Clarification and In Response to Ike

Hi Ike!

Sentimental attractions does not replace love,; love is more than mere sentiments. You have spoken on the phone with this lady and you are only attracted to everything this lady has told you but as time goes on, you will learn more about this person whether via phone conversations, emails and hopefully by spending time with this person. The more you grow fond of this lady, the more time you will want to spend with each other.
What you both have now, takes little to no effort (i.e. you both already had a phone and you both talked on it before either of you stumbled into each others lives) there is no true committment just yet. You could be having sex with someone that you are least fond of. Who is to say you are wrong? It happens all the time. So you may like/be fond-of her but you are not in love. When you earn each others love you would have worked so hard and you both will appreciate it more. There is a book that puts it well; the summary is that in the beginning of a relationship, beyond the physical attraction, you study each other enough to get married and then everyone stops there. But if you continue to study that person enough to get an AA, then enough to get a B.S., then a M.S. then a phD and maybe a second phD ... The point is once you earn love, you must continue to work at it to keep that relationship going. It only takes one of you to stop working at it, and the relationship dies (the strand holding you two together gets weak).
Like/ fond-of is like a thin strand that the two of you are holding on to and it is only by the grace of God that the strand does not break. But love is like many thin strands tied together into many knots to make a thick rope but you both have to continue to tie this knot so that it never gets weak and break. Even the love people feel the first year of marriage will be nothing compared to when you say I love you 50 years of dealing with the others personality.
Sometimes we allow excitement and sexual pleasures cloud our memory. Men say they love and they make it stronger by fulfilling their sexual lusts- which by the way is ok (don't get me wrong you have to have physical attraction first before anything else so hey what is the big rush to prove it physically). The problem with this approach is, women and men think differently, most women are more emotional and do not love right away. But since you have already used the word 'love' and even shared that sacredness with them, now you have clouded her memory with the emotional impacts of sex that now she is sure she means it when next she says it. But in truth, she doesn't mean it. And if she marrys you, yay! but she made that decision not with her whole mind and heart, but with the clouded emotional package of sex.
A lot of women engage in sex before knowing truly but they want to keep their man (he is so good for me/ I like him/ he is the nicest guy I ever met/ he is better than the last one ... ) but it is the wrong way, if he cannot wait then the relationship and marriage may never have been worth it in the first place. Even some get their sex and still go elsewhere. But hey! hopefully that man may get her pregnant and give her another reason to want to be with him. We use love for our family because they have been there for us so much (unconditionally) one must get to this point with their spouse, the bible even hints to that. A man must leave their parents home and cling to his wife (Mark 10: 6-9). For someone you just met, it takes work to get to love and then more work to be unconditional.
A lot of people take love and marriage for granted, and it was never meant to be that way. It is still amazing to me how a CEO can fall in love with someone that they have never met or say I love you on one conversation, marry them 30 days later but that same CEO has a hard time hiring an assistant on just a phone conversation alone or even a day of observing their work skills. Even some companies have a 30 day orientation just to make sure they've got the right match. And hey when hiring someone, you don't have divorce papers to sign, or if kids are involved- no kids to hurt, in fact you really don't have much to do.
I am not against love, I learnt the definition and realised that it is often misused. Most people use it commonly and women fall for it, but I have learned that a lot of men really meant to say I am fond-of/ like you but they say I love you because they feel this special excitement/ satisfaction from being with that person. But most women tends to think of it like it was described in 1 Corinthians 13 and most of the time it was not the way the man meant it. If I were you, I would also read 1 Corinth 7:1-16.
I have only been in love once and I went searching for the meaning because I watched many roomates and people abuse it. To the extent that I no longer knew what it meant any longer. I did my research and learned for myself how special it was; what it meant. See I cared for my husband and I wanted to be sure that I truly meant every word of it, it baffled him how curious I was to know the right meaning and he patiently waited. If God forbids something happened to you, I don't think you have enough strands to keep that Lady from moving on or vice versa. But I bet you if you tried calling my husband and mention that I have the flu, it is like his whole world has just crashed. The same with me, I got one of the calls that someone hit my husbands car less than 24 hours after I left for work, I could feel my heart fall down until he said the words 'I am ok.'
I have always been long distance with my best friend and husband; long distance only means you have to work harder at it. I mean it makes perfect sense, someone else that sees the other on a daily basis can say more about that persons character as opposed to one who spent time monthly. Because my husband and I were long distance it took us a lot longer to tie the knot (5 years for us but understand that everyone is different). We are married now and still long distance, we see each other 2 days every month and we count down the days it will be over. Hence, I have nothing against long distance r/ships, I even have tips on things you can do to make it work. It is even the more reason to understand that word- love and use it appropriately. 'Sincerity'- You can never guarantee sincerity by spoken words alone, even when you meet that person. You need to spend time with that person. I know my husband better than anyone, I can even tell you what he will say or how he may react in situations- it really impresses his immediate family. He also knows me very well but you have no idea how many new things we learn about each other that we never know existed- it just never came up.
My husband tells me I love you every day but even today meant more than yesterday. Every day as we both get comfortable and increasingly open with each other, we see more negatives and if you can learn to love that person despite their faults nothing tops that. You learn many things; you find out about each others family, each others likes and personalities- I mean it is so different when you live with this person. It is the same reason that it is only your lover that knows exactly what to say to make you feel special and also to hurt you.
Despite my husband's flaws, he is my brother, my world, the part that makes me whole, my gist buddy, my partner in crime, the only man I was made for. The answers to my prayers. He caught me right before my family started pestering my life about leaving my books and paying more attention to men :)
Good luck to you and this Lady- I hope it works out.

Remain blessed!
Nda nkeJude