I agree that if it is said as a closing to every conversation and used like a "goodbye" or "see ya later" that it loses its meaning. Not saying it enough is just as bad.
One late night I was sitting up with my mom in the hospital as she was dying from cancer. She told me that she wished her mom would and would have just told her that she loved her once in a while. She said she couldn't ever remember her mom simply saying "I Love You".
I told a few select members of my family about this and for the last few days, we all tried to get grandma to tell mom "I Love You" before she died. Grandma wouldn't do it. She kept saying "Oh, she knows I love her". No, grandma, just tell her . . . she needs to hear it. "She knows it". She never did do it and my mom died wishing her mother would simply say "I Love You".
I know this is different than what we're talking about it, but the point is that there are extremes to each side.
You know Web, my mother never was one to say it very often when I was a child, but she did say it. It never occurred to me till just now, that she says it to me after every phone conversation now, and when I leave her house.
My mom has a terminal illness now, and I think she is just making sure that she says it each time I leave just in case she passes. How you do change as you get older.
PS as a side note though, I did not feel I needed to hear it every day, each time we ended a phone call or departed one another as a child. But I know now why she is doing it, and even as a child it could go unsaid, because I knew she did love me.....
