{"id":204,"date":"2010-09-02T09:38:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T09:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/permissiontolive\/2010\/09\/i-love-you-i-like-you\/"},"modified":"2010-09-02T09:38:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-02T09:38:00","slug":"i-love-you-i-like-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/permissiontolive\/2010\/09\/i-love-you-i-like-you.html","title":{"rendered":"I love you, I like you."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a><\/div>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you ever say \u2018I love you\u2019?\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n

My hubby and I were snuggling on our bed one night when he asked the question. <\/p>\n

At first I was indignant! \u201cOf course I love you, what are you talking about?\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n

He answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you love me Honey, but you don\u2019t say those words to me. You say it once in awhile, like after I tell you that I love you, but I don\u2019t really remember you saying to me on your own.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I thought about it for a moment, wracking my brain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I don\u2019t just love you. I like you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He laughed. \u201cThat\u2019s true! Now that you mention it, you say \u2018I like you\u2019 all the time. But what\u2019s wrong with \u2018I love you\u2019?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He was right, I didn\u2019t say \u201cI love you\u201d very much. What was wrong with me? What was wrong with I love you?<\/p>\n

\u201cI love you\u201d<\/em> I said slowly,\u00a0trying to explain what I meant.\u00a0\u201cI love you means that even though you are a crummy person to be with, and you are not worth loving, I am going to love you anyways because I am the bigger person.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

My hubby looked at me, bewildered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like you\u201d<\/em> I continued, \u201cmeans that I really truly adore being your wife, and I will never tire of being with you, and you are my favorite person. It means that I want to be with you because you are worth being with and you are special to me.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what love is\u201d<\/em> replied my husband.<\/div>\n
************<\/div>\n

My parents are perfectionists, and love often felt conditional<\/a> when I was a child. <\/p>\n

My Dad also had a thing against saying the words for some reason. He didn\u2019t say \u201cI love you\u201d. <\/p>\n

I remember him telling me that he didn\u2019t \u201cjust say the words \u2018I love you\u2019\u201d he showed it by his actions. I\u2019m not sure what pain he has from his past that held him back from saying the actual words, it was never something he would talk about.<\/p>\n

I do know that I heard \u201cI love you\u201d rarely, and when I did, it was usually connected to discipline. <\/p>\n

Before a spanking my Mom would say \u201cI only do this because I love you.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n

In my teens my Dad often said \u201c I tell you about your faults because I love you. Other people who don\u2019t love you won\u2019t tell you about your faults, they will just\u00a0treat you badly because of\u00a0them. I am one of the only people that will love you despite your failings.\u201d<\/em> I didn\u2019t really understand what it meant, but love often felt like tolerance to me. I knew my parents loved me, but I felt as though I was not worthy of their love. I felt as though they loved me because they were my parents, not because I was lovable.<\/p>\n

**********<\/div>\n

My relationship with my Husband has continued to re-shape my understanding of love, his unconditional love and acceptance is a huge gift in my life. <\/p>\n

But I find myself struggling to believe that God loves me that way. <\/p>\n

I see God as someone who made the world and everything in it, and He loves us because He is God. Because He is supposed to love us. But really He doesn\u2019t like us at all. He is disgusted by our sin and how we continually fall short. He harps about how He sacrificed His only son for us, and we still can\u2019t get it together. He continues loving us because He has to, but that\u2019s as far as it goes. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had many people tell me that I don\u2019t have to do anything for God to love me, God loves me regardless of how I perform. I agree. But it feels like He only continues loving me because He is the bigger, better person. Not because I am special to Him. There is nothing about me that God loves in particular, there is nothing about me that makes God smile. Yes, He loves me, like He loves all other people He has made. But He doesn\u2019t love anything that makes me who I am. <\/p>\n

Its not that I feel as though God doesn\u2019t love me just the way I am, I realize God\u2019s love is unconditional, it has to be in order to be God\u2019s love I suppose. It just doesn\u2019t feel very deep. I feel like I am the type of person God forgets about, until I pray or get hurt or something, then maybe He is jolted back to realizing \u201coh yeah, I have that other kid that needs me\u201d. <\/p>\n

I guess God loves me, but I\u2019m pretty sure He doesn\u2019t like me.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cWhy don\u2019t you ever say \u2018I love you\u2019?\u201d My hubby and I were snuggling on our bed one night when he asked the question. At first I was indignant! \u201cOf course I love you, what are you talking about?\u201d He answered. \u201cI know you love me Honey, but you don\u2019t say those words to me. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nI love you, I like you.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cWhy don\u2019t you ever say \u2018I love you\u2019?\u201d My hubby and I were snuggling on our bed one night when he asked the question. 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