No "I love you" after 9 months...

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 9 months and for the first 7 months everything was absolutely perfect. Then his twin sister started hating me and he was under a lot of pressure to break it off with me. He grew distant and I asked him to please decide if he wanted to stay with me and deal with the pressure from his family or break it off. He decided that he wanted to stay with me, which I was thrilled about. The problem is that he’s never said that he loves me. He’s told me that it’s “more than like” and when he writes me letters or cards he always signs it with love or lots of love. I really do feel loved and I love him with every cell in my body but I’m not saying it first. The only other serious boyfriend that I’ve had… I told him that I loved him and he never replied… So I’m not going through that again. What should I do? I was sure that he must love me to put up with all the pressure that his parents and sister are putting him through… Why else would he do that to himself? And if so, why hasn’t he said it? The only other relationship that he’s been in was in first year university and school which lasted 2 years but he’s told me that what they had was no where near what we have, and I know he’s never told anyone that he loves them.