Love
There's a difference between different shades of love. I'll try to explain them here: (In case you didn't learn them in Sunday School at church, There are four, but "storge" love is instinctual love like a mother cat caring for her baby kittens and the baby kittens not fighting or else momma will punish them and IMHO, doesn't count.)
Agape Love: This is also called unconditional love. It's the love that a mother has for her child when they are in their teens. Nothing her teen could do would change her opinion of the child. Agape is one of those kinds of love that is really hard to feel comfortable in with someone of the opposite sex that is not a family member. For the most part, this kind of love is also what husbands and their wives have that have been together for 20 or 30+ years. It's also the love that God is said to have for his people.
Philia Love: This is also called brotherly love. It's the love that a man might have for his brother or a woman might have for her kin. Philia also covers love of those in the same situation as you, for example, a town banding together to keep out ruffians, etc. Usually the love in Philia is based around a name or object that a group holds dear to them.
Eros Love: This is what most people associate with "lust" and not necessarily love. This is conditional love to the extreme. It's loving someone for what they can give you that you desire. Oftentimes it's sex, other times eros love is driven by money. Eros also extends into such areas as the love of a particular drug or food. This love is a very jealous love that can snap a relationship when one partner in the relationship ceases to have eros love, but the other ones still does. This causes a lot of resentment for the one still immersed in eros love, and will only drive them deeper into it. They will become extremely jealous of any and every one that their partner interacts with.
However, after talking with probably two dozen different women in their thirties and forties (I hack their husband's computers to find out if they are cheating on their wives) I would say the biggest thing I've found them say is that they love their spouse, they just are not "in love" with their spouse. Eros love is required at various points in the relationship to reassure that both parties still have passion for each other.
Anyway, I wrote this because one of my LJ friends had the definitions of "like" and "love" up. And I figured that it was worth mentioned there are four different types of love too.
Agape Love: This is also called unconditional love. It's the love that a mother has for her child when they are in their teens. Nothing her teen could do would change her opinion of the child. Agape is one of those kinds of love that is really hard to feel comfortable in with someone of the opposite sex that is not a family member. For the most part, this kind of love is also what husbands and their wives have that have been together for 20 or 30+ years. It's also the love that God is said to have for his people.
Philia Love: This is also called brotherly love. It's the love that a man might have for his brother or a woman might have for her kin. Philia also covers love of those in the same situation as you, for example, a town banding together to keep out ruffians, etc. Usually the love in Philia is based around a name or object that a group holds dear to them.
Eros Love: This is what most people associate with "lust" and not necessarily love. This is conditional love to the extreme. It's loving someone for what they can give you that you desire. Oftentimes it's sex, other times eros love is driven by money. Eros also extends into such areas as the love of a particular drug or food. This love is a very jealous love that can snap a relationship when one partner in the relationship ceases to have eros love, but the other ones still does. This causes a lot of resentment for the one still immersed in eros love, and will only drive them deeper into it. They will become extremely jealous of any and every one that their partner interacts with.
However, after talking with probably two dozen different women in their thirties and forties (I hack their husband's computers to find out if they are cheating on their wives) I would say the biggest thing I've found them say is that they love their spouse, they just are not "in love" with their spouse. Eros love is required at various points in the relationship to reassure that both parties still have passion for each other.
Anyway, I wrote this because one of my LJ friends had the definitions of "like" and "love" up. And I figured that it was worth mentioned there are four different types of love too.