Love versus "being in love" versus caring for or about someone

The meaning of true love, the ultimate and deepest kind of love, is a tricky thing to understand or explain. The lack of specialized vocabulary for love in the English language and the way we use that one word in so many different contexts really contributes to confounding understanding. The biggest confusion, in my personal experience, is that many people are unable to distinguish or have not noticed the differences between so-called "romantic love" (and the feelings associated with what the Freudians call cathexis) and love in the sense of "I love my partner by remaining faithful to him/her." I argue that in a marriage or any relationship over time, romantic love may come and go, but this sense of deeper, non-sexual, familial love only grows stronger and is only possible through choices and actions.

I like some of how this person put it, from journeythroughdivorce.com:

A person who says, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you,” is making a distinction between 2 different feelings. But NEITHER of those feelings are love!

When a person says, “I love you, but I’m not IN LOVE with you,” they’re saying that I CARE about you but I’m not EXCITED about you.

CARING about someone is a good thing. It’s reflective of CONCERN. But it’s different then [sic] love. [...]

Being EXCITED about someone is also a good thing. But it’s different than love. I might be excited to have a relationship with the President of the United States or a Hollywood star, but that doesn’t mean I love them.

I also like this quote from William Bridges' book "Transitions," which he quoted from Ruby Dee at the start of chapter 3:

It takes a long time to be really married. One marries many times at many levels within a marriage. If you have more marriages than you have divorces within the marriage, you're lucky and you stick it out.

I would add that conscious choice must be involved: in many cases you must choose your marriage or your relationship many times over the years for it to last, especially in this age when we all seem to think there's a quick fix or easy solution for everything, and everything is replaceable. As I've said before here, the marriage vows are most meaningful when the marriage is challenged, not when it's easy.

When I read these things I feel hope that some day I will meet a woman who sees love as I do, who is aware of and sensitive to the distinctions. I think shared values are extremely important in a relationship. Sharing an understanding of love and sharing a practice of it in choice and action is a key, I think, to the best kind of relationship.