What's the difference between love and intense feelings?

I suppose it’s up to the person feeling it – love is an intense feeling, to some it’s more than a feeling, to some it’s an obsession…love and its depth and varieties differ for some of us…I like to think that now, at this point in my life, I have found true love, because it feels like it, it has more than intensity, it has a motor so to speak, to propel me through life

Isn’t love one particular kind of intense feeling?

The name for those intense romantic feelings is limerence. It doesn’t last.

Hate, lust, greed are all intense feelings.
Not all intense feelings are love.

How do you know when you have intense feelings for someone whether it is love? Is that your question?

Welcome to the collective, by the way.

A number of factors come into play.

One is time. If you have just met someone you may be strongly attracted to them, you may be infatuated, you may be in lust, but that is not love.

The initial chemical haze of attraction (because that’s what it is) fades in all cases. Love is something that grows over time as you experience things with someone, share things, learn about each other.

If you truly love someone, their happiness matters more to you, or at least as much to you, as your own. You want them to be happy, to succeed in life and their endeavors. You want to build a life with them, share goals, handle adversity.

Your question is like asking: “What is the difference between a chicken and a bird.”
I would say one of its legs is shorter.

Love feels like that person is a part of you. You find joy in their joy, and sadness in their sadness. For me, with my marriage, there came a time about 4 or 5 years in when I started to realize that I think of my husband as my family, as bonded as my mother and father are to me, it only gets more intense (to use your word) as time passes. The people I love, I feel like they will be in my life forever.

Intense feelings certainly count, but I think there is still a feeling of your not sure where the relationship might go.

thanks for that answer , I was wondering the same thing.