How To Know If He Loves You – 10 Signs of Real Connection

Are you in a relationship and doubting if your boyfriend truly loves you? Here are 10 ways for how to know if he loves you.

10. Listen To Your Gut

If you clicked on this article is not a good sign.

As a professional dating coach for women, my job is often just telling people what they already know.

When you’re head over heels for somebody, you often trick yourself into thinking that it’s meant to be when it may not be.

Your gut is a great “BS” sensor and it knows when you’re lying to yourself.

You have to think deeply about why you decided to click this. Is it because you have insecurity within yourself or is it because he doesn’t make you feel loved?

Healthy romantic relationships are all about “feeling good”. They are not about lining up your values or raising children or buying a white picket fence.

I like to call healthy relationships “Millennialships” because it represents the modern-day relationship where we’re just with somebody because they make us feel good, not because they give us financial support like back in the old days.

Healthy relationships allow us to feel happy when we are washing the dishes on a Wednesday night.

If you can feel happy and loved on a regular day, this is good. If you’re not feeling this way, something may be up.

9. Know His Love Language

Gary Chapman, the author of the amazing book “The 5 Love Languages” taught us something that anyone in a relationship should know.

That “thing” is that not everyone expresses their love in the same way. Some people like to say the words “I love you” while others would prefer to buy the person a bouquet of roses. Both of these are healthy ways to express love in people who have healthy attachments styles.

If your love language is different than your boyfriend’s, you might think he is not showing you love when really he is. Knowing his love language is a great way to pinpoint if he loves you.

Here is a breakdown of each love language:

1. Words of Affirmation – Showing love through words such as “I love you”, “You’re so amazing”, “I enjoy spending time with you.
2. Physical Touch – Physical affection such as cuddling, hugging, kissing and holding hands.
3. Acts of Service – Doing nice things for the other person such as doing the dishes even though it was their turn, or taking their car in for an oil change while they were at work.
4. Quality Time – Spending one on one time together. This doesn’t mean watching TV and being distracted. It means talking to each other, going for a walk, or any activity that involves direct communication and connection.
5. Gifts – Buying or making things for the other person. Giving flowers, bringing home groceries, etc.

8. Your “Normal” is Healthy

Relationships have a “normal”. This is the state of your relationship most of the time.

If most of the time he makes you feel happy, loved and emotionally supported, this means that he truly values the connection he has with you and wants to make it stronger.

This can be a tough one to determine so you’ll need to take a deep look at your emotions and thoughts when you’re around him, or thinking about him.

Examples of Negative Thoughts and Emotions:

If you think about your boyfriend, does it give you anxiety?

Do you cry a lot about your relationship?

When the two of you are talking on a normal given day, is there a high chance things will turn into an argument or heated conversation?

Examples of Positive Thoughts and Emotions:

Are you able to easily go to your boyfriend with a problem that you’re having?

Do you feel you can share anything with him?

Does he support your goals and dreams?

Remember that constant fighting and negativity is never a good thing.

A quote from the dating expert over at the Ladies Coach reminds us that constant fighting just doesn’t work long-term.

Whether you’re having a 3-month stand-off over who takes out the trash or you’re competing over who can come up with the most creative and cutting insult, recurring fights are a huge red flag.

If the two of you have a true bond and connection, he will always feel like a breath of fresh air or a sigh of relief. He won’t feel like a cause of your stress or pain.

PS. If you struggle with constant negative thinking, check out my post here.

7. He Listens To You

This is a big one.

Not only must he physically sit there and paying attention to you when you’re talking, but listening also involves action. The action part is the best way to know if he loves you.

When my boyfriend and I were first going out, I was learning that he was very much a homebody and preferred to stay home rather than going out on dates.

This meant that he would often want to cancel dates last minute and swap our plans for a “night-in” instead.

I hated this.

I thought it was very rude to have set up plans and then take them back.

As a woman, a night out means picking out an outfit, doing your makeup and other things that men don’t always think about.

Changing the plan on me last minute was a huge inconvenience.

So, I told him about this in a nice way and let him that I really don’t like having the plans change last minute.

He listened to me, acknowledged what I had to say and then agreed to stop canceling the plans on me like this.

He never did it again.

That’s a sign of true love. If your boyfriend can do this when you tell him something is bothering you, it proves that he cares about the way he makes you feel and wants you to be happy.

6. Provider Mentality

The man you’re dating must be a provider.

This doesn’t mean he has to make more money than you or be the breadwinner.

It just means he has to want to give to you and add to your life in any way he can.

Here are some ways a man can provide for you and the relationship. If your man is doing some or most of things, he’s a keeper.

• Breadwinner financially. He’s happy to make more money and pay a higher percentage of household expenses.
• Does the planning. Reaches out via text or calls you to set up dates. He actively plans to spend time with you.
• Helps around the house. Happy to help cook, clean or do the laundry.
• Does favors. Willing to take a load off your hands and help you if you’re busy. Taking the dog to the vet even though you were supposed to, picking up your mom from her doctor’s appointment. Grabbing groceries on the way home.

