What is the Difference Between Emotional Love and Physical Love?

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Want to spend more time with someone? Have you been feeling the desire to be close to a person in your life?

Hearing someone laugh makes you want to laugh alongside them? If they cry, you want to hold them close and make them feel better? It looks like you might be in love!

Love is a feeling with many elements involved. Sometimes, love is confused with lust. There is a vast difference between physical love and emotional love.

The idea of Physical love vs. Emotional love is explored here so you can know whether it is the love you are looking at or lust.

Physical love

Physical attraction is when someone arouses you on a level that is basically biological.

If you are possessed by the desire to touch someone, look at them because it makes you feel good, then this means you are physically attracted to them.  It is in human nature to be enticed by what we find attractive. Sex is a biological drive, although it may be related to deeper emotions of care and affection.

Sex is a primal need for humans.

If you have a physical relationship with a person you are emotionally attached to, it is bound to work its magic.

You don’t always invest your feelings and emotions when you are physically attracted to someone. It can be just a straightforward desire to mate with them because you are physically attracted to them.

Emotional love

There are many faces of emotional love. If you want to hold someone close to you, take all their fears away, and protect them at any cost, this means you are emotionally attracted to them.

You want to share every moment of your life with the person you are emotionally attracted to.

Love, value, care, respect, and trust are the fundamentals around which emotional attraction is built.  If an emotional bond is created, caring for one another through thick and thin comes naturally, 

When you start understanding the other person, when you start relating to them, when you want them for something other than their beauty and good looks, that’s when you are emotionally attracted to them.

Usually, the expectations are higher when you are emotionally involved with someone compared to when you are just physically attracted.  Therefore, it could be that heartache and pain are more likely too.

How to distinguish between physical love and emotional love

There are some clear signs which show whether a person is emotionally invested in you or is just attracted to your looks. Some of them are listed as follows

If the person you are with is only interested in having sex and doesn’t invest time and effort into the relationship other than that, it is a sure sign that it is just a physical attraction.

If your partner puts in the effort, and is considerate about your emotions, takes an interest in your life, and helps you through things, then it means he/she is emotionally attracted to you.

If your partner is more concerned about what you wear and how you look compared to how you feel, it is a tell-tale sign of physical attraction.

If your partner is eager to introduce you to his/her family, this means they are emotionally invested in you and are not looking just for sex.

Planning for the future is a very important part of an emotional relationship. If your partner gets scared or changes the topic when you bring you the future, you should keep in mind that this could only be a sign of them looking for a physical relationship.

Being emotionally attracted to someone can make you feel like you are on top of the world.

Having a connection of the soul with someone leaves you satisfied and gratified. Emotional love satisfies the human soul, while physical love satisfies the human body. There are good and bad sides to both of them.

The differences between the two are discussed above. Hopefully, with their help, you would be able to distinguish them from each other.

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To further help you distinguish between emotional and physical love, here are a few tips for enhancing them:

Emotional love

• Indulge in something meaningful for both of you. To deepen the emotional connection in your marriage, you can engage in activities that you both enjoy. It could be anything from taking a walk, cooking together to skydiving.
• Create a safe environment for having intimate conversations. Allocate a small amount of your day to sit down with your spouse and just talk, even if it is for an hour in a day. Get away from any distractions and ensure that you put your biases and judgments aside.
• Be more curious, ask hard questions, and just listen with utter fondness.

Physical love

• Improving intimacy in marriage requires deep, human interaction. Turn off the television, cell phone, or any other electronic device when you are with your partner and spend some time talking and sharing, which will help you increase physical closeness and emotional intimacy.
• If you are open to it, introduce sex toys and hot sex games in your bedroom, and you will be amazed at the psychological benefits that you will enjoy, apart from the boost in your sex life.
• Improve intimacy in marriage by understanding different stages of physical intimacy in a relationship. Although no two couples are alike, all relationships go through these stages of progression related to love and intimacy.