Love as a verb is fine.

I prefer action words as much as possible. There is no "but she is your mother and loves you" as an excuse. If you replace love with what you truly desire and the sentence does not make sense it's time to reevaluate a relationship. "but she is your mother and protected you" nope. "but she is your mother and was kind to you" also nope" On and on. This is also a typical play of abusers. They push you and push you, for weeks, and then make the final push in front of other people. You react strongly. Your reaction matches the fact that you've been tormented about this topic for weeks, even asking, no begging, for this to stop. However, the people present for the last push only see that and you look crazy for the reaction.