To want to love is to love, but the full flowering of love takes time. The full flowering of love involves an exchange of identity, a laying down of our life and a discovery of the other, and of ourselves in the other. We find ourselves no longer in the isolated state of our ego consciousness, but we find ourselves now in relationship, existing with the other, with others. The full flowering of love demands reciprocity, a mutual sharing, a giving and receiving.
( Aspects of Love 3 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
