it takes them 15-20 years to grow up enough to be ABLE to figure out who to work with their emotions.

What society calls "love" is only 11% of what makes a marriage work. It is not actual love ... and it does not solve the problems or somehow make them go away. All that "love" does is motivate us to hang in their and try to lean how to really care.