You haven't been dating for at least three to six months: Of course, there are always exceptions if you've been spending every waking minute together vs. only seeing each other once or twice a week. But in general, if your guy tells you he loves you before you've been dating for three to six months, he could be mistaking love for something else. "I'm a big believer in time. I wouldn't feel really confident if someone is saying it before six months because what they are is infatuated," says sociologist Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Washington and the author of The Surprising Secrets of Happy Couples. "Am I going to bet the farm on that?"
You haven't spent enough time together to form a good foundation for a relationship: It sounds pretty simple, but plenty of us are just caught up in the moment when the L word is first uttered. But if you haven't spent real, quality time together and your relationship still feels on shaky ground, there isn't enough there yet for it to be true love. "Any time before you've spent time together and gotten to know each other is way too soon for either of you to say 'I love you,'" says Tessina. "There's no way either of you can know. I believe 'love at first sight' is only in hindsight." She says many of the couples she counsels come to her with high expectations of "instant" relationships and romance, and equally high frustration levels when things don't unfold that way. "Internet dating, coupled with movie and TV images of instant 'love at first sight' create expectations that prohibit people from getting to know anything about the character of the person they're dating, and don't give the couples a chance to develop what I call the 'infrastructure'ofa long-lasting relationship,"
Tessina says.
Your guy is unwilling to commit to a future with you: Many women assume that "I love you" means he's in for the long haul. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. If he says it but can't back it up with a commitment of some kind to you, tread lightly. "In general, when the woman hears a man say 'I love you,' she doesn't think he's just saying 'That's what I feel like this minute,'" Schwartz says. "She's thinking there's the implicit promise of a much deeper relationship and this could lead to a commitment ... [as if he's] saying, 'I want to spend the rest of my life with you.'" If he says it because he's just "feeling loving at the time" but hasn't considered what the relationship means to him, it might be a red flag.
He says it in the heat of the moment: Too often, a guy will tell a girl he loves her when they're kissing, having sex or caught up in the excitement of the "honeymoon stage." If that happens in your relationship, don't take it too seriously quite yet. If you're in that infatuation phase, "saying 'I love you' is more about your feeling of being excited and stimulated and wanting to have a stronger connection," says Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D., a licensed couples therapist and the author of Now You Want Me, Now You Don't!. "It has little to do with 'loving' the other, because that would involve empathy, tolerance and acceptance of who they are."
He says it after a milestone experience you share, but your relationship isn't there yet: Maybe a relative has just died, or one of you has landed a new job. When you go through an experience like that together, it can be bonding and make you feel full of love for each other. But is it really love? Not necessarily, if the rest of your relationship doesn't measure up. "Depending on the context, those three words can [be said] because he has just given you a surprise party, or stood up for you against a chastising paren
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