How strong is your communication with your partner? Do you find that the two of you text, email, nod at and grunt in reply to each other more than you typically have meaningful conversations with each other?
Admittedly, we all get caught up in our busy day-to-day lives, and often it’s our most important communication — expressing our feelings of love for our partners — that pays the biggest price.
Why is finding another way to say “I love you” so important in relationships?
When we forget to say those three little words ‘I love you’ often enough and with full sincerity, even in the form of a note scrawled with one of the best, most inspiring love quotes you can find, our connection with each other begins to suffer.
The connection in the relationship may start to weaken so slowly that we don’t even notice as the distance continues growing.
In his New York Times Bestseller, “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts”, marriage expert Dr. Gary Chapman urges couples to learn how to express their love for each other in the forms their partner gives and receives love most naturally, be it through physical touch, gifts, acts of service or devotion, quality time, or words of affirmation.
In particular, he stresses one important communication skill related to words of affirmation that all too often gets overlooked in our fast-paced digital society — and that method of connection is the written word.
Think about it … love letters used to be epic! They were tied with ribbon, stored in boxes for decades, and passed down through generations.
Don’t worry, your expressions of love can be epic, too — whether written love notes, verbal declarations, or through text messages and body language.
Here are the best ways to say “I love you” in the most romantic, sweet, and genuine ways.
Best Ways to Say ‘I Love You’:
1. “If, out of time, I could pick one moment and keep it shining, always new, of all the days that I have lived, I’d pick the moment I met you.”
2. “They say you only fall in love once, but that can’t be true … Every time I look at you, I fall in love all over again.”
3. “I love you to the moon and back.” — Amelia Hepworth
4. “With you, forever won’t be too long.”
5. “I am head over heels in love with you.”
6. “You make my heart warm and happy.”
7. “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” – Mignon McLaughlin
8. “True love stories never have endings.” – Richard Bach
9. “Love is shown more in deeds than in words.” – Saint Ignatius
10. “At this very moment, my thoughts of you have me smiling. You do that for me … did you know that?”
11. “I never knew how joyous life could be, until I saw your face.”
12. “She asked, ‘You are in love, what does love look like?’ To which I replied, ‘Like everything I’ve ever lost come back to me.'”
13. “When I see you, I think ‘Good job, God!'”
14. “If you need to hear why I love you, I can go on all night.” – Lucas to Brooke on “One Tree Hill”
15. “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” – John Green
16. “Loved you yesterday, love you still, always have, always will.” – Elaine Davis
17. “I love you not only for what you are but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
18. “I saw that you were perfect, and so I loved you. Then I saw that you were not perfect and I loved you even more.” – Angelita Lim
19. “If I know what love is, it is because of you.” – Hermann Hesse
20. “I’d rather argue with you, than kiss someone else.”
21. “I am consumed by the desire to be with you, to talk to you, and to feel you near me.”
22. “I could search my whole life through and through and never find another you.”
23. “In case you ever foolishly forget: I am never not thinking of you.” — Virginia Woolf
24. “When you feel alone, just look at the spaces between your fingers, and remember that’s where my fingers fit perfectly.”
25. “I swear I couldn’t love you more than I do right now, and yet I know I will tomorrow.” – Leo Christopher
26. “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” – A. A. Milne
27. ”I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.” – Pablo Neruda
28. “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” – Dr. Seuss
29. “I would rather spend one lifetime with you, than face all the ages of this world alone.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
30. “Whatever you have to do today, I’m glad to be doing it with you.”
31. “Maybe you don’t need the whole world to love you. Maybe you just need one person.” — Kermit the Frog (aka Jim Henson)
32. “You are my world, gravity always pulls me toward you.”
33. “There’s something about you I’m scared to lose because I know I won’t find it in anyone else.” — “The Driver”
34. “Sometimes I feel like my heart will burst with all of the longing and excitement I feel when I think of you.”
35. “To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed.” – Valerie Lombardo
36. “Love is the strange bewilderment which overtakes one person on account of another person.” – James Thurber
37. “You call it madness, but I call it love.” – Don Byas
38. “I love you like a fat kid loves cake.” – Scott Adams
39. “I love you with every beat of my heart.” – Armaan
40. “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” — Jane Austen, Emma
41. “They told me that to make her fall in love, I had to make her laugh. But every time she laughs, I’m the one who falls in love.” — Tommaso Ferraris
42. “A piece of my heart is always missing when you’re not with me.”
43. “I never wanted to have anything in my life that I couldn’t stand losing. It’s too late for that.”
44. “You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known — and even that is an understatement.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
45. “Love is being stupid together.” – Paul Valery
46. “I love you begins by I, but it ends up by you.” – Charles de Leusse
47. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.” – Pablo Neruda
48. “My love for you is past the mind, beyond my heart, and into my soul.” – Boris Kodjoe
49. “I want to spend my life with you. Forever.”
50. “You look great today. How did I know? Because you look great every day.”
Cute Ways to Say ‘I Love You’ Without Actually Saying It
51. “Smiling so much today just thinking of you.”
52. “Just wanted to thank you for being you :)”
53. “I hope you know how much you mean to me.”
54. “I’m so glad you’re in my life!”
55. “I want you to be my valentine every Valentine’s Day.”
56. “You mean so much to me.”
57. ‘We fit together like puzzle pieces.”
58. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
59. “You complete me.”
60. “I can’t believe you’re mine.”
61. “You are a beautiful person inside and out.”
62. “I am here for you…always.”
63. ” Words I love hearing you say: I’m yours.”
64. “I’m the luckiest person in the world.”
65. “We are meant to be.”
66. “I think I’m falling for you.”
67. “I’m crazy about you.”
68. “I’d do anything to make you smile.”
69. “You are my soulmate.”
70. “My heart calls out for you.”
71. “I like the way you make me feel, even when you are not around.”
72. “You’re my dream come true.”
73. “You take my breath away.”
74. “Since you’ve been around I smile a lot more than I used to.”
75. “You’re my partner in crime.”
76. “You look great today and every day.”
77. “You make my dreams come true.”
78. “There is no one I’d rather steal blankets from.”
79. “I’m jealous of people who get to see you every day.”
80. “Your voice is my favorite sound.”
81. “Sometimes I look at you and wonder how I got so lucky.”
82. “Whatever we do today, I’m glad to do it with you.”
83. “I’ve always got your back.”
84. “You make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.”
85. “You’re like poetry to me.”
Cute Ways to Say I Love You Without Words
86. Send a romantic song.
87. Buy flowers randomly.
88. Leave post-it notes and stick them around the house.
89. Have a romantic spa day at home.
90. Make a candlelit dinner.
91. Go stargazing.
92. Write a love letter.
93. Have a tickle fight.
94. Give them breakfast in bed.
95. Make them a mixtape (or playlist).
96. Give them a framed photo of you both.
97. Surprise them with a trip or activity.
98. Throw them a surprise party.
99. Cuddle.
100. Fill a jar of 100 reasons why you love them.
So, there you have it — super sweet ways to say ‘I love you’ and make the one you love smile!
It takes just a minute or two of your time to write these love messages down, but the feeling of being so deeply loved that you’ll give your partner will last far, far longer.
Jim and Carrie Gordon are expert authors and speakers with a passion for healthy marriages who teach couples to deepen intimacy, heighten love, and achieve new levels of fulfillment for a strong and happy marriage.
