When you say I love you, where does the love go?

I told two people that I love them. They both said it back. I don't feel like I love them anymore.

Lacan says love is "giving something you don't have to someone who doesn't want it". In this sense, a confession of love is a confession of not being in love, and accepting love is a confession that you don't want it. Maybe love can only exist in secret, staying below the level at which its absence makes itself felt. If you don't say I love you, the magic can still exist, but if you do, you dispel the illusion.

To me, love is anything that justifies suffering. That's why it becomes bitter if you share it with someone and they accept it. All they've done is agree with the justification for your pain and let you consent to their pain too. What you wanted was for love to end the suffering. To be loved back is a betrayal.

I already knew all this, but I forgot because the sense of love became too real. I need to keep the feelings I think I have to myself.