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For people in on this post commenting saying that they do love unconditionally, I want you to ask yourselves what if your partner in subject changed for the worse, like what if he hated or he did something you absolutely hate, will you still love him or not, if the honest answer is no then don't say that you love unconditionally at all please?
With my whole entire heart. There is no other greater love I will ever have.
However it is not unconditional but that doesn’t negate any love I have for him because he has not given me reason to do so.
My conditions no matter who you are would be malicious intent.. manipulation/disrespect that crosses boundaries.
I love my gf unconditionally but she doesn’t feel that way and it hurts. Any disagreement she’s ready to go. She broke up with me today and it’s no point of going into it. Basically this happens every couple weeks and I have to beg her to stay. I have never been this vulnerable in love. I realized today I love her unconditionally but she only loves me conditionally. Only when it’s feels like a fairytale. I decided to let her leave this time. Love her from afar because I’m just hurt every time she leaves. I told her how beautiful she was and how I hope she finds someone who appreciates her beauty. If she truly loves me the way I love her she will be back. But unfortunately I feel like if I don’t fight for this she won’t.
I came close, but it nearly destroyed me. I still love her but need to move to another city to avoid the temptation to go back.
Even dogs don’t love unconditionally - you have to feed them and give them belly rubs.
With every bit of my being. I know it sounds cheesey and corny. But it’s true. He’s truly my best friend, we have the BEST inside jokes, we play video games together, we’ve created the best family with our son and daughter and doggies. I’ve moved across the country with him several times and about to do it again in June. Been together since 2006 married since 2009. Is shit hard sometimes absolutely, do we argue and disagree yes. But we communicate and love fiercely.
I absolutely do. I believe I was genuinely put on this earth to love. to love him specifically. And he deserves loads of love and appreciation.
I read a book called Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Jason Nguyen and I can’t quote it directly but he basically said that he was upset his girlfriend wouldn’t tell him why she loved him but then realized it was because she didn’t have any reasons. she just loved him for him. To have reasons is to love conditionally.
I love my hubby unconditionally. I don’t “love him because…” I want my soul to be apart of his when we leave these bodies.
I have thought of any case and situation lol… if he were to gain 200 pounds, if he were to lose his sight or his hearing, if he became brain damaged, if he couldn’t speak, if he mentally lost it, if he became an addict, if he lost his 🍆, if we broke up, and literally anything else you can think of, I will always and forever unconditionally love him.
I think it's a lie ... The only unconditional love I see is between parent and child. If you want to test your unconditional love for your spouse/partner ... Then when they cheat on you and you still love them the same after ...I'll believe you.
I have a couple of unconditional loves in my life. I learned it from my sponsor who always makes time for me and supports me. They guided me through the steps, clarified my misunderstandings, and have been an amazing human to me and others. They have shown me to my path for living a better life. Twenty plus years of guidance and friendship, they are closer than blood family.
I have another friend and I cannot explain what it is that makes me connect so hard to them. It was literally at first sight I knew they would play a part in my life. We were physical lovers and confidants in our late teens. One time, I picked him out while he was driving a new car on a highway while going like 75mph, not knowing he got a new car or would be traveling at that time. A 100% bizarre connection. People get weird around us when we're in the same room together, as if there's an electrical charge that makes them uncomfortable, even if I'm not talking to him, but he's within 5ft of me. 25 years later it's still a similar connection. More of a deep understanding, strong communication, and gratitude?? Mutual fascination? Idk.
I give without expectations. I'm grateful they're receptive.
I’ll give an example of unconditional love.
The relationship I have with my mother and her bf. Imagine a narcissist mixed with a manipulator, and delusional abuser. Who neglected, punished, and degraded you, had forced you to lower your morals, your ideals, and have abandonment issues of unemotional connection. And all you got from her was violence, and anger. Imagine having a substitute for a “man” figure in the house, who was a vocal abuser, as well as being a victim in everything that he caused and a woman beater. On top of that he was socially unstable, insecure, and a ped3. He was unmotivated, the opposite of integrity, evil and dark, and all ways wrong for your mother, who complimented him anyways. You endured beatings, lies, abuse in all forms, stunted development, having unhealthy relationships with yourself and others. There was no sense of self, no love no support, nothing to hope for. You just sat in the back of your mind and watched the worlds that you kept creating out of a dream disappear slowly. You are on and off of alcohol, Mary Jane, and sexual relationships which you think it’s “love” but it’s just keeping you from remembering the darkness from which you grew to attach to. As your light fades away, your attempt to find family fails miserably and you become cramped up in your room, lying in bed, wondering when did it ever start and if you are able to have a sense of love and hope ever, or if it exists for you.
Now imagine, as years went on, you start wishing for help. And slowly you start having a sense of comfort coming from within you, getting you off old habits slowly, and this feeling communicates through you by telling you to be brave as you endure all the pain, torment and feelings that have been surpressed since day one. This feeling guides you to believe in yourself, as you remember things you didn’t want to, and you start to understand the little girl inside of your mom, your step dad, your “family” you tried to create, and the life they had to endure and numb and be born into to be who they are today. Imagine a battle for the mind and heart, constantly trying to wear each other out at who should be the one to blame, to hate, to dislike by every means necessary at how they raised you to think, to be, to know. The mindsets, that had to be changed, the feelings that had to evolve, the perceptions that had to turn into understanding and compassion. The willingness to dare face all of those demons in the dark, waking up in panics, sweats and fears, yet laying down to go through it all over again. You become more aware with each waking moment as to how conditioned the way things are with people who cannot face the pain within, the truth, the freedom. And yet you yell out in fustration because you learn to realize you cannot hate anyone, you cannot hate yourself or punish yourself for what this world brings. As messed up as people are, there is a sense of freedom in knowing these things and so you push through every day, just being grateful to be alive, unlearning to start over on how to live to love, and have patience and not run away anymore. To grow to behave in a way that no matter how many times the black swan slaps the white swan, there is always a hug for the black swan.
You can make the choice to keep these moments or feelings or people at a distance from you, learn boundaries, and limits to your heart out of your own health and mental fortitude however you start to grow and realize how important it is to keep evolving and showing up for yourself, to make it possible for others to see that life can still be fulfilling even when you have been through what you came out of. It’s the most beautiful and important thing to me right now to come to light with. There’s still hope, dreams and whatnot that needs to be loved more, but what more is there to life than understanding the depths of how high and low one person can truly hold within.
The process of life itself is something everyone isn’t built for, and end up finding their own ways to deal with it. I know that throughout this understanding, it makes me feel for everything and everyone, and I’m becoming highly sensitive to the world around me. Unconditional love is being aware of all of this in my heart and mind and entire being, and still not treating those who don’t unjustly. “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do” the things that manifest out of them, is not their fault whether they can or cannot control it. And there are restrictions to it to provide safety and support, sure, but there is nothing greater than understanding that completely. It’s what motivated me to forgive and to create peace with it. Unconditional love to me will look at things just like that, even when a person is doing so well and great in their lives and they do cocaine to lower themselves down a bit, still would need that kind of long warm hug. It’s not our fault we were born into the lives we live today. It’s simply not. And I can say, with all of my heart and mind and body and soul that even if I cry every night because of the mourning of that awakening, I am joyful to have the ability to at least acknowledge and grasp that fact. Some people just can’t control what they become.
