Girlfriend won't tell me she loves me

Dear Pastor,

I am a 24-year-old college student, and I am pursuing engineering studies. I fell in love with a young lady. She is 21 years old. I have told her time and time again that I love her and want to settle down and get married to her. She said she would like to get married too. My problem is that she told me that she doesn't feel the urge to tell me that she loves me yet. She said she cares about me, and she told me at one point that she likes me and I should give her time to develop feelings of love for me. She always says that she doesn't want to tell me that she loves me, and in the end, she doesn't. She always says that she doesn't want to hurt me.

I am really tired of the suspense. I can't force someone to love me. We keep having this argument about the same topic, and she always tells me that she is not going to leave me, but she says that if I want to, I should leave her if I feel like she is not the one. However, I don't want to do that. We have been together for five months now. Am I moving too fast? Am I expecting too much from her in such a time?

Time has no regards to love, I believe. I see people fall in love at first sight while some take weeks or even a month or two, so why should I wait so long for these three words ('I love you')? It's like I am dying for these words, and I feel like I am running out of time and patience. The suspense is killing me, and I am getting tired. Each day, I am falling deeper for her, but I am yet to hear those words. Sometimes I wonder if she is punishing me.

We are sexually active. I help her financially and sometimes with school stuff because she is in school. We try to see each other regularly because we live quite some distance from each other, and now, I am getting confused and impatient.

Please, give me your sincere advice.

S.W.

Dear S.W.,

Grow up. You are behaving like an adolescent. You are 24 years old, and you should learn never to push a woman to tell you that she loves you. This relationship is only five months old, but you are saying that you are running out of patience. What she has done for you in five months, some women have not done for men who they have been with for a year. She has been having sexual intercourse with you, so you should consider yourself very fortunate.

She has been engaging in casual sex, and perhaps you feel that saying the words 'I love you' will prove that she is speaking the truth. I am not saying that it might not do something to your ego, but to talk about giving up because she has not yet said so is childish. She told you that she doesn't want to say that she loves you only to discover that she doesn't. She knows that it would be better for her to learn to love you than to say the words 'I love you' without meaning them.

This woman has told you that she doesn't feel the urge to tell you that she loves you as yet. Accept what she says, and don't push her. She is trying to get to know you better, and she has not yet reached the point where she can commit herself wholly to you, although she has been having sex with you. Perhaps having sex with you is her way of showing gratitude to you for the help that you give to her.

Pastor