Many people have professed to me that they don't always feel connected to what they mean when they say love. There is something shameful in this admission, but there doesn't have to be. In the buddhist tradition, it is widely accepted that to love others you must be able to see them as separate from yourself. This seems simple enough; you are over there and I am here, therefore we are separate. Not so fast.
Relationships are complicated for this very reason. We often need the other person to be someone other than they are. This happens for many reasons: we don't like to see what we view as our weaknesses in someone else, we need the other person to be something we think we can't be, we think the other person reflects us.
In general, as long as we engage in this kind of projection, our love is very confusing. It is based on our need of the other person rather than our appreciation of them. This can often lead us to feel disingenuous when we say 'love.'
Our parents 'loved' us, to the degree that they could see us as separate people. Most people who come to therapy feel that in some way, they were not seen as separate from their parents, and that the love they felt from their parents was tinged with a quality of self-involvement.
As a result, it is hard to know themselves, know their needs, know how to see themselves. This is a logical by-product of childhood, not a human failing. In order to truly love someone else as a separate being, we must first learn how to see and accept ourselves. This is not an easy task after so many years of hiding, but it is possible.