5 Little Ways To Know If You're In An Equal Relationship
How to tell if your relationship is equally balanced.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A / Shutterstock Am I falling in love as hard as he is? There are signs that he loves you. But, how do you know if you love him as much as he loves you? It’s a really important question to ask. Love is complicated and because human beings so want to be in love, we are sometimes desperate to hold on to someone we aren’t sure we love because we want to love them.
How do you know you love someone? It can be easy to figure out if you ask yourself the right questions.
Many of us are so scared of true love, often because of past hurts — trusting whether or not they are truly in love with us can be difficult. With both those things in mind, it’s important to carefully examine all the factors when asking yourself, 'What does love feel like?' How do you know if you love someone as much as they love you? Does he love you as much as you love him?
Here are 5 little ways to know if you're in an equal relationship:
1. You know what love is — and you feel it
What is love? It is very important to understand the difference between being in love with someone and loving someone. Articles often talk about the signs a man is falling in love with you and sometimes, they are obvious. But, what about you? I believe that when you are in love with someone, you feel the feelings that you read about in books.
When you see your person, your heart leaps a little bit, you long for their touch, you want to know everything about them, spending time together is lovely, and you care about their hopes and dreams. But, when you love someone, as opposed to being in love with someone, your feelings are more feelings of friendship.
You feel peaceful and happy being with them and supporting them in their endeavors but that feeling of your heart leaping, of relishing their physical touch, just isn’t there. So, how do you feel when you see your person? Does your heart leap or do you just feel peaceful? It’s an important distinction and one that only you can know.
2. Things are evenly balanced
When you love someone as much as they love you, you will find that you meet each other equally. You both want to spend time together, you both do nice things for each other, and you equally share in the give and take of the relationship. When love is uneven, more often than not, one person is giving way more than the other. And both sides are uncomfortable with this. The person who is giving too much feels like they are not being appreciated and the person who is giving less feels unhappy with the power dynamic in the relationship. What does your relationship look like? Do you enjoy giving to your partner as much as he or she gives to you? If not, they might love you more than you love them.
3. They don’t bug you
When you are in a relationship where love is equal, you will find that you are never aggravated by the way your partner touches you. It doesn't bug you that they want to spend so much time with you or ask you questions about your day. You are always happy to be with them and their attention doesn't cause you any aggravation. Do you find that your partner bugs you in a way that feels uncomfortable to you? Do you wish you were more receptive to their attention? If the answer is "yes," you might not love them as much as they love you.
4. You aren’t always questioning the relationship
One answer to how to know if you love someone as much as they love you has to do with how much time you spend questioning the relationship. Do you think that you want to be in this relationship but just aren’t sure? Do you think about whether you are making a mistake in committing to this person?
Do you spend time thinking about other people instead? Do you find yourself rationalizing your relationship more often than not? People who love someone else as much as they love them don’t constantly question the relationship. They are secure in the fact that love is real and equal and that a commitment to it is a smart one.
5. Your attention doesn’t wander
Do you find yourself looking at other people and wondering if, for whatever reason, you might be interested in a relationship with them? Do your friends introduce you to other people who they think might be better for you? If either of these things is the case, your feelings for your partner might not be equal to theirs.
People who are in love with their partner don’t go seeking other potential mates. People whose love is equal to their partner's, who enjoy spending time with them, enjoy their physical touch, and aren't questioning things don’t look at other people as potential mates. What about you? Do your eyes wander?
So, how do you know if you love someone as much as they love you? It seems like a difficult question to answer but the signs are clear. If you have that 'heart skip' kind of feeling when you see your person, if the things you do for each other are balanced, if being with them doesn’t annoy you and you aren’t always questioning the relationship then chances are good your love for each other is balanced.
So, now that you have a sense of how you feel, it’s on you to run with it. If things are balanced, yay! If they aren’t, you have a choice to make — will you continue to stay with this person, trying to see if you can make it work, potentially wasting both of your time or are you going to let this person go so that both of you can find the person you are meant to be with? Good luck! You can do it!
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in The Good Men Project, MSN, PopSugar, Prevention, Huffington Post, and Psych Central, among many others.