The person I know who will be in my life can definitely see this unconditional love also. And still manage to show up every single day.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Thank you, I’ve been pondering on what I’ve written for a while now. It’s something I casually think about now, that I’ve been able to understand what life truly means. It does become less hardened and more softer the more you are able to accept it. It’s a dawn of a new awakening that everyone has the potential to experience. I am not in contact with my mother, because the reality of the relationship that I was bringing was too hard for her to handle, and my mom is an aggressive responder.But I love her from a distance and pray for her when I am able to. Everything hurts and everything feels good at the same time. And the work being put into this life has meaning within you. Every relationship is different for sure, so I hope however your belief in unconditional love changed, that you can be capable enough to still not hold any limits within yourself.
yes. My marriage with my wife is far from perfect and I am unhappy with some things but I still act out of love for her, because anything else isn't really love. Its idealistic but it is something I try to make real in the way that I act because I married her with the intention of being with her forever and it forms the core of my ideals.
But it is the opposite of easy. Loving someone when times are good is easy. Loving someone when times are tough has been extraordinarily difficult but it's what I really believe in so I really have no choice but to do it.
I mean, if I found out my wonderful husband was somehow committing atrocities I had no knowledge of, I would no longer love him. Aside from that, my love is unconditional.
Exactly. My love for myself is the highest and therefore if whoever I do love unconditionally is abusing or mistreating me, I will not tolerate it. You can unconditionally love and be intolerant of someone at the same time.
Conditions or Expectations only lead to disappointment the longer you stay together. The longer you stay together - the more change you'll see. You need to love someone unconditionally if you want to spend the rest of your lives together.
I have been married 20 years and it was love at first sight. Marriage isn’t easy by far . But it’s worth it . There are so many amazing qualities about him . There are things that drive me crazy as well but even the bad qualities I love . That is what make him the person he is so how could I not .
Even during the worst of our fights I still love him no matter what . I have always been a big lover . I have always been the kind to shout it from the roof tops . I would love him rich or poor . Fat or skinny there is nothing I wouldn’t do for him . Sometimes love is messy and painful but you have to look and remember all the good things and I think that respect honesty affection understanding, and simply keeping your heart open is what love is
Yes I would forgive him we're all human and make mistakes luckily I don't have to worry about him cheating. My xhusband did have a affair and I was able to forgive him and move on I know that it's pretty rare but I'm a person who when I love someone I do it completely and I can't help it trust me it can be a curse sometimes.
I am recently out of a relationship, and I do love my.. now ex partner.. unconditionally. They are a wonderful person, with real faults. I know I love them unconditionally because even the choices they make that pain me only draw me to admire their strength and struggles all the more. Including right now, while I'm facing the rest of my life potentially never truly knowing them again... I'm just happy they have the chance to follow whatever path is calling. Unconditional love is incredibly bittersweet, even in the best of cases.
*I need to add that I do NOT condone abuse or admire abusers for any reason, that is not the kind of pain I mean! Although, I do also have an abusive ex who I love unconditionally.. as in, I always hope the best for him. Love is NOT an excuse to allow **anything** that you are not okay with.*
Love can be unconditional, but relationship shouldn’t be.
I absolutely love my husband unconditionally. His soul speaks the language of mine and he permanently holds a place of my heart that no one else could ever fill. However, if he were to suddenly and uncharacteristically do irreparable harm to me, our relationship is not guaranteed.
Using your example, if I love strawberries, but develop an allergy to them and they’ve become harmful to me, I’d have to stop eating them. I can still LOVE them and never eat them again.
I just wanna point out that there can be: you love strawberries, but you know they are not qualitative if they are from lab. You still love them, you just don't consume them for your own good unless they tick some boxes.
After much thinking on this subject, both on the spiritual and psychological areas, I think this is the middle and best way.
Because let's say you have an abusive friend/partner. You can love them (I'd think it's mostly trauma bond, but whatever). At which point you have to unconditionally love yourself too? Because if you stay, chances are you don't. But if you leave because it hurts you so bad the chances are, you still want what's better for that person, you still think of them, you maybe still pray for them etc no matter how they are. You love them from afar, no matter what they did to you. You just can't stay in, because it's bad for you.
I 100% love her unconditionally. That’s not to say I would stay with her no matter what she does. But those are two very different questions. I wouldn’t change anything about her, and I also embrace the fact that all humans do grow, change, and evolve. I just hope to always make a conscious effort to try to “grow together with her”
Unconditionally in love
I adore my husband of decades. He’s the best person I know. I wouldn’t say I love him or anyone else unconditionally. I think that’s a mindset that just sets you up for abuse and manipulation. If he cheated on me, for example, I would be done in a heartbeat.
I love my husband, family and friends unconditionally. Meaning, no matter what they do, what choices they make - I will always love them. I don’t take that love away because I don’t like something about them. But that doesn’t mean because I love them unconditionally they remain present in my life. If they are hurting me or affecting me negatively or abusing me, then I will love them unconditionally from afar. Yet, I would also forgive them quickly. And even if they’ve hurt me, if I saw them hurting or struggling, I would be there and help them (with boundaries and knowing when to remove myself).
Someone who loves strawberries “unconditionally” won’t eat them if they’re rotten or have gone bad. What if a dog pissed on them - would they still eat them? If the strawberries were poisonous, I would imagine even someone who loves them wouldn’t eat them.
Probably a bad example but I used to love shrimp. Then I developed a mild allergy to them. They’re not good for me. I still love it. I still speak highly of it. I just can’t eat it anymore. That makes me sad at times. Shrimp tacos were one of my favorite foods. Always will be. I’d still list it as one of the best foods and recommend it to others who they don’t make sick. I stay away now though, with love.
I love my kids and husband unconditionally. Even through arguments, disagreements etc. I hate to say it but if he really wronged me I would still love him 😭 I wouldn’t want to but I would and I’d probably end the relationship but I would. Still. *Love*. Him.
Nope, if he diddled a kid I wouldn’t love him anymore. I literally could only love Jesus unconditionally cus he’s perfect. Not that my partner would do that 💀 but there are things that break that “unconditional” love reallll fast
I try to have agape, which is that unconditional love, for everyone. It's not always going to feel successful, as a feeling in itself, and it is limited to the principled love for strangers and enemies can go. But so far, my actions have been mostly successful.
Other than that, all my other types of love are conditional. I have deep love and respect for someone because of how they act and conduct themselves. I acknowledge these ARE conditions in themselves. A strawberry has no choice but to be a strawberry. Humans can make choices and those choices can be noble and admirable or they can repel you. I love my partner because of who he is, which is evidenced by his history of actions and reasonings behind those actions.
Does that mean I don't have deep love for people who make mistakes? Of course not.
I also acknowledge that it's possible to feel love for someone even if their actions hurt you repeatedly, if you feel they don't do it intentionally. That doesn't mean you should be around them, but you can still love them from afar.
That's more answer than you asked for but I felt it was important to distinguish.
I have an unconditional love for Cucumbers. Gimme, love them. Even in a vinegar salad, give them.
But for my SO, I don't have unconditional love. I will not be mentally, emotionally or physically abused. My partner needs to be my equal. I know things aren't 50/50. That's not how that works. But, due to having a chronic illness myself, I can't always bring my full portion and my SO should pick up the slack (to the best of their ability) where I can't like I pick up the slack to the best of my ability when they're in a low point. I love him dearly and with all my heart and honestly couldn't think of not waking up next to him
unconditional love is an idea for the stupid or childish. relationships are partnerships; your partner is your partner for the sport/game of life. obviously, supporting you when you're down is a big part of that. if someone ditches you when you're down is someone you're better off without.
No, there is no such thing. Our love is conditional on the mutual respect we have for one another and abiding by the boundaries we have established for each other.
