Love or Lust Driving Things?

This thread is kind of a supplemental tangent to my other thread, Trying to figure out what the hell is actually happening.... [I made it a new thread since I think it is more of a tangent deserving its own thread.]

I was wondering, what are the best means of figuring out whether or not a relationship thing is being driven by lust, infatuation, or love, but be able to prove that it is a case of love and mutual respect/care for one another, lust towards one or the other, etc? [Whether you are trying to figure out if somebody entered a relationship with another based on lust, or whether or not you yourself are entering a relationship of your own, and don't want to feel like you're going in for the wrong reasons]

This is no answer, but when I read your post, the first thing that I thought was that can you ever really know? I mean lust and love are very murky and ill-defined anyway. I dont think you can ever really know, thats part of the mystery. Sometimes I think many of us want a direct measure or test to decipher feelings and what their driving forces are, but sometimes feeling are meant to be felt, not analysed or deciphered.

Thats just my thoughts, but I hope you get a few helpful answers from others. Best wishes

Part of me wonders if it would be 200x more accurate for me to have titled this "Love or Blind Infatuation Driving Things?" as that seems to be what is making me confused - but I am not *completely* sure.

For example, in the other thread I mentioned in the OP, I talked about a relationship I was in with this girl for about a year - at the college we go to we met - introduced to each other by a friend of ours... we were further driven together by our similarities, ability to communicate on a level I've never seen anywhere else DUE to our both being Aspergers, ADD, and having compatible habits that would drive other people up a wall as well as the fact that the aforementioned learning disabilities being mutually shared allowed us to understand our quirks and be more patient with each other than most would IMO. It was mentally and physically like we found our clone - and it felt incredible on many levels. It officially became a relationship of boyfriend/girlfriend after roughly 3 months of getting to know each other. We had arguments from time to time that ALWAYS resulted in one, the other, or BOTH of us being very apologetic afterwards, but other than that it was great.

That was fall last year. Spring semester last year somebody new to our college started hanging out with the group of friends I was in. She after a small while started building a very small physical attraction to him. He noticed this, and even chose to isolate himself from us because he knew - or felt - that if it got too strong, it would ruin the relationship we had [which was very strong]. She was aware of this, and wanted to be rid of this attraction because she didn't want to lose me - and ruin what we built together. To her, he was - to put it in the words of a Youtube personality she watched - "hot-hothothot-hot," she would catch herself making statements about him and wanting to do things with him sexually. Though they had a few things in common, they were more friends than anything. During this time, the passion between her and I only grew stronger. We celebrated each others birthdays, valentine's day, and she came with me to family functions... we understood more about each other, and built one hell of a trust for one another. We knew each others pet peeves - those we shared especially - and knew what made each other tick.

Then that September things got a bit nuts. Her feelings of attraction to this guy got a bit stronger especially during that time of the month [during which she would become flirty]. She was confused, and knew that her feelings could tear her and I apart, so she wanted to get advice on how to control her feelings. Unfortunately, she doesn't like confrontations [gets a lot of $#%^ at home to deal with, including taking care of her mom with kidney disease] and is shy about approaching people to get help. Eventually, however, she put her trust not in a neutral 3rd party, but in the guy whom she had a physical attraction over. It was around this time that he stopped relenting.

During a nor'easter that struck after Hurricane Sandy, he gave her his cell phone number in case she needed to talk according to him. She at the time had that attraction, and he was starting to give in to it, but was still dedicated to our relationship - at one point that night I was being picked up, and we floated the idea of taking my now-ex with us and having her spend the night [which SHE really wanted to happen]... her mom, however, wanted her home to help her out [a request regretted when my ex ended up stuck on a bus for almost 6 hours - and that was before having to transfer and then take another bus to get home, a commute that usually takes an hour and a half to two hours tops]. We spent time together when we could, and got together on weekends up to the weekend before Thanksgiving. During this time, she was deeply conflicted - but often we'd have deep heart to hearts that would reaffirm, as she would tell me, that she loved me, wanted to be with me - and made her torn and wanting to control herself so she didn't throw that away.

Then, on the evening of the Monday of Thanksgiving week things felt off. We usually would get on Skype and talk for a few hours before we went to sleep. That night, she was on Skype but not accepting my calls. The next day we met up before my class - things almost normal, though she kept her phone hidden. After my class I came back, and I saw her with him, her arm around him.

That night she officially broke it off, and on to of that cut off ALL communication with me - Facebook, Skype, etc.... and went to being "in a relationship" with him.

After a couple of weeks, I - with the help of my friends - confronted he. It was a Tuesday, exactly 3 weeks later. We talked. She did bring up two issues, both of which were not really problem that were unfixable, both were problems that can be worked on that should not have had ANYTHING to do with this. The first: Sometimes she says things that I take seriously that were meant as a joke - other times she says something seriously that I mistaken as joke especially after she makes a joking statement... but SOMETIMES she and I are talking seriously, and she hears a cough or something, will mistaken it as a a smirk or some sign of not taking things seriously, and get ticked. Note she DOES make mistakes like this, get pissed, then feel bad when she calms down. Whenever she talked about how she felt about him, I did raise questions when I felt warranted. She said she was sure about how she felt, I questioned that - and I could see it in her facial expressions, hear it in her voice that she was not sure [and got her wondering]. It was only when the other guy in all this joined in that she acted sure. Still kept asking questions. She said she never felt strongly about somebody before - to which I immediately said "#######4" - cited the time we were together, the passion between us. She told me some story about this guy being strong emotionally - a story of him being bullied a lot in middle school and finding friends in high school

Talked to her again that Thursday. As we started off, the things we talked about, the conversation we had was bothering her the previous day. We again talked about the issues that she saw, including one of appearing easily distracted [I AM ADD after all] even when I am listening to what she has to say. I kept - while citing examples - making the point that her misconceptions were that [misconceptions - and that she has let misconceptions she made cause arguments between us [which she acknowledged]] that should have had nothing to do with this debacle, and it seemed like she was realizing that. She told me then that she feels horrible about breaking my hart and "throwing away a great thing" [her words]. During both times we talked, she said she still loved me.

From what my other friends told me, she didn't have that strong hand holding her back and controlling her urges - though at the same time she was conscientious about not ######6 up our relationship, and once this guy stopped relenting the flirting got a lot stronger. The first time we talked, she told me she went crazier over him when he told her nobody but her had ever penetrated an emotional side of him before [the day before the Tuesday incident] - which I feel really confused her.

After that "revelation" she said to me she was conflicted about whether what WE had was infatuation or love - and thought maybe it was infatuation/not love, but I think it is what is between her and this other guy. One thing that I thing greatly supports my assertion that what she is doing is acting on lust/infatuation/both, not really thinking clearly about how she feels about people: How she discribes her feelings for both me, and the guy she is with now. When people ask her what she sees in this other guy, she only says two things: Being "hot-hothothot-hot" as a Youtube personality she watches would say, and that emotional strength bit. This she expressed to me, and to others we both know - and she expresses this still. When people asked her about what she saw in me on the other hand, thy would hear about how because we were so similar she felt less lonely, alone, and less like a freak of nature. [both of us being ADD and Aspergers] - and talk about how well we communicate and understand each other.