Loving and being in Love

It's helpful to know the difference between loving someone and "being in love," and it helps to do both in a relationship. People make a mistake in thinking of love as a steady, unchanging emotion. Being "in love" can transform into a deeper, constant desire to be together and share a life. But, as everyone knows, being "in love" doesn't always turn into a forever type of relationship. Passion over-rules compassion. The self is what matters the most. There are the things that tend to "take control of people". Whereas "loving someone" is a choice; it's something to make a commitment to. It's a two-way relationship where the other is the driving force. It's a very simple, amazing and complex distinction where it may turn from "the healthy" to the "unhealthy" (even "toxic"). I keep on fallin', In and out of love with you, I never loved someone, The way that I'm lovin' you, Oh, oh, I never felt this way, How do you give me so much pleasure and cause me so much pain? Just when I think I've taken more than would a fool, I start fallin' back in love with you. (Alicia Keys Fallin' Lyrics). The lyrics in this song show exactly how the "control" takes her over and how it can easily go for healthy to unhealthy or vice versa. Being "in love" with someone is a feeling that can come and go based on the circumstances surrounding a romantic relationship. "Being in love" covers mostly the emotional and "automatic" aspects of love and covers infatuation and different aspects of co-dependency and self-service. Loving a person is not only a choice but also a continuous effort to put another person's needs ahead of one's own self. Love for another person, in contrast, is closer to appreciation and affection. Love is fairly reasonable, while being "in love" is more like one of those ordinary, positive infatuations that take someone out of the life they are prone to and introduces them to something new. Some people think that being "in love" is an illusion and