***What Does Love Look Like?

What Does Love Look Like? By Dr. Charles D. Schmitz and Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitzr "the marriage doctors" Award Winning Authors of the NEW Hardback Book Golden Anniversaries: The Seven Secrets of Successful Marriage Makes a GREAT Wedding or Anniversary Gift Also available at Amazon.com and your local bookstore. We have written extensively over the years about love and relationships. Our recent book, Golden Anniversaries: The Seven Secrets of Successful Marriage, chronicles the lives of happily married couples that have been married for three or more decades. Our many articles for SelfGrowth.com have described different aspects of love. Our article “How Will I Know I am in Love,” traveled around the world several times and was even translated into Chinese! And while we have written about how you will know you are in love, about how you will feel when you are in love, about the importance of the human touch in expressing love, and about how love sounds, we haven’t yet shared our observations and findings about what love looks like until today! So here goes. When we interview successfully married couples we spend a lot of time observing them while we listen carefully to what they say. We record our observations. We make note of what we see. Oh, what they say is important, but what we see is even more so. We have discovered that you can learn much about love from observing two people in love. So what does love look like? What do two people in love “say” through their interactions with the one they love? When you observe couples in love, how do they act? How do they interact? What do their actions tell you about their love for each other? Well, here’s something to think about. People in love can be observed: Listening to each other intently; holding hands while they walk or sit; touching each other often; teasing each other in playful ways; smiling at each other; hugging each other; sharing a meal from the same plate; opening doors for each other; putting their arms around each other; talking to each other with full eye contact; sitting together touching each other; sharing the care of their children; picking up each other’s plates and meal residue after eating at fast food restaurants; and walking next to each other. The way people in love gaze at each other – the way they look lovingly at each other – the knowing glances they share with each other—tells you they are in love. There is a “look to love.” These are just a few of the telltale signs of people in love. We bet you can name more, but the important point to remember is that it is hard to fake love. People, who observe people in love or those just pretending to be in love, know the difference! There is without a doubt “a look of love.” So, friends, our message about love being “an accumulation of the little things” should come through loud and clear again. You can’t fake love. True love can be seen, felt, observed, and heard. Keep these simple things in mind next time you think about love. We close with the words of Burt Bacharach in his very popular song, “The Look of Love.” “I can hardly wait to hold you
 Feel my arms around you
 How long I have waited
 Waited just to love you
 Now that I have found you
 Don't ever go" There is no doubt – you can SEE love. You can’t hide it. You can’t fake it. You can’t fool those who observe your relationship with each other. To love is to show your love by your actions. To say you are in love doesn’t count for much unless you show your love. To look like love is, more often than not, to be in love. Love well!