"I love you more."

I've always hated this expression.  Love isn't a competition. It'd be one thing if we usually used this to mean something like "I love you more than I thought possible," or "I love you more today than I did yesterday."  But what we usually mean is "I love you more than you love me."  Do we really want to turn love into a superiority contest?

You see, this statement may be true, or it may not be.  If it isn't, then we're just fishing for reassurance that we really are the center of the other's world.   "I'm so insecure that, even though you've said you love me, I need you to convince me that I'm of value."  That isn't love.

Ah, but if it is true, then we're making the other feel inferior to us.  "As much as you may love me, I'm better at loving you than you are at loving me!"  And that isn't love, either.

What may be more universally true is that there are some ways in which we need to learn from how others love us.   There are some ways in which I'm surely better at loving my bride than she is at loving me, and vice versa.  But seeing as we're different people with different gifts, this should always be the case.

I'm probably a cad for saying so, but the thing is, the person who most recently said this to me - my wife - probably does have stronger feelings for me than mine for her.  In this sense, it is likely true that she loves me more than I love her.  It isn't that I don't love her deeply, or feel my love for her strongly.   I can't imagine what life would be like without her.  I've gotten a recent glimpse of it in her recent absences, and I didn't like it!  But is that love?

Isn't love my laying down of my life for the sake of my beloved?  Isn't it choosing what's best for my beloved, even at the expense of whatever competing need I might have?  I think I'm doing that pretty well.

Funny that a few hours after starting to reflect on this, I got into my car at lunch time to hear In My Life,  which of course ends with these words in a very different and more acceptable context.

At any rate, I know the proper, playful reply is supposed to be, "No, I love you more!"  And my will keeps me from planting my tongue firmly in my cheek and letting go with my natural, biting response: "Yep.  I guess you do."   In the end, what I find to be my true response is: "I love you beyond telling, and love how you love me, too!"