"I love you," is a phrase with three words: "I," the subject; "you," the object; and "love," the verb.  To love is an action.  And to be satisfied, Passionate Love must give itself.  Be put into action. 

However, it does exist even if it is not, or cannot, be given.  But when that is the case, it yearns and it aches.  It hurts.  It burns.  It make you feel ill.  The unrequited Passionate Lover is a tortured soul.  He or she feels compelled to express love to the beloved, and is never at peace until he or she can, to the fullest possible extent.

This is the kind of love that makes the lover want to spend his or her entire life with (and for) the beloved-- get married, because nothing less than full life-long (eternal even) commitment to the beloved will do. 

In my essay on Love: The Decision, I explained how I fell in love with my beloved.  Well, long before I fell in love (let myself fall in love, that is), I possessed, or more accurately, was possessed by Passionate Love for my beloved.

This kind of love is not generated by the lover, nor is it permitted by the lover.  I did not "fall" in Passionate Love, it fell on me.  I had no choice.  I fought it as hard as I could, since I knew nothing of how "worthy" my beloved would be, since I did not know my beloved at all, at that time.  And the sensation I was feeling seemed so foreign, irrational and dangerous!  And yet, a strong love, stronger than I am, possesses me.  You know it’s love, when you fight against it with all your might... and lose. 

 As King Solomon wrote: 
"Love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.  It burns like blazing fire, like the very flame of the LORD.  Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away..."

This love often manifests itself as "love at first sight."  The lover will feel love for someone whom he or she does not know at all.  The beloved’s "worthiness" is not an issue.  And, therein lies the struggle: the heart against the head.  Unlike with Love: The Decision, there is absolutely nothing rational about Passionate Love.

You do not have the privilege of giving your own heart away, as with Decision- Love.  Your heart is taken from you, and given to (often times) a complete stranger!  And you must join with that person, in order to have visiting rights with your own heart!  Thus, the lover feels extremely vulnerable.  Someone else has his or her heart, and there is no way to get it back.  It’s a-gonner.  The beloved could crush the lover’s heart to pieces, potentially.  So, this is another reason why there is no peace for the lover, unless his or her love is requited. 

But gaining peace is not the lover’s primary goal.  Because the beloved has become the most precious thing in the universe to the lover.  Someone to be nurtured, cared for, and cherished.  The lover will go to any lengths to meet the beloved’s every need, to the point of endangering or even losing his or her own life!  The happiness and welfare of the beloved is of utmost concern. 

As Frederick Buechner wrote: 
"Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me.   To see reality-- not as we expect it to be, but as it is-- is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love."

And yet, if the beloved desires someone else, over the lover, he or she will support the beloved even then, because the lover wants what the beloved wants.  Even if this means that the lover must endure a lifetime of the torture of unrequited love... 

While Passionate Love can make the lover suffer most acutely, it also carries the greatest potential for joy.  While Love: The Brotherly contains a constant state of bliss, Love: The Passionate can inspire the infinitely more intense feeling of ecstasy.  It is a very extreme, manic-depressive state.  Every feeling Passionate Love inspires is felt very deeply.  And the emotions have a tendency to overwhelm the lover.  It causes pain if the lover has to keep these powerful feelings inside. 

The agony and the ecstasy of Passionate Love has inspired many a poet.  It causes the lover become almost obsessively focused.  And if the lover cannot express his or her love to the beloved-- to what the lover feels is an adequate degree-- the lover must express it some other way, as in poetry, song, prose, et cetera.  This is what I was forced to do, after dealing so long with unrequited love.  And it did help!  But it is, of course, no substitute for being requited. 

The reason I desire to be requited is that only if my beloved loves me back, will I be able to express all of my love.  Because my beloved will not refuse any of it then.  My beloved will be happy to receive my love, because it will fulfill a need of mine, to do so.  I need to express my love!  And if my beloved loves me, I will be permitted to.  And if I am permitted to express my love completely, then my beloved will be cherished, supported, appreciated and cared-for, which is what I want most.   And, I expect my love will be able to heal my beloved's broken heart.  It has healed mine, even after crushing it to pieces. 

Love: The Passionate’s definition defies mere words.  It is an eternal, irrevocable state, where the lover’s heart has been given to another, without his or her permission.  The beloved becomes utterly precious to the lover, and he or she is likely to worship the beloved.  An intense desire to mate with the beloved, is experienced.  The love must be expressed, therefore, it must be requited.  And if not, the lover suffers.  If so, the lover experiences immeasurable joy.

As Shah Jahan wrote about his beloved wife, Mumtaz-i-Mahal: 
"If there is heaven on earth, it is this... it is this... it is this!"