What is Being "In Love" Supposed To Be Like?

   I can't explain exactly what being in love is supposed to be like, but I can tell you what it is not. I can also tell you what being in love means to me...
   I spent most all of my childhood living with two parents who were most certainly not in love. They stayed together for the wrong reasons, and I personally believe that they originally got together for the wrong reasons as well. My mother didn't have a father around, and when he was still around when she was still very young, she saw a man who was not responsible as a husband or as a father. So she saw in my father a sense of responsibility and a sense of dedication to his family. My father has always been a fairly superficial man and what he saw in her was a physically attractive woman. They also met while working in the same mental hospital and were both pursuing further education in mental health, so they saw a compatibility there. My father also thought that it was his "duty" as a man to marry and procreate. His mother, my grandmother was a sweetheart and he knew that she would be happy if he married and gave her grandchildren.
   When my mother began to gain some weight, my father would ridicule her and make her feel less than adequate. My mother began to see a man whose arrogance and cockiness began to quickly outweigh the good qualities that she had originally married for. My father's constant disparagement of my mother's weight only caused her to gain more weight, and soon after that, he told her that he was no longer in love with her anymore. My mother had long since been harboring feelings of love, reverence, or compassion for him, and neither of them truly respected one another.
   Now this would have been a good time for them to peacefully (or unpeacefully) part ways, but they did not. They decided to stay together "for the kids" not realizing (or not wanting to realize) that this was doing more harm than good. I believe that it is better for parents to separate if they are no longer in love, especially if they hold ill feelings and contempt for one another. Children can sense these things and it is not conducive to a child's overall stability for them to be led to believe that this is what love is supposed to be like, or that this is how you are supposed to treat your future significant other. They also decided to stay together for the financial stability. Actually, they would have been perfectly stable financially if they would have split, but their incomes combined allowed them to live an economically luxurious life. Then of course, since they were well-known in their professional circles in the community as being good upstanding citizens, they did not want their reputations (which they placed much emphasis on) to be even the slightest bit "tainted".
   I spoke in great detail about my parents, because I knew them personally as people very well. There are many other reasons why people get or stay together. Some other reasons may be that one's family may really like their child's love interest, they may be feeling pressured to "settle down", they may see a potential new "mommy or daddy" for their child, they don't want to end up forever alone, they only feel like "half a person" by themselves and need to be with someone else to help make them feel whole, they think that the other person is very physically attractive and may think that someone that good-looking may never come around again, this man or woman has lots of money and showers them with expensive gifts, this other man or woman is insecure and they feel like they can break them down and form them into whomever you want, this man or woman is a people-pleaser and will do whatever the other wants, this man or woman has a hefty life insurance policy, and various other reasons that didn't come to mind.  
   So all of my life I have been a hopeless romantic because I saw absolutely no love and romance between my parents. I am in no way superficial and money means nothing to me. Of course there always needs to be some sort of physical attraction there, but I do not care if the man I am in love with is what society would consider "gorgeous" and I certainly don't judge anyone based on their looks or have any physical standards that my man must live up to. What is important to me, is that we both have a sense of empathy for each other, that we never place judgment on each other, and we encourage each other instead of bring each other down. When we are around one another, we feel comfortable and "at home". We help to inspire one another to be the best person that we can be and we feel inspired ourselves to be a better person for one another. We don't feel hindered or stifled by each other. We can cry with each other as easily that we can laugh with each other. We ignite passion within each other, romantic passion, but also a passion to live every day to the fullest and truly appreciate every moment that we have not only together, but every moment that we are alive in general.     For the first time in my life, I really believe that this is "it", I am not in any way "settling" for anything. I believe in my deepest of hearts, that I have finally found the "ONE". And neither of us were even searching, it just happened. You must be content within yourself before you will ever be any good for anyone else. I know that this man makes me genuinely happy, and I think it's safe to say that I do the same thing for him. I believe that when you are truly in love, you will just "know it" There is no mistaking that feeling, and it is one of the best feelings in the world...