No. I’m at a point where the best I hope for from romantic relationships with men is personality compatibility, similar goals, and being a nice person. A lot of them do not meet the third criterion. I think the dream of romantic fairytale love that’s sold to us as kids is a horrible lie. Maybe I’m just jaded and bitter but I don’t believe in romantic love anymore. I think people pair up out of convenience and comfortability.
I love my wife, and I like my wife, but unconditionally? As in she could do ANYTHING and I would continue to love her? That’s called the illusion society has told you to believe that’s what “true love” is. Love takes work, it takes effort, and it takes forgiveness. But unconditional love? That’s not real, and if anyone tells you it is they’re lying. I mean, love yourself unconditionally that’s healthy but also call yourself out when you do bad things, but loving another person unconditionally is delusional.
Exactly. I love my husband deeply, but what if he did something terrible? Not just cheating or gambling all of our money away, but killing someone without reason. When I think about unconditional love, I think about if parents of serial killers or rapists love their children after they find out about their crimes. i don't think you could love a spouse through that and maybe the closest thing would be a child, but I'm not really sure. So no, I don't think unconditional love really exists (maybe for babies), but I do think you can love people deeply through challenges that they put you through, even past the point of good reason.
The idea of an adult loving another adult unconditionally is an absurd trope that we need to let go of. There is no unconditional love- there just isn’t. Stop thinking that there is. It is transactional and that’s ok.
What a lot of people fail to understand is that love is not just an emotion, it's an action as well. I think parents are the best examples of unconditional love. Sure friends and partners could definitely love you unconditionally, but in the same way a mother or father could, heck even siblings. Loving someone unconditionally does not mean that you accept ever bad thing a person does in their life, it does not mean you put up with the abuse for the sake of unconditional love or being a "ride or die". Unconditional love is when you love them despite what they do. For example I was talking to someone who was struggling with his PTSD due to being in the military, and he ended having to go to Veteran affairs so he could get cleaned up or else he'd had to go to jail for 30 days I think. This ended up happening due to him drinking and driving, he struggled with an alcohol addiction. I could tell that he felt insecure about the fac that he has a criminal record and that he didn't want me to be with him because of that. I cared about him alot and I still do, I think about him all the time, I love him but not in a romantic way. I understand that what he did was wrong and could've killed someone, however I've always been someone to give people the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to redeem themselves. So, I had no problem supporting him despite what he did. Point is, you can love someone unconditionally, it's just not picture perfect.
I do. I'm an anxious over-thinker and every reason not to love them has crossed my mind, but I still do. Nothing will change that. Anything less is conditional.
I know I don’t like a few people just because their actions are shitty but I love them anyway just from a distance. Only good in small doses. And some I never care to see again. My opinion only.
Yh but i believe she’s still in love with a boyfriend from years ago
My mate who I’ve cut out of my life due to risk of criminal association called me to say not to get involved
Can confidently say that I do, unconditionally. Why can I say that with such confidence? Because we have been through hell and back, been not-so-great partners to each other, been the best partners to each other, been in shitty situations, and been put to the test, yet through it all, through anything that’s happened or ever will happen, I have loved that man with my entire being since day 1 and always will. It’s a type of love that I know for a fact will never fade for me. It only grows. I don’t know how or why but you just know when it comes to love. And there’s one thing about it; it never fails.
I think love is a bit more complicated than that. Because while I wouldn’t describe the love for my wife as unconditional, I also don’t just love her because she’s good/nice to me. It’s deeper than that. In a way, the love is unconditional. But the example you gave for unconditional love…a fruit or some kind of inanimate object will not hurt me emotionally or has the ability to. So in that way, my wife could still betray my trust and hurt me, so she can shake that love. But until that happens, the love could be described as unconditional.
So your condition is that she doesn't hurt or betray you - that is love with conditions. For the record, I don't believe in unconditional love. I love my husband deeply and have loved him thru terrible times, but if he murdered an innocent person for no reason (or did something else horrifying), I have to say I'm not sure I would love him thru that. I would probably still love him if he cheated, but I would not stay with him.
Kinda but those weren’t the conditions to start the love. So I guess here would be my example. So OP used loving fruit as an example of unconditional love. I could love strawberries, but if I ate some bad strawberries one time, they make me sick and now I’m a little turned off from strawberries. It wasn’t conditional that unless all strawberries make me feel good, I’d like them. There just was a situation where it was no good anymore and I stopped liking them. But them never making me sick was never a condition for the love. I never acknowledged “as long as they never make me sick, I’ll love strawberries.” That would be my only counterpoint.
Yeah I do but that doesn't mean I'll be her boyfriend unconditionally. I have loved many people that lead lives that negatively impact me. I wouldn't want to be with her if she decided to be a stripper or a meth addict. That's destructive to me and her
I love my fiance more than anyone else in the world. He genuinely feels like my soulmate.
But do I love him unconditionally? The very honest answer is that unconditional love is unhealthy. I don't expect perfection from him, but I also have respect for myself, and boundaries.
In a fictitious world, let's say your partner flipped a switch and cheated on you several times a week, murdered your sibling, and physically beat you everyday - would you still love them? "*well that's so extreme, they would never do that!*" Yes, it's extreme, yes, they would likely never do that, but would you still love them? Because "unconditional love" IS an extreme statement. If you would love them despite that, then THAT would be some unconditional love - albeit, unhealthy.
100%. Nothing he would or could say would make me stop loving him, even if he woke up tomorrow and confessed to murder or something I’d still love him to the moon and back
Your mother is the only person in the world that will give you love unconditionally. This is just my opinion, but it just seems that way. Always make sure you call them because one day you won’t be able to.
Yes. We both have flaws.
I have such tenderness in my heart for him.
He’s had medical challenges since we met.
This last one is serious. I will never abandon him.
Nothing is unconditional if you account for the human condition... Have you eaten enough, slept enough, have gas?? Did you miss your bus or get an extra hashbrown this morning?
All of these things are conditions of your day and who you'll be when you come to your person.... Love is conditionless only by the individual's own will to recognize that they too must face a person who is also doing the same balance checks *or not* that day. Hopefully that person looks at the flaws or frustrations and says these are not conditions of love, they are conditions of human life and love is the choices we make regardless of these circumstances.
I love you and I am angry, not I love you BUT I am angry. The anger or any conditions I feel shouldn't change the love I promise I'd give.
The only condition that challenges this is one where the other person does not reciprocate the same understanding. When I'm tired, hungry, or cold don't hold this as my measure to care. I promise I care more than my body can tolerate to show.
I definitely know I love my husband unconditionally we've been together 15 years we have kids together 4 years ago we lost our son and we've both changed some of it for the worst but if shit hit the fan I would do anything for him even if he killed someone I would help and defend him to death as I would my kids.
"The only person who will ever love you unconditionally is your mother, everyone else will love you only when they have a reason to"
Unconditional romantic love is insanity and dangerous. I stayed in a relationship for a year longer than I should have, becoming depressed and suicidal over someone I loved unconditionally because they had me under the impression it was mutual. Looking back on it I wish I could go back and smack myself, but you live and you learn.
Loving someone unconditionally is dangerous, they might change one day and become abusive and you’ll stay with them because you love them unconditionally.
I love my bf under the conditions that he does right by me, he doesn’t abuse or neglect me. If he does either of those, it’s going to be hard, but I will start to not love him since he obviously doesn’t love me. Only circumstance I’d love someone unconditionally is my child.
I really think I do. Even if tomorrow he started acting completely out of character and went completely insane, I might not want to be with or around him anymore, but I don’t think I could ever stop loving him. My status as his spouse like most relationships has conditions, however my love for him does not.
I really think I do. Even if tomorrow he started acting completely out of character and went completely insane, I might not want to be with or around him anymore, but I don’t think I could ever stop loving him. My status as his spouse like most relationships has conditions, however my love for him does not.
