Can love not be expressed by your actions, your nature, and your respect towards another person? I know when someone loves me, they don’t have to tell me also.

Yes, and you can sometimes weave those actions with the words, I love you.

You think culture has cheapened the words, but you are in a private intimate relationship, not a cultural object.

it’s important to say it when getting off the phone with your boss @Feinsteins_Ghost@hexbear.net

love you comrade

As important as the relationship

I know when someone loves me, they don’t have to tell me also.

Some people do need to hear it and if you love them you should tell them to make them feel loved.

Don’t let society cheapen what is important to you.

Find a way to let your partner know that you love them that they can understand.

Should be good after that.

It’s no more or less important than you and your partner agree it is. Everyone has different ways they prefer to express love and different things that make them feel loved. Communication with your partner, not the opinions of strangers, is the only way to determine what’s important in your relationship.

I was 1.5-2 years into my relationship with my now wife before I said it for those reasons

My wife is Chinese, and in Chinese culture saying I love you isn’t really a thing for the most part. I tell her I love her often, and when I do she will say it back, but otherwise she mostly just shows me through acts of service. It was hard to get used to at first, being from the U.S. where saying it is pretty much required, but I’ve grown to appreciate her ways of showing love. It feels almost more meaningful the ways she shows it rather than just saying it.

To be honest with you, I feel like this would be a silly question for me to ask myself because those 3 words come out very naturally for me, when it just feels right. It doesn’t have to be forced or manufactured; I don’t have to reach a certain amount of "I love you"s within a certain time frame—it comes out when the need to express it is just… there.

And obviously, do express it by your actions, your nature, and your respect, but I don’t see why these would be, in any way, mutually exclusive with letting out those 3 words whenever you feel it’s right.

To give an analogous situation, I don’t mind white people saying anti-racist slogans, and, in some cases, I might even encourage it, but they also should express their anti-racism by their actions, their nature, and their respect.

The point is that, while, “I love you,” can be fake, performative, and meaningless, so can a lot of things. But when you know that the sentiment being expressed is genuine, then that’s when it matters.

No forcing. No bullshit.

My partner and I say I love you to eachother a lot. We do the usual like whenever we part but we also say it as little affirmations here and there like if one of us says something really funny we laugh and say I love you. We also often use it in combination with thanks. We have split up the chores around the house but we make sure to thank eachother when we do them and often add in an I love you like “Thanks for the great meal, it was really delicious, I love you.”

My overarching view of this is that I feel like in our times and culture those words have become very cheap.

My parents never says I love you to me or my siblings and my mother says that the word has become cheap because people use it too much. I don’t understand the concept of a word having a commodity value like that but maybe it explains my first paragraph.

I think it totally depends on the relationship and the context. I also think life is shorter and less predictable than one might give it credit for. I seldom hear of people on their death beds going “I said I love you too much, f7u12!!” I also don’t think the words will ever be very heavy in comparison to the feelings and actions of the relationship. It doesn’t necessarily change the stakes of a relationship - if you lose them before or after you say the magic words it will sting similarly badly. I don’t value words very highly in their totality.

Look into love languages. Some people want to hear a verbal expression of love, others want physical contact, others gifts etc

I demand one million “I love yous” before I’m dead.

some people need to hear it. I’m not one of those people, so I can’t speak to it. talk has always been cheap to me.

It is true that some people lie. And love is expressed by your actions and behavior too.

But that does not mean saying ‘I love you’ is always useless.

People like hearing reassurance. Saying ‘I love you’ when you mean it makes your partner happier too. Express your love in all possible ways.