How to Know the Difference Between Love and Lust

The truth is, women often have a difficult time distinguishing between love and lust. It’s no wonder because both are very powerful emotions basic to the human experience, shared by people from all cultures, socioeconomic standards and educational backgrounds.

Each experience, in and of itself, creates intense feelings of euphoria, ecstasy and elation. Love and lust are powerful motivators, central aspects of any romantic relationship.

To put things into perspective, let’s define love and lust as described by Merriam-Webster:

Love: Unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.

Lust: An intense or unbridled sexual desire, an intense longing or craving.

Ladies, if this doesn’t explain things, I don’t know what will!

I always associate love with action and lust with acts. Love is about serving the highest good for both the lover and the beloved. It’s about doing what is best for the other, even if it means sacrificing your own desires, needs or personal pursuits.

Love has staying power. It takes care of you when you’re sick, it speaks to you with respect and admiration, and it protects you and warms you against the cold winds of life.

“If you are with someone you genuinely

care for, then you’ve hit the jackpot.”

It is self-serving and seeks only its own gratification. It is concerned with satisfying the carnal desires of now and just as soon moves on to the next physical urging when it comes, whether it’s a lust for power, money or Coca-Cola.

It is lust for another person that begins our journey with them, but it is love that keeps us with them. Lustful feelings, which often lead to destructive ends, do serve their purpose. It is the superficial attraction to someone that motivates us to want to approach and captivate them, to make them ours.

If we never felt lust, we would have no interest in even bothering with the opposite sex in the first place. We’d stay home, watch reruns in our pajamas, and the human race would die off. After all, if we didn’t feel hot and bothered by the man we’re seeing, we wouldn’t bother.

It is love, however, that we are hoping to find when the lust fizzles, although we can get seriously confused about which is which.

You’re too smart and date savvy to get mislead by lustful feelings and delude yourself into believing you’ve found lifelong love if you haven’t. Just because you’re with some stud with rock-hard abs who knows his way around the bedroom does not mean you are the luckiest girl alive with the greatest man who ever lived.

Blinded by what is merely an imitation of love, it is easy to slip into a false sense of security when lustful thinking is driving your decision-making process. If you do not feel just as stimulated by the conversations you have with the man in your life as you do by your physical encounters, you may be in trouble.

If you don’t get along with your clothes on, you are embarrassed to introduce him to your friends, and most of the time you spend together is between the sheets, you may very well be in the throws of lust.

Take a step back and reevaluate. If you find that you are with someone and your relationship is based on nothing of substance, you’d be doing yourself a favor to end it now. Lust never lasts.

When expressed in a physical sense, love is always a joyful experience for both involved. If you are with someone you genuinely care for, respect and appreciate, and you happen to enjoy a hot sex life with them, then you’ve hit the jackpot because love never fades and always fulfills.