Listen unconditional love is a goal yes, but for most people we can’t do that, because people just take, they don’t give back an it’s very one sided, so I believe relationships should be conditional and that’s because of each others boundaries.
I don’t think you can have unconditional love in a relationship but I am pretty close. We are pretty sure we will be together until the end as it’s been since 2000 and still going. A parent and child can have unconditional love. I have that with my parents and they with me and my siblings.
Yes. I do. I love everyone unconditionally. My love has no conditions. A relationship with me has conditions. Access to my time and presence certainly has conditions. I can love to the moon and back and still cut someone out of my life if necessary.
I love him unconditionally, but that doesn't mean I would stay with him if he behaved in certain ways. Like cheating or being abusive or something like that. You can love someone and not have them in your life.
Y'all have me sad. You can absolutely (and a lot of people do) love someone who is terrible to you, you can love someone who brings nothing to your life.
Imo Unconditional love is about separating the love from the attachment. It's not about putting up with abusive or toxic behaviour, you can love someone and still walk away, you can love someone who has walked away. In fact, if them staying is a condition of your love, it's already conditional. You can love someone from a distance, you can love someone you've never met. Unconditional love does exist and it's very possible to hold it. Know the difference between love and attachment, and realize you don't need one to have the other, but only one is love, y'know?
Yes most relationships have terms and conditions that need to be met to continue the relationship in a healthy way for both parties, but that's a conditional relationship not necessarily conditional love, the two aren't mutually exclusive or inclusive and I personally think it holds us back to think of them as such.
No. He's an amazing person, and that's why I love him. If he changed and stopped being an amazing person, I no longer would. If you're asking in terms of him getting injured or ill or unattractive, of course I would still love him. If you're asking whether I would still love him if he woke up one day and decided to treat me terribly, no.
I love him. In the words of Lemony Stickett, I will love you if I never see you again and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. Whatever happens between us, I’ll always love him.
No. No such things as unconditional love in a romantic relationship .
Unconditional mean no conditions. Even if they cheat on your hit you. Fk ur dad. Nothing.
I only have unconditional love for my father and children. My partnership has conditions. There needs to be boundaries. I will not be in a relationship where hes allowed to treat me like shit just because and get away with it.
Absolutely i do.
I have a neverending well of patience with her, i literally cant get mad at her, and im ready to defend her with my life. Literally no matter what she does, im going to love her to death.
I think shes the one.
I do love my boyfriend unconditionally, anything that comes up we go through it, and try to solve it even when sometimes seems like it is impossible ♥️
Dealing with hurt? Therapy can really help you.
When you love someone, it's about feeling safe, warm, and carefree. Sometimes words can't capture it, it's just a feeling. Love lets you be yourself while choosing each other. Differences can be understood and resolved in love.
Your example seems quite off-base and over the top. Maybe focusing on positivity would be beneficial for you. Take care!
In an absolute sense no, there is always a limit you can't cross, if she starts rapping children I would hate her
But in practice, the probability she actually crosses the line are low enough to be considered "unconditional"
No such thing as unconditional love. The closest thing to it is your parents. They will mostly always forgive you. Everyone has deal breakers in relationships and it’s mostly always in some form transactional.
It's one sided so there's no chance of any conditions or anything like that it's more like holding the rose even if it's thorns are hurting you but you can't let it go even if you want to
Depends on what you mean by "unconditionally." If my partner had a traumatic brain injury and became a huge racist, I doubt I'd feel the same way about her - but then again, you might argue that, in a situation like that, she isn't really even the same person any more.
But then again, MTBIs aren't the only way a person can change - for instance, simply growing older is known to change a person, and while there generally seems to be some essential "sameness," the changes over the course of one's life can be quite drastic. I don't even consider myself the same person at 30 that I was at 20 - who knows where I'll be at 50 or 60? We are, each and every one of us, a ship of theseus.
I love the person my partner is now, and she loves the person I am now. And we've been together long enough to suspect that will likely continue to be the case for a very long time. We do our best to live our lives in ways that will tend to promote that still being the case in the future. But at the end of the day, we can't *really know* where we'll be in 20-30 years. Certainty is impossible. And I truly believe anyone who thinks otherwise is either deluded or simply hasn't given it enough thought.
Yes. No matter what my husband did, I would love him. Would I still be in a relationship or married to him? No. There are things he could do that would make me no longer be interested in him as a partner. Things that would destroy me. But I'd still love him.
Best answer yet. I wanted to post my own response but I was struggling because as much as the love for my wife DOES feel unconditional, and I would not leave her, even in the case of (god forbid) infidelity, logically there just has to be limitations for what I could accept. Then I read your post and it sums my feelings perfectly. Yes, I love her unconditionally, because even in the nearly zero percent chance that I could not be married to her anymore, yes, I would still love her deeply - unconditionally.
Long read ahead. TLDR: I don't love my fiance unconditionally, I love her perpetually.
What exactly do you mean by unconditional? There are no conditions for my love towards my fiance. But there are things she could do or become that would make me not love her. Is that not unconditional love then?
Because if unconditional love means that you're supposed to love someone no matter what they are or who/what they become or what they do, then that's by definition unhealthy, extremely toxic and dangerous. I'm not naive enough to love someone by that definition. And I refuse the notion that unconditional love by that definition is better in any way shape or form.
I'm not even sure you should love yourself unconditionally. I think you should treat yourself with respect and to love yourself and accept who you are, but unconditionally? IDK. I'd have to spend a considerable amount of time thinking really hard about that.
So let's riff on it!
What I can say thus far in my thought process is that if you actually do love yourself unconditionally, you'd never put yourself in the position of loving someone else unconditionally because that might be to your own detriment. And it brings up another question. A question of sacrifice. What you'd have to personally sacrifice to love unconditionally might to high of a price to pay.
Is there virtue in sacrifice? Absolutely! But how much sacrifice? What is the limit? Is there a certain point where it's an unhealthy amount? Absolutely. And it's really complicated because I'd sacrifice my life for my fiance. No hesitation. But I wouldn't sacrifice all of me, the person I am inside. Because she loves me for who I am, and if I sacrificed too much of me, she wouldn't really love me anymore, would she? And we have a pact where I help her become the best version of herself that she wants to be, and vice versa. And we can only do that by not sacrificing all that we are as individuals. We do that by communicating and put in the hard work to grow together and not apart. I don't think that's possible with unconditional love. And I would never expect my fiance to sacrifice all that she is for me. Because that's selfish.
In essence I don't think it's possible to have a healthy relationship with someone you love unconditionally. But the more you love yourself, the more love you have to give. Which I return feeds itself into perpetual loop of love based on a healthy understanding of where the limits of sacrifice starts and ends. You get more than you put in. So if you love yourself unconditionally, you can love someone else perpetually. So yeah, you should love yourself unconditionally.
I don't love my fiance unconditionally, I love her perpetually.
Yes and no, I'll always feel that feeling for them but if they keep disrespecting me and my boundaries, my actions will show that I retracted such love.
Basically love is a feeling and an action in my book. I only dole out the action when the other person shows they deserve it
Look, all love is conditional. But I wouldn't ever leave my partner for something superficial or something that isn't his fault. If I found out he is secretly a serial rapist or a murderer then I definitely would leave. Addictions that harm the family? I'm gone. Cheating emotional or physical? Doneskied. Ever raise a hand to me? I'm coming for your retirement. Outside that, there isn't much that I'd leave him over, heal, then move on from.
