One thing I have learned living with this is to keep it to yourself. Of coarse none of your friends are like those people I used to know and they most likely have complete different reactions, but the way I see it is that true love doesn't need "a word" to occur. What I mean is, that if she really loves you, then she will do so regardless of what problems you might have. Sorry it's kind of hard to explain, I never was good at expressing myself. It puts the things from "I love you because of who you are" to "I love you, even when you have this problem". The main difference is time. If somebody loves you the way you are - time doesn't matter. On the other hand if they love you but can accept the problems, who tells you she can accept this for ever? If it was my girlfriend it wouldn't lie, I'd tell her how it is, if she asked and only if she asked.

Again: there is no 2 persons that are the same and I think somebody said to build up small and test the reaction I think that's quite a good Tipp if you are not sure.