The word "love" in English has many meaning in this one word; you can say "I love my car. I love my dog. I love Hannah Montana. And I love my wife." The Greeks had 4 words for love. Philia is friendship or affectionate love; Storge is the kind of love you have within your family toward its members; Eros is love of the chemistry and attraction sort - Socrates has stated that eros love helps the sould recall knowledge of beauty; and Agape love is unconditional love through all circumstances.
I feel that in today's society, far too many people pull out the "I love you" within a relationship before they truly realize the power of that statement. With most relationships within highschool or college, the people in the relationship say "I love you" when they truly only realize eros or philia. It is perfectly fine to say "I love you" to a friend, but to say it to the other person in a relationship, you have to look at how exactly you love this person.
The best love relationships have all 4 of these Greek words in the love. The best love comes when you're best friends, physically attracted to each other, unconditionally love them, and feel as though the person is a family member and love them as such.
Do not be so quick to pull out this phrase in a relationship - I definitely will not. I have realized the power of this phrase and how much better it will be if I monitor my relationship and wait until I can truly say "I love you" and mean all four Greek terms within it. If I can manage that, it will make my future marriage have much more hope and be much more enjoyable.
Thank you to the Wendts for introducing this to me.
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