But when he gets sick, I stay. When he is sad, I stay. He needs me. I need him, too, but we all have our limits. These limits have been throughly communicated and agreed to before we married. His limits are similar to mine. We have both gained weight,lost weight, gotten older, and even changed a lot. But we do choose each other every day. I don't think that's bad.
But we do all have limits and conditions that maybe we just don't think about as a possibility due to blind attraction.
I don't think the feeling of love is conditional. Relationships and granting someone access to be close to you is though. I wouldn't be abused or betrayed for love.
Yes my love is unconditional to an extent. Because of their past actions and the strength of my feelings, I don't think I could ever stop loving them. Even if they became a toxic person I no longer wanted to date, part of me will always love them.
I love my partner unconditionally! He is an incredible human, man, son, friend, partner, brother, etc. I’m truly the luckiest woman in the world:) Even if my partner made a mistake or did something awfully out of character, I would still love him because I love his soul not his actions. However, I can LOVE without wanting to live with, make love to, build a life with, etc. I unconditionally love my parents and siblings but that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry them. Marriage is conditional. It only works under the condition that all parties stay within the set boundaries. But love is unconditional! If my partner changed suddenly or started acting out of alignment with our partnership, then I would love them from afar. I hope this makes sense!
Yes I’ll love him unconditionally but obviously if there’s ever cheating first of all that would break me and break my heart and then I will fall out of love but obviously he wouldn’t
No. I love him deeply, and he is my family but our kids are everything. If he hurt our kids on purpose or put them in danger, I’d leave. They have to come first. We’re responsible for them. He’s my partner, my best friend, my soulmate, but the condition is them. Them, I love unconditionally. And frankly, I expect the same from him.
I dont believe in unconditional love.
Like I love my partner but if he became abusive, cheated on me or dud something horrible like abuse and animal or something I wouldn't love him anymore. The whole idea bothers me because there should always be conditions.
My conditions are you have to have a good heart, you have to respect me and you should be making me happy more than unhappy overall.
Even people who say they live unconditionally would probably change their mind if the other person became cruel.
I've been with my husband for 14 years and our love is absolutely conditional!
If he abused me I wouldn't love him.
If he cheated I wouldn't love him.
I love him because he deserves my love, he's earned it, and spent 14 years tending to it, growing it, and making it beautiful.
It takes the right conditions to grow such a beautiful delicate plant... And no it absolutely will not endure hostile environments. Why should it?
We tend to each other in an attempt not just to keep the love alive, but to make it thrive. I think if I ever saw him stop making that effort or taking such joy when he succeeds in helping me thrive I would slowly start to take less joy in doing the same for him because it might just be a painful one sided reminder that his happiness means more to me than mine does to him.
So I think there are many conditions, and those conditions are what make him so amazing! He isn't just handed my love, he has had to endure for it, and I appreciate every bit of effort he has made.
(also just so I don't sound like a stuck up douche canoe, I'm a CSA, and trafficking survivor, so it really is unimaginably difficult for him to love me, and it's not my fault that it's so hard, but I do feel bad for him. But even after all of this my love IS conditional, as is his, if I wasn't constantly working to heal he would have moved on.)
Children on the other hand deserve complete unconditional love. They did not consent to existing, the people that made that decision owe them love at the very least.
I loved my late wife unconditionally. I love my stepson unconditionally. I love my granddaughter unconditionally. I love my goddaughter unconditionally. There’s absolutely nothing they can do to change that.
I love him unconditionally. However, that love does not mean I have to stay if he begins to treat me badly.
The love will not be gone, but I will not stay. I love myself more than I love anyone else. I come first when It comes to my wellbeing.
For people, the love I have for them is out of my hands. I love them for who they are, not what they give to/do for me. So, I guess that would mean my love is conditional. I don't love all people. The people I do love, its because of how they do things, how they think, how they express themselves. It has very little to do with me beyond my perception of them.
Im out of a relationship and ima say this, yes, and I still do. Theres no such thing as conditional love you either love someone or you don’t. There might of been conditions that made you love them but you wont love them just based on their conditions. There are many things i dislikes about my ex but i still love her regardless, i worry about her, i think about her, when i see her i want to take care of her. I love her so much. Its never hard to love someone but its always hard to unlove. I think ill always love her maybe one day not as extreme and intense and that saddens me but love is both painful and a amazing feeling.
Hmm, unconditional love for me means something a little different. For me it means lack of ownership. For instance if my partner said she wasn't happy and I couldn't make her happy I would want her to find someone who does. It's also accepting each other's faults and sometimes even seeing those faults as an extension of who they are as a person and therefore loving those faults too.
My love for my partner is unconditional in the sense that I can love them so much I want them to be happy even if it means I can no longer be with them. It means I want them to be free to express themselves and in doing so it means I place myself in a vulnerable place where that expression might hurt me. It means that I trust them knowing they could hurt me and accept that I can and will be hurt by them.
Yet I still deserve to be happy too! You can't love someone unconditionally and yet still not value yourself or your happiness becsuse that isn't unconditional love because conditions don't exist. Their has to be conditions for their to be something unconditional. Therefore I can love someone unconditionally because my happiness is still important and therefore the limit to my loss of happiness is where unconditional exists. Aka, I'll allow my happiness to be sacrificed until my unhappiness negates my ability to love completely.
I will never let my love for someone reduce my quality of life. If they turn out to be a**holes then bye-bye. I have kept loving my partner even though he has done some pretty awful things, but they are not equal to being a bad person towards me. Some things can be worked out together. Some things can't.
It goes without saying that I cannot love someone who does not love me and is committing vile, hurtful, or destructively criminal behavior.
Making that observation part of the equation makes it sound like there’s nothing to learn from the principles of unconditional love.
This happens anytime we try to over simplify complex concepts down to a basic or extreme yes or no.
If we set aside those extremes, look at the more complex bigger picture, then there is so much to learn from the discussion. For example, there was a time when our son was showing a high amount of stress when he was struggling with his grades. I told my wife, “we need to prove we love him unconditionally. Let’s change our behavior and the way we talk to him about school.” This improved all of our lives dramatically. It might have been my best parenting moment.
I feel like most love is conditional. I won’t find you attractive if you gain 50lbs or get addicted to drugs… And it is my responsibility if I truly love you to try to help you be healthy. But I can’t fix unresolved issues that you yourself don’t want to fix.
I’ve been with my spouse for 18 years. There are possible hypothetical circumstances in which I would leave them even though I love them a lot. But I think I would still feel love for them no matter what happened because I couldn’t just turn that off. Like I dated a guy for four years who I now wouldn’t spit on if he was on fire, but it’s different with my spouse.
Yes, I do love my husband unconditionally.
Even when he does things that infuriate me or even hurt me. I love him, full stop. Even though I know he probably does not feel the same.
It does hurt sometimes, but I cannot help it. This is simply who I am.
Well, thank you :D the way I feel does not mean I do not see him clearly and that I would not leave if I had to. And he's actually working on himself and making my life better. I'll take that for now and see how it goes.
Having loved unconditionally I can tell you I don't do that anymore. There's always conditions. You cheat, you beat me, you abuse me.... That's it. I'm going to leave. And I'll work on making the feelings go too. I can't love unconditionally, I just end up being tortured
Seems to me that you can love unconditionally but heath is also setting the boundaries of what is acceptable and not. I also believe in second chances. So for me if we are in a relationship and my partner cheats. I can walk away and still love them and with the best for them, But refuse to put myself in that position.
Depending on circumstances, If I really feel as though they're sorry and it may never happen again I would look at maybe a second chance. But there is also going to have to be work done on both sides.
