I love you.

To me, those three words are horrifying. 

That sounds terrible, but it’s true.  I hate hearing those words.  Hate it.  My whole life, I have cringed when people express to me why they love me or how much they care about me. 

But I love to tell people I love them.  I love easily and love much.  It’s a phileo love – a friendly love that I can share with friends and family.  Many of those that I have this phileo love for, I also love on an agape level and I crave to help them and serve them.  It’s so easy for me to love a friend or family member and want to be a shoulder to cry on, a drinking buddy, a sounding board, or anything else they may need.

The scary love is the Eros love – a romantic, passionate love.  A love that knows no bounds.  Craving to be with the person every possible moment.  The idea of being in Eros with a guy makes me nervous and question who I am.  It’s a commitment that I’ve never been sure of.

It’s been over three years since I’ve had a guy say, “I love you.”  He never acted like he loved me; treated me more like an enemy, really.  It’s become apparent that not only did he not love me, but I didn’t truly Eros him.  We were planning on getting married and I shouldn’t have even been associating with him. 

I heard, “I love you,” dripping with disdain and hatred over and over for three years.  My response of, “I love you,” was typically the honest truth.  I did Eros him at first, and continued to phileo him until he eventually wore me down and I only loved him because I can’t help but to phileo and agape people.  But the romance left quickly when “I love you” may as well have been “I hate you.”

Since then, subconsciously, when I think of Eros, romantic love, I assume it will turn to hate. 

The truth is this: I figure that eventually one of these relationships will turn from fun and companionship to a deep, romantic love and it’ll stick.  The likelihood of me ending up with another guy who starts to hate me is slim. 

Because of my ex, I have been standoffish with several guys who have cared about me.  None of them knew the whole story of how I was treated.  It’s embarrassing to admit that I almost walked down the aisle with someone who could barely tolerate me – not exactly light dating conversation.  Eros love is something that has not been expressed to me in a healthy way – not something you tell a casual boyfriend.

Since then, I can barely stand to think of falling in Eros with someone.  I don’t even know what that would look like because I have never experience healthy Eros.  I have almost fallen that hard once.  I think.  I don’t even know because I have been so shaped by that first relationship.  I think this guy fell almost as hard as I did.  We never dropped the L word for each other.  I think the root of that is fear based on past relationships.  Eros has never treated either of us well.

My boss asked me what I would have done if this guy told me he loved me.  My first reaction was, “Walk away, I’d walk away.”  And for a few minutes, I believed that was true.  I would get so scared that I’d walk away.  Then I thought some more, I think I could have handled it.  I would be ok with hearing, “I love you,” from him because he actually cared and we care about each other on a phileo level – there is no hatred between us. 

The point to all of this is that most of us have an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend who discontinued Eros.  If you’re lucky, you stopped loving them first.  But as my therapist (boss) has told me, you sort of have to work your way out of that.  You can’t let that overshadow everything.  It may not be surprising that it’s hard to accept love after it’s been thrown in your face as hatred, but eventually you have to open yourself up to the possibility of love again.  It freaks me out that I’m even thinking this way, but it’s true.  You have to let the words, “I love you,” be spoken to you without making you shudder with fear that eventually they’ll hate you or you’ll lose them no matter how much you pour out your heart to them.