We use one word for everything from coffee to soulmates. No wonder our relationships feel so confusing.
We say we love coffee. We say we love our mothers. We say we love sunsets, our dogs, our favorite pair of jeans, and the person we share a bed with.
One word. Carrying all of that. And we wonder why our relationships feel so confusing.
In the opening chapter of Love Unlocked, I explore something that most of us haven't really stopped to think about: the English language has one word for love. One. And we're asking that single word to describe soulmates and sandwiches, devotion and desire, comfort and craving.
No wonder we talk past each other. No wonder people feel hurt or betrayed, even when no promises were made.
The Poverty of One Word
Think about it like weather. Imagine only having one word for every kind of weather. Someone tells you "the weather is coming" and you have no idea whether to bring an umbrella or put on sunscreen. You'd be completely unprepared, and probably pretty frustrated with the person who told you.
That's the state we're in with love.
We enter relationships with the same words in our mouths but wildly different interpretations in our hearts. One person says "I love you" and means "I will never leave you." Another says it and means "right now, I deeply enjoy this." Others say it out of habit, out of politeness, or even out of fear.
Same four letters. Completely different experiences underneath.
What Other Cultures Got Right
Sanskrit, one of the world's oldest languages, has 96 words for love. Ninety-six! Each one captures a distinct emotional texture.
There's prema, a divine, unconditional love that transcends ego and expectation. There's sneha, a tender, loyal affection rooted in warmth, the kind of love you have for a friend who'd help you through anything. And there's rati, a passionate, sensual love that honors desire as sacred rather than shallow.
None of these is placed above or below another. They're simply different.
The Inuit language has more than thirty words for snow, because when you live in an Arctic climate, the difference between wet snow and packed snow can be the difference between safety and danger. Those distinctions aren't poetic. They're practical.
In the same way, being able to name different forms of love isn't indulgent. It's emotional and relational survival. Without distinctions, we make assumptions. Without language, we project.
When "I Love You" Really Means "Don't Leave Me"
Here's where it gets uncomfortable.
Sometimes when we say "I love you," what we actually mean is: I don't know how to feel okay without you. Or, you make me feel like I exist. Or, please don't abandon me.
These are real needs. They aren't wrong. But they aren't love. They live at a different level entirely.
If you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, love and belonging sit right in the middle. When our foundation, our sense of safety, is unstable, we often reach for love in ways that are really about securing that safety. We seek validation when what we need is protection. We chase closeness when what we're missing is stability.
The result is that we say "I love you" when what we mean is "you make me feel whole, and I don't know who I am without you."
There's nothing shameful about that recognition. But it can be incredibly revealing. Because if the emotional foundation of a relationship is built on unspoken desperation rather than mutual understanding, then what you're calling love might actually be survival in disguise.
The Question Worth Sitting With
When you say "I love you," what do you mean?
Not what you've been taught it should mean. What you actually mean.
Are you expressing commitment? Gratitude? Longing? Hope? Comfort?
Do you use the word as a gesture of care, a cry for reassurance, or simply a social script?
When someone says it to you, do you receive it clearly, or do you fill in the blanks with your own definitions?
These aren't trick questions. They're the beginning of something more honest. Because reclaiming love starts with reclaiming the language we use to name it. And reclaiming language starts with the willingness to ask: what do I really feel? What do I actually want to offer?
In my work with clients and in the pages of Love Unlocked, this is always where we begin. Not with techniques or frameworks, but with honesty about what we've been calling love and whether it matches what we actually need.
The word isn't broken. But it's overloaded. And if we want our relationships to feel less confusing and more free, we might need to stop using one word for everything and start getting specific about what we're really trying to say.
Here's the reflection I want to leave you with: think about the last time you said "I love you." What were you really communicating? And did the person on the other end hear the same thing you meant?
Ready to go deeper?
If this resonated, my book Love Unlocked goes further into attachment, identity, and what conscious relating actually looks like in practice.
Want to work through your patterns together? I offer 1:1 Clinical Coaching and a 90-day container for people ready to break cycles and come home to themselves. Learn more at loveunlocked.com.