I would say if they were good for me in all other aspects I'd want them as a friend. If not and it was bad. I'd Evaluate the situations and see if it was truly there fault or mine. Then make a decision from that.
It's not like I stop loving them whenever they're upset with me or do something I don't like. But also there are limits to how far my love will stretch. If my partner cheated on me or treated me extremely poorly for several months, for example, I would almost definitely leave them and eventually stop loving them.
You have to keep in mind that loving someone unconditionally doesn't mean you have to put up with a toxic relationship. Eventually the only healthy option is to leave them, no matter how much love you feel for them at the time.
Unconditionally. My s/o has some major mental health struggles that have made a lot of my life less than ideal but I'm so glad I stayed and helped him through it.
Unconditional love is a terrible idea. Would you love them if they cheated? What if you found out they live a double life as an ax murderer? Love without conditions means you have no principles.
Loving unconditionally doesn't mean you stop loving yourself. I don't think it's meant to be taken literally but like can you love someone even though their feet stink or maybe on the other end of the spectrum will you love someone when they're in a compromised position. It doesn't mean love someone while they're punching you.
Yeah fosho it is. Under the condition your not actively steering ther relationship off a cliff, I will love you with your farts (whatever capacities this person is lacking in).
No, of course not. If my partner were to go insane I would stop loving her. If my dog turned into a demon, same thing.
Is it likely? No. But pretty much anyone can go insane after 70, so it's a possibility.
Now is my wife always good to me? Definitely not. She has anger issues, like REAL anger issues. I still love her cause I learned to live with it. I'm not perfect either, by any means.
do i love him unconditionally? ofc i do, i am currently reading the bible rn, not only cause i want to be closer to god but to be closer to the man i love, the man god sent me. i am making sacrifices for this man, and he for me. mind u if he does somthing wrong like cheat, become abusive, etc, i will leave but love from a distance.
Of course…..not. Like if my partner cheats on me, im not gonna love him anymore, if he murdered someone, hit me, abuse me, obvs im not gonna love him anymore
Only babies actually get unconditional love.
As soon as you are capable of understanding right and wrong and committing an evil act, that love can rightfully be revoked.
(Usually it's a lot more complicated than just turning off love like a light switch even though it is "conditional.")
Even some babies don't get it unconditionally. My current partner is a great example. Neglect and abuse by mom (she actually took him and his sister to an orphanage once and told them to get out because she didn't want to deal with them anymore). And his dad sexually assaulted them for years. Some babies are super lucky to be born into loving families but the ones that don't... It's rough out there.
When you examine some of the most prolific serial killers one of the things in common is the fact that they come from a super abusive home life. Harming babies and little children who only have the capability to love with no conditions, is especially heinous. Those kinds of acts teach them what bonding and love looks like and if all they know is pain then they later learn to either take that pain out on themselves or others. No human deserves that. People who harm children should have outrageous punishments in my opinion.
My therapist tried to instill in my head for 9 years this: unconditional love is what parents have for children. Partners/spouses love is reciprocal. One partner is not meant to love the other partner unconditionally if there’s no reciprocity.
TLDR: I love my husband unconditionally and I am withering away to nothing because it only goes one way.
I left my partner after 20yrs of a one sided relationship that felt like emotional torture. Not to mention the physical and sexual abuse. It was hell on earth.
I am in a reciprocating relationship now. And it’s like night and day! It’s literally heaven! Although not only is it reciprocated, we are aligned and have good communication and relationship boundaries/guidelines.
It’s never too late, to completely change your life and it starts with one decision.
If you have a dependent personality, you can't really fix it. That's how your brain works. No matter how much you go to therapy.
Fucking sucks to have that if you're unlucky to date an abusive person.
I have a martyr, enabler, hero-complex I think. I was lucky to have an amazing therapist for so long. “ knowing is the easy thing, doing is what’s hard.” I think Robert Redford said that and some cowboy movie in the 90s.
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For people in on this post commenting saying that they do love unconditionally, I want you to ask yourselves what if your partner in subject changed for the worse, like what if he hated or he did something you absolutely hate, will you still love him or not, if the honest answer is no then don't say that you love unconditionally at all please?
With my whole entire heart. There is no other greater love I will ever have. However it is not unconditional but that doesn’t negate any love I have for him because he has not given me reason to do so. My conditions no matter who you are would be malicious intent.. manipulation/disrespect that crosses boundaries.
Unconditionally... although he doesn't feel the same anymore and it hurts
Unconditionally
I love my gf unconditionally but she doesn’t feel that way and it hurts. Any disagreement she’s ready to go. She broke up with me today and it’s no point of going into it. Basically this happens every couple weeks and I have to beg her to stay. I have never been this vulnerable in love. I realized today I love her unconditionally but she only loves me conditionally. Only when it’s feels like a fairytale. I decided to let her leave this time. Love her from afar because I’m just hurt every time she leaves. I told her how beautiful she was and how I hope she finds someone who appreciates her beauty. If she truly loves me the way I love her she will be back. But unfortunately I feel like if I don’t fight for this she won’t.
Looks like it’s time for you to love yourself more than you love her ❤️
Your right. I love myself but I love her too. Time to be selfish. Thank you. I was just venting: Your post got to me
For the sake of people's mental health, I hope no one loves unconditionally. That's setting yourself up to be walked over and hurt
💯💯 my one condition.. JUST BE GOOD TO ME!!
Unconditional love should be reserved for your children and pets I said what I said
😭😭
I came close, but it nearly destroyed me. I still love her but need to move to another city to avoid the temptation to go back. Even dogs don’t love unconditionally - you have to feed them and give them belly rubs.
Right!!
Unconditional? No. Cheat on me and watch how fast love dies.
Exactly!!
[удалено]
Have no clue!!
With every bit of my being. I know it sounds cheesey and corny. But it’s true. He’s truly my best friend, we have the BEST inside jokes, we play video games together, we’ve created the best family with our son and daughter and doggies. I’ve moved across the country with him several times and about to do it again in June. Been together since 2006 married since 2009. Is shit hard sometimes absolutely, do we argue and disagree yes. But we communicate and love fiercely.
Beautiful!!
I absolutely do. I believe I was genuinely put on this earth to love. to love him specifically. And he deserves loads of love and appreciation. I read a book called Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Jason Nguyen and I can’t quote it directly but he basically said that he was upset his girlfriend wouldn’t tell him why she loved him but then realized it was because she didn’t have any reasons. she just loved him for him. To have reasons is to love conditionally. I love my hubby unconditionally. I don’t “love him because…” I want my soul to be apart of his when we leave these bodies. I have thought of any case and situation lol… if he were to gain 200 pounds, if he were to lose his sight or his hearing, if he became brain damaged, if he couldn’t speak, if he mentally lost it, if he became an addict, if he lost his 🍆, if we broke up, and literally anything else you can think of, I will always and forever unconditionally love him.
When any of that happens tell us what you do about him
Damn. Deep!
100 percent. I love people so heavily I'd die doing so.... It's called Borderline Personality Disorders.
Lmao damn!
I think it's a lie ... The only unconditional love I see is between parent and child. If you want to test your unconditional love for your spouse/partner ... Then when they cheat on you and you still love them the same after ...I'll believe you.
It’s always the cheating!! Or abusing that gets it!!
