Words are important. We are used to thinking that words are blown away by the wind, as the popular Spanish saying goes, but this is not entirely true: what is said remains said, even if someone later tries to retract it.
On the other hand, another debate is always present: “we want actions and not words”, assuming that, in the end, what matters is what someone does (actions are love and not good reasons) and not so much what he says but does not do. This is a legitimate reflection because it is clear that I can tell someone in words that I love them, but if my actions (the deeds) are not consistent with that sentence then words are useless.
There are different ways to say “I love you”, it is not mandatory to use these wordsHowever, that doesn’t mean that things don’t have to be (as well) said. Otherwise, we often fall into the trap of assuming that the other person knows what I feel like, how I am or what I feel towards them, with the consequent “attribution errors” that we can make.
It’s very common to hear “You already know that I love you”, “You already know that I’ m grateful to you”, “You already know that you are very important to me or that you have been transcendental in my life and knowing that I have found you and I share it with you has improved it a lot”. You already know this because, apparently, my facts already say these realities, they already name them, but that’ s pretty relative. Why should you know all this, how can you be sure of it? Why should you assume it? Therefore, saying it is not at all unnecessary, in contrast, it has its importance. Another question is what words are chosen for it.
Saying it for the first time
As for saying “I love you” for the first time in a relationship, it’s scary because these are important words, even though you often trivialize them. If we believe them and take them seriously then we can’t abuse them. We have to speak them from the truth, in our own way. There are different ways to say “I love you” without losing the truth, it is not obligatory to always use these two words.
It is clear that we do not love everyone, nor do we love anyone at first sight, even if we have a relationship with them, whether friendship or partnership, that would make us assume that we love them. By saying them for the first time we are making what is usually called a “declaration of principle”, even a declaration of intentions. We are exposing ourselves, that is, we are revealing our cards. We are not always sure that the interlocutor will get that message right, there is a risk of vulnerability. Moreover, saying “I love you”, even when it is said for the first time, implies a responsibility: that the actions towards the other person are consistent with our words.
The role of age
A relationship is a relationship, regardless of how old we are. In the basics nothing changes, although it is clear that we don’t experience the same things in our 20s as we do in our 40s or 60s. Normally the older we are, the more curriculum, although not always: not everyone has a life rich in experiences.
That makes us more wounded but also wiser, more skilled, more cautious, also for the things we say, for the things we don’t say and, of course, for the things the other says and doesn’t say, in other words, for what we hear.
Also, with every age it can change what we need to say and listen to, our way of saying it or our way of reacting. However, in essence, expectancy is expectancy at any age, the authenticity and solidity of feelings can exist – fortunately – at any age.
The issue of labels
Behind the fear of saying “I love you” there can be a fear of saying something that compromises us. Or a fear that our words will fall on deaf ears because the other doesn’t share them and then a crack can appear in the relationship (which doesn’t have to be unsolvable). There may be doubts about one’s feelings: can this feeling be considered love, if it is love, should I attribute the words “I love you” to it, if I attribute them to it, should I communicate them out loud?
Some people are very impulsive, even frivolous, when it comes to saying “I love you”, while others find it a dilemma or a reflection. The important thing is a middle ground: neither overdoing it nor underdoing it. You always have to be comfortable with what you say, not feel obliged to say something you don’t feel or to say it in certain words.
Nor should we fall into the trap of words or labels, as if we were obliged to say certain things at certain times to certain people just because “others” do, or because we see these ostentatious declarations of love on the media, or because we have it engraved on stone through, for example, movies.
What we learn as a family
Family is the first space where we learn to manage emotions: to feel them, to regulate them and to express them. An important part of that learning is what our parents have taught us, implicitly and explicitly, about it: about how we should do it specifically. Another important part is how we have seen others manage their own emotions, how others express themselves, how they relate to each other, not just to us.
Behind the fear of saying “I love you” is the fear of saying something that compromises usSome families are very loving and affectionate, others are colder. There are families in which the parents do not love each other, or do not love their children, or do not love all their children. This may scare some people, but it is the truth: the family is not always an idyllic place for affection, or a good school for emotions. Other times, of course it is.
The influence of culture
Films and, in general, all cultural manifestations, educate us, give us examples of behavior, reflect the social narratives that exist on different subjects – for example, couple relationships – and at the same time strengthen those narratives.
The cinema has been one of the most important schools of thought on how couple relationships are within what is considered the paradigm of “romantic love”. Another thing is if they have been a good school, or whether the contents they show correspond later to the reality of real-life couple relationships.
The films show us thousands of examples of declarations of love and reactions to those declarations, generating in us a tendency to try to recreate those examples and an expectation about how it should be for us when we live certain scenes.
Couple’s relationships are something that have changed immensely throughout history, they have not always been like they are now. It is obvious that there has always been affection or love towards other people, as well as physical attraction. What has changed is the way of communicating it within relationships and, of course, the role that this affection or love has played within relationships.
What seems normal to us now within a relationship may have been science fiction in relationships a hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago. There is a very important cultural component that, by definition, varies from place to place and from time to time. Let’s not forget, for example, that for many people relationships have not always been based on mutual affection but on other types of interests, this has always been the case and continues to be the case in certain cultures.
