Hmmm.....I agree with everything that's already been said...but I'm gonna try this with my own spin on it.

How can you verify that when she says she loves you, she really really means it? You can't. There are things in this world that can't be measured like that. Faith and Love are two of the biggies. It's part of what makes them so damned scary.

If you feel the need to check, it tells me that you've already got doubts. You're hanging out with an insiteful bunch of folks, it's not common for people to realize that those doubts can either arise from her actions or your insecurities. From the outside, with what we have to go on, we can't tell the difference. From the inside, you stand a better chance, but it's still not an easy diagnosis. It requires honesty of a terribly mature caliber. I know, in my heart, when my doubts come from inside me when they apply equally to everyone in the world around me. If I NEVER believed that anyone could mean it when they said they loved me....I'd look to myself first for the heart of the problem.

If she's given you reason to doubt, well....you're well on the way to answering your own question. All the love in the world isn't going to hold a relationship together if someone doesn't act in a loving way. Someone told me that love is something that's _between_ two people, and it made a lot of sense. If I love someone, and never act on it, never tell them, never touch their lives in any way, then that love is stillborn in a very real sense. Likewise, if someone tells me they love me while making me miserable, undermining my self esteem, or otherwise destroying my world....it doesn't count. What they feel is less important than how they behave. Most battered women will tell you that their abuser claimed to love them. The same bull is fed to many abused children. So if the reason you're unsure about her proclamation is that her actions are inconsistent with her statement of love (not necessarily all the way to abusive...but not loving), well...you've gotta go carefully.

But I'd be gentle with her too...most people who tell you they love you, the ones that aren't downright sociopathic, really do believe that they love you. They may be wrong, they may not understand what love really is or requires. But they think they're telling you the truth. And someone who believes a lie can be a very very convincing witness.

Mostly though, you'll never ever know. Not in the way you mean. I know my guy loves me because of the years we've spent and the little actions that fill them. I'd know if he'd never said the words (although, thank your deity of choice, he says them lots). You'll know that way too...in time. But you'll never know at any given moment just because of the way someone says those words.

Hope this helps....or at least made some kind of sense.

G