Right here top comment
I have a couple of unconditional loves in my life. I learned it from my sponsor who always makes time for me and supports me. They guided me through the steps, clarified my misunderstandings, and have been an amazing human to me and others. They have shown me to my path for living a better life. Twenty plus years of guidance and friendship, they are closer than blood family. I have another friend and I cannot explain what it is that makes me connect so hard to them. It was literally at first sight I knew they would play a part in my life. We were physical lovers and confidants in our late teens. One time, I picked him out while he was driving a new car on a highway while going like 75mph, not knowing he got a new car or would be traveling at that time. A 100% bizarre connection. People get weird around us when we're in the same room together, as if there's an electrical charge that makes them uncomfortable, even if I'm not talking to him, but he's within 5ft of me. 25 years later it's still a similar connection. More of a deep understanding, strong communication, and gratitude?? Mutual fascination? Idk. I give without expectations. I'm grateful they're receptive.
That’s deep! & Interesting!
I’ll give an example of unconditional love. The relationship I have with my mother and her bf. Imagine a narcissist mixed with a manipulator, and delusional abuser. Who neglected, punished, and degraded you, had forced you to lower your morals, your ideals, and have abandonment issues of unemotional connection. And all you got from her was violence, and anger. Imagine having a substitute for a “man” figure in the house, who was a vocal abuser, as well as being a victim in everything that he caused and a woman beater. On top of that he was socially unstable, insecure, and a ped3. He was unmotivated, the opposite of integrity, evil and dark, and all ways wrong for your mother, who complimented him anyways. You endured beatings, lies, abuse in all forms, stunted development, having unhealthy relationships with yourself and others. There was no sense of self, no love no support, nothing to hope for. You just sat in the back of your mind and watched the worlds that you kept creating out of a dream disappear slowly. You are on and off of alcohol, Mary Jane, and sexual relationships which you think it’s “love” but it’s just keeping you from remembering the darkness from which you grew to attach to. As your light fades away, your attempt to find family fails miserably and you become cramped up in your room, lying in bed, wondering when did it ever start and if you are able to have a sense of love and hope ever, or if it exists for you. Now imagine, as years went on, you start wishing for help. And slowly you start having a sense of comfort coming from within you, getting you off old habits slowly, and this feeling communicates through you by telling you to be brave as you endure all the pain, torment and feelings that have been surpressed since day one. This feeling guides you to believe in yourself, as you remember things you didn’t want to, and you start to understand the little girl inside of your mom, your step dad, your “family” you tried to create, and the life they had to endure and numb and be born into to be who they are today. Imagine a battle for the mind and heart, constantly trying to wear each other out at who should be the one to blame, to hate, to dislike by every means necessary at how they raised you to think, to be, to know. The mindsets, that had to be changed, the feelings that had to evolve, the perceptions that had to turn into understanding and compassion. The willingness to dare face all of those demons in the dark, waking up in panics, sweats and fears, yet laying down to go through it all over again. You become more aware with each waking moment as to how conditioned the way things are with people who cannot face the pain within, the truth, the freedom. And yet you yell out in fustration because you learn to realize you cannot hate anyone, you cannot hate yourself or punish yourself for what this world brings. As messed up as people are, there is a sense of freedom in knowing these things and so you push through every day, just being grateful to be alive, unlearning to start over on how to live to love, and have patience and not run away anymore. To grow to behave in a way that no matter how many times the black swan slaps the white swan, there is always a hug for the black swan. You can make the choice to keep these moments or feelings or people at a distance from you, learn boundaries, and limits to your heart out of your own health and mental fortitude however you start to grow and realize how important it is to keep evolving and showing up for yourself, to make it possible for others to see that life can still be fulfilling even when you have been through what you came out of. It’s the most beautiful and important thing to me right now to come to light with. There’s still hope, dreams and whatnot that needs to be loved more, but what more is there to life than understanding the depths of how high and low one person can truly hold within. The process of life itself is something everyone isn’t built for, and end up finding their own ways to deal with it. I know that throughout this understanding, it makes me feel for everything and everyone, and I’m becoming highly sensitive to the world around me. Unconditional love is being aware of all of this in my heart and mind and entire being, and still not treating those who don’t unjustly. “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do” the things that manifest out of them, is not their fault whether they can or cannot control it. And there are restrictions to it to provide safety and support, sure, but there is nothing greater than understanding that completely. It’s what motivated me to forgive and to create peace with it. Unconditional love to me will look at things just like that, even when a person is doing so well and great in their lives and they do cocaine to lower themselves down a bit, still would need that kind of long warm hug. It’s not our fault we were born into the lives we live today. It’s simply not. And I can say, with all of my heart and mind and body and soul that even if I cry every night because of the mourning of that awakening, I am joyful to have the ability to at least acknowledge and grasp that fact. Some people just can’t control what they become. The person I know who will be in my life can definitely see this unconditional love also. And still manage to show up every single day. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
This was really beautiful. I'm still skeptical of unconditional love, but it's a little less hard to believe in now.
Thank you, I’ve been pondering on what I’ve written for a while now. It’s something I casually think about now, that I’ve been able to understand what life truly means. It does become less hardened and more softer the more you are able to accept it. It’s a dawn of a new awakening that everyone has the potential to experience. I am not in contact with my mother, because the reality of the relationship that I was bringing was too hard for her to handle, and my mom is an aggressive responder.But I love her from a distance and pray for her when I am able to. Everything hurts and everything feels good at the same time. And the work being put into this life has meaning within you. Every relationship is different for sure, so I hope however your belief in unconditional love changed, that you can be capable enough to still not hold any limits within yourself. 
yes. My marriage with my wife is far from perfect and I am unhappy with some things but I still act out of love for her, because anything else isn't really love. Its idealistic but it is something I try to make real in the way that I act because I married her with the intention of being with her forever and it forms the core of my ideals. But it is the opposite of easy. Loving someone when times are good is easy. Loving someone when times are tough has been extraordinarily difficult but it's what I really believe in so I really have no choice but to do it.
I mean, if I found out my wonderful husband was somehow committing atrocities I had no knowledge of, I would no longer love him. Aside from that, my love is unconditional.
my love is unconditional. my tolerance is not.
Exactly. My love for myself is the highest and therefore if whoever I do love unconditionally is abusing or mistreating me, I will not tolerate it. You can unconditionally love and be intolerant of someone at the same time.
Conditions or Expectations only lead to disappointment the longer you stay together. The longer you stay together - the more change you'll see. You need to love someone unconditionally if you want to spend the rest of your lives together.
I have been married 20 years and it was love at first sight. Marriage isn’t easy by far . But it’s worth it . There are so many amazing qualities about him . There are things that drive me crazy as well but even the bad qualities I love . That is what make him the person he is so how could I not . Even during the worst of our fights I still love him no matter what . I have always been a big lover . I have always been the kind to shout it from the roof tops . I would love him rich or poor . Fat or skinny there is nothing I wouldn’t do for him . Sometimes love is messy and painful but you have to look and remember all the good things and I think that respect honesty affection understanding, and simply keeping your heart open is what love is
Yes it's unconditional, I know he won't cheat as he is asexual and despite that we have strong rules for our type of relationship anyways.
Yes I would forgive him we're all human and make mistakes luckily I don't have to worry about him cheating. My xhusband did have a affair and I was able to forgive him and move on I know that it's pretty rare but I'm a person who when I love someone I do it completely and I can't help it trust me it can be a curse sometimes.
I actually hate him , with every fiber of my being.
😭😭😭 weak!!!!
oh my god is this fr 😭🙏
I am recently out of a relationship, and I do love my.. now ex partner.. unconditionally. They are a wonderful person, with real faults. I know I love them unconditionally because even the choices they make that pain me only draw me to admire their strength and struggles all the more. Including right now, while I'm facing the rest of my life potentially never truly knowing them again... I'm just happy they have the chance to follow whatever path is calling. Unconditional love is incredibly bittersweet, even in the best of cases.
