what is love?

I've been wondering lately exactly what the meaning of love is. I thought it meant caring about someone so much that you put your own wants and needs aside. Perhaps that is what I did wrong.

I lost myself when I fell in love thus making it a bad relationship. Of course falling in love is totally different to me than just loving someone. I think when you fall in love, it is more of a physical attraction that you have or a certain characteristic about that person that makes you feel giddy beyond belief and then you can't stop thinking of them and wonder what they are thinking all the time especially a burning desire to know if they are feeling the same thing.

When you love someone, I think it might not have all the bells and whistles that made you fall in love but you have a genuine soul-matching feeling inside your heart that never leaves.

I see these divorced couples that have so much loathing inside them for their estranged spouses and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly loving someone as assuredly as they once did turns inside out and they feel only hatred towards them. That makes me feel sad and hopeless for the future.

Does anyone actually have a DEEP LOVE for anyone other than themselves these days? I just want to look at these couples sitting in restaurants not saying a word to one another, because there isn't anything left to say and they are just there physically but not mentally or emotionally, and say to them,

"don't you remember any of it?"

Then again, I really want to ask HIM eye to eye the same question.