This is especially important for women who want to have a man who will eventually be the father of her children.

Some men are selfish.

They’re in a relationship so that they can get you to take care of them or support them. This is not a sign of a high-quality man or a man who is in love.

If a man truly loves you, he will want to give you everything he can.

Free Checklist: How To Attract Higher-Quality Men

5. Empathetic Abilities

A man who is in love doesn’t want to see you hurting.

He knows that his actions have an impact on you, and he takes that responsibility very seriously.

Have you ever been in a relationship where a man just kept hurting you over and over again?

You were probably confused, asking yourself – why does he do this all the time? It’s not fair!

The reason a man is doing this is either because he doesn’t have the emotional stability to share his life with another human being, or he’s not in love.

Men who are in love and have a true connection with a woman, care about how she feels.

If your man is able to apologize when he’s done something wrong and admit that he made a mistake. This is a good sign that he is in love.

Men who are in love do not have a hard time being vulnerable and seeing the situation through your eyes.

4. Enjoys Being in A Relationship

Some men are just not cut out to be romantic partners.

They value their “autonomy” too much and prefer to be single even though they may not realize that.

When a man is single, he can do whatever he wants. He can get drunk with his buddies every night. Go to the strip club on the weekend. Or simply spend an entire day playing video games.

When a woman enters his life, she has every right to have an opinion on what he’s doing. If she wants him to go on a date instead of spending another night at the bar, he must take her opinion into account.

If your man is willing to make sacrifices in his life for you, this is a very good sign that he wants to spend his life with someone else.

Things that he may do to show you that he’s a “relationship-minded man” are:

• Checks in with you about important decisions.
• Asks your opinion on little things such as what you want for dinner and what you want to do this weekend.
• Knows how to compromise so that things are “win-win” for both of you.

3. Wants to Spend Time With You

This is a huge one that people ignore! It’s one of the easiest ways for how to know if a man loves you.

As a dating coach, I often hear from my clients that they are seeing a man who hasn’t texted them in a week!

If your man is not following up with you, it might be because he’s not as in love as he could be. Or as dating coach Evan Marc Katz mentions, it could be because you’re not a priority of his.

We are all someone’s second choice…Furthermore, there were women that inspired me to want to commit, and other women who were cute enough for a fling but not girlfriend material in my mind.

Think about the last time you felt truly in love with someone. How did it make you feel?

Did you feel like you wanted to spend every waking hour with them and text them all the time?

Well, men who are in love feel this too! They want to hang out with you, spend time with you and text you.

If a man can’t be bothered to send you a text or plan a date night, he has checked out.

A man who is in love, makes the effort to spend time with you and enjoys spending that time with you once a date has been planned.

Ps. If you want some insight on why men ghost, check out this post.

2. Keeps Tabs On You

No, not in a creepy controlling way!

This one simply means that he is happy to check in with you and stay connected. Much like wanting to spend time with you, a man who is in love will care about whats going on in your life just because he wants to know.

A quote from Dr. Lise at Single In the City reminds us:

Go for someone who wants to be with you. Someone who wants a relationship with you, who is interested in you. We don’t want mixed signals anywhere near us.

Here are healthy ways a man in love will keep tabs on you:

• Texting you throughout the week to see how your day went or what’s new with you
• Asking you about important things that were happening in your life. Like if you ended up getting that promotion or if you did well on your presentation at work.
• Asking about your plans for the future.

1. Plans Long-Term

A man who is in love, will be just as interested in your future life together as he is in your current life.

Now, don’t get me wrong – men in general like to approach things day by day where women are the ones who like to plan.

So don’t plan the breakup speech if he doesn’t want to talk about when you’re getting married or the names of your children.

But, depending on how long you’ve been dating, he should be interested in the near future. This means planning vacations that are a few months out or inviting you to his family’s Christmas dinner even though that’s three months away.

A man who is in love is ready to commit.

He wants to call you his girlfriend, introduce you to his friends and start paving a way for your lives together. As a quote from Zoosk points out. He wants to keep his promises.

“If they say they’re going to be there, they’ll show up. If they say they’ll call you, they call you. When they’re around you, they’ll demonstrate positive behaviors and be consistent and reliable in their communication,” says Rachel Perlstein, a relationship coach and co-founder of A Good First Date.

And, if he’s getting really excited, he might just throw in mentions of moving in together, getting married or asking if you want to have kids.

How To Attract A Man That Is High Quality

I hope you found this article helpful, but it does you no good if the men you’re attracting are not high-quality.

You’re a confident and successful woman – you deserve a confident and successful man.

If you’re interested in learning what High-Quality men look for in a woman, check out my Free Checklist “How To Attract Higher Quality Men”.

I hope this answered your question on how to know if a man loves you and if there’s one thing to take away it’s that you should always go with what feels right!

Best of luck on your search for a “Millennialship“.

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Positive Thinking: How My Negativity Made Positive Thinking Easier