love confusion

Buddhism teaches that a variety of attitudes may be confused as love.
One is sensual desire. Another is affection that is entangled with craving and the need for reciprocity.
The Buddha never encouraged the cultivation of such affection; in fact, he often considered it a hindrance to spiritual maturity.
However, if we abandon such affections too quickly, we may overlook situations when affection consists of a combination of craving and one of the four helpful forms of love.
One of the joys of spiritual practice is learning to distinguish unhelpful grasping and neediness from an underlying love that needs nothing beyond itself.
What should be abandoned is craving, not love. When letting go of craving is too difficult, then a person may practice developing one of the four forms of love to the point that any need to be loved naturally loses its power in the glow of love flowing from us.

The Buddha and the enlightened men and women who followed him are often depicted as motivated by love, but never as in need of being loved. Perhaps we have an innate impulse to love, while being loved is not required in order to be happy and free. Spiritual practice helps free this impulse to love so that it can become a motivating strength in our lives.

- by Gil Fronsdal