After only two weeks of dating, I decided it’d be a good idea to tell my boyfriend that I loved him. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our relationship didn’t last much longer and I’m pretty sure my declaration played a big part in things going downhill.
- It definitely scared him a bit. I thought it was a good idea back then to just come out with these intense feelings and say those three little words. It felt like a romantic movie moment, for me at least—I think it was probably more like a horror movie moment for him. I should have known to give him more time. I just felt so much for him that I HAD to let it out. He must have been so freaked out. What was I thinking?
- It put the power in his hands. I don’t think it’s a good thing in general to see relationships in terms of power, but I do feel like I ended up putting more of the control in his hands when I told him that I loved him. I felt like I went down a few pegs in his eyes when I put myself out there. Obviously, I got a little ahead of myself.
- I should have waited for him to say he loved me first. By jumping the gun and saying “I love you” so soon, I basically robbed myself of ever knowing if he felt the same way. For some reason, I felt it from the very beginning and I guess I liked to think we were on the same page. I realize now that we definitely weren’t.
- He probably felt forced to say it back. He actually did say he loved me too, but it’s only now that I realize he definitely felt forced to do it. When you think of a guy telling you he loves you, a cringe-worthy declaration to fill the dead air is definitely not how you imagine it. I messed everything up because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
- I’m idealistic by nature, so of course I thought it was appropriate to say it that early. I like to think that life is like a movie and my love life is no different. How come people fall in love so quickly in the movies but in real life, it takes an eternity just to say the L-word? Of course I know real life isn’t a rom-com, but can you blame me for being a bit of a hopeless romantic?
- I was being blinded by endorphins. During the honeymoon period, our bodies pump out endorphins giving us that in love feeling that never seems to go away. I now realize that I was basically possessed by my hormones, making my feelings of infatuation feel like crazy, over-the-top love. It was an illusion but I only realized it too late.
- I can’t help but wonder what we could’ve been. I often find myself wondering if he would’ve ended up developing real feelings for me if I’d have kept my mouth shut. I have to realize that not everyone wears their heart on their sleeve like I do. Some people take a whole year to say “I love you” and it doesn’t mean they don’t care about their partners as much. In fact, it probably means they love them even more because they’ve had more time to experience them and appreciate everything about them.
- It’s a bigger deal for guys, right? The thing is, when a woman says “I love you,” it means far less than a man does, in my opinion. I’m not saying that what we say doesn’t matter, but when a guy says those three little words, they seem to carry so much more weight. They’re saying they commit to us whereas we’re just saying we love them. I never gave him the chance to figure out if he felt that way or not.
- At least I’ve learned from my mistake. This was a learning experience for me. Now I know that even if I feel like I love a guy early on, I need to sit with my feelings and let them progress naturally instead of trying to force them. After all, if I really love him, that feeling won’t go away by waiting a few more weeks or months—they’ll just get stronger.