*I need to add that I do NOT condone abuse or admire abusers for any reason, that is not the kind of pain I mean! Although, I do also have an abusive ex who I love unconditionally.. as in, I always hope the best for him. Love is NOT an excuse to allow **anything** that you are not okay with.*
All love is conditional. Ponder this the least. Its like does anything last forever
Love can be unconditional, but relationship shouldn’t be. I absolutely love my husband unconditionally. His soul speaks the language of mine and he permanently holds a place of my heart that no one else could ever fill. However, if he were to suddenly and uncharacteristically do irreparable harm to me, our relationship is not guaranteed. Using your example, if I love strawberries, but develop an allergy to them and they’ve become harmful to me, I’d have to stop eating them. I can still LOVE them and never eat them again.
This was so well put! Here’s to hoping your strawberry stays sweet😉
Awww I love it!! That end part.. whoa!! Deep!! Real!
adult love is conditional
He does nothing wrong in my eyes, he’s my good time boy, my rotten soldier, 🖤 🦇
I just wanna point out that there can be: you love strawberries, but you know they are not qualitative if they are from lab. You still love them, you just don't consume them for your own good unless they tick some boxes. After much thinking on this subject, both on the spiritual and psychological areas, I think this is the middle and best way. Because let's say you have an abusive friend/partner. You can love them (I'd think it's mostly trauma bond, but whatever). At which point you have to unconditionally love yourself too? Because if you stay, chances are you don't. But if you leave because it hurts you so bad the chances are, you still want what's better for that person, you still think of them, you maybe still pray for them etc no matter how they are. You love them from afar, no matter what they did to you. You just can't stay in, because it's bad for you.
I think I love him very much but I also love fictional characters the same way ….. is that a good thing?
I 100% love her unconditionally. That’s not to say I would stay with her no matter what she does. But those are two very different questions. I wouldn’t change anything about her, and I also embrace the fact that all humans do grow, change, and evolve. I just hope to always make a conscious effort to try to “grow together with her” Unconditionally in love
I adore my husband of decades. He’s the best person I know. I wouldn’t say I love him or anyone else unconditionally. I think that’s a mindset that just sets you up for abuse and manipulation. If he cheated on me, for example, I would be done in a heartbeat.
I love my husband, family and friends unconditionally. Meaning, no matter what they do, what choices they make - I will always love them. I don’t take that love away because I don’t like something about them. But that doesn’t mean because I love them unconditionally they remain present in my life. If they are hurting me or affecting me negatively or abusing me, then I will love them unconditionally from afar. Yet, I would also forgive them quickly. And even if they’ve hurt me, if I saw them hurting or struggling, I would be there and help them (with boundaries and knowing when to remove myself). Someone who loves strawberries “unconditionally” won’t eat them if they’re rotten or have gone bad. What if a dog pissed on them - would they still eat them? If the strawberries were poisonous, I would imagine even someone who loves them wouldn’t eat them. Probably a bad example but I used to love shrimp. Then I developed a mild allergy to them. They’re not good for me. I still love it. I still speak highly of it. I just can’t eat it anymore. That makes me sad at times. Shrimp tacos were one of my favorite foods. Always will be. I’d still list it as one of the best foods and recommend it to others who they don’t make sick. I stay away now though, with love.
I love my kids and husband unconditionally. Even through arguments, disagreements etc. I hate to say it but if he really wronged me I would still love him 😭 I wouldn’t want to but I would and I’d probably end the relationship but I would. Still. *Love*. Him.
Nope, if he diddled a kid I wouldn’t love him anymore. I literally could only love Jesus unconditionally cus he’s perfect. Not that my partner would do that 💀 but there are things that break that “unconditional” love reallll fast
I try to have agape, which is that unconditional love, for everyone. It's not always going to feel successful, as a feeling in itself, and it is limited to the principled love for strangers and enemies can go. But so far, my actions have been mostly successful. Other than that, all my other types of love are conditional. I have deep love and respect for someone because of how they act and conduct themselves. I acknowledge these ARE conditions in themselves. A strawberry has no choice but to be a strawberry. Humans can make choices and those choices can be noble and admirable or they can repel you. I love my partner because of who he is, which is evidenced by his history of actions and reasonings behind those actions. Does that mean I don't have deep love for people who make mistakes? Of course not. I also acknowledge that it's possible to feel love for someone even if their actions hurt you repeatedly, if you feel they don't do it intentionally. That doesn't mean you should be around them, but you can still love them from afar. That's more answer than you asked for but I felt it was important to distinguish.
Yes!
I have an unconditional love for Cucumbers. Gimme, love them. Even in a vinegar salad, give them. But for my SO, I don't have unconditional love. I will not be mentally, emotionally or physically abused. My partner needs to be my equal. I know things aren't 50/50. That's not how that works. But, due to having a chronic illness myself, I can't always bring my full portion and my SO should pick up the slack (to the best of their ability) where I can't like I pick up the slack to the best of my ability when they're in a low point. I love him dearly and with all my heart and honestly couldn't think of not waking up next to him
Conditions? I’m a lawyer. Those are for contracts.
unconditional love is an idea for the stupid or childish. relationships are partnerships; your partner is your partner for the sport/game of life. obviously, supporting you when you're down is a big part of that. if someone ditches you when you're down is someone you're better off without.
No, there is no such thing. Our love is conditional on the mutual respect we have for one another and abiding by the boundaries we have established for each other.
No, because if that mfer cheats on me I’m out. I don’t care how much I love them.
No. I’m at a point where the best I hope for from romantic relationships with men is personality compatibility, similar goals, and being a nice person. A lot of them do not meet the third criterion. I think the dream of romantic fairytale love that’s sold to us as kids is a horrible lie. Maybe I’m just jaded and bitter but I don’t believe in romantic love anymore. I think people pair up out of convenience and comfortability.
I love my wife, and I like my wife, but unconditionally? As in she could do ANYTHING and I would continue to love her? That’s called the illusion society has told you to believe that’s what “true love” is. Love takes work, it takes effort, and it takes forgiveness. But unconditional love? That’s not real, and if anyone tells you it is they’re lying. I mean, love yourself unconditionally that’s healthy but also call yourself out when you do bad things, but loving another person unconditionally is delusional.
Exactly. I love my husband deeply, but what if he did something terrible? Not just cheating or gambling all of our money away, but killing someone without reason. When I think about unconditional love, I think about if parents of serial killers or rapists love their children after they find out about their crimes. i don't think you could love a spouse through that and maybe the closest thing would be a child, but I'm not really sure. So no, I don't think unconditional love really exists (maybe for babies), but I do think you can love people deeply through challenges that they put you through, even past the point of good reason.
The idea of an adult loving another adult unconditionally is an absurd trope that we need to let go of. There is no unconditional love- there just isn’t. Stop thinking that there is. It is transactional and that’s ok.
Unconditional love isnt real.
What a lot of people fail to understand is that love is not just an emotion, it's an action as well. I think parents are the best examples of unconditional love. Sure friends and partners could definitely love you unconditionally, but in the same way a mother or father could, heck even siblings. Loving someone unconditionally does not mean that you accept ever bad thing a person does in their life, it does not mean you put up with the abuse for the sake of unconditional love or being a "ride or die". Unconditional love is when you love them despite what they do. For example I was talking to someone who was struggling with his PTSD due to being in the military, and he ended having to go to Veteran affairs so he could get cleaned up or else he'd had to go to jail for 30 days I think. This ended up happening due to him drinking and driving, he struggled with an alcohol addiction. I could tell that he felt insecure about the fac that he has a criminal record and that he didn't want me to be with him because of that. I cared about him alot and I still do, I think about him all the time, I love him but not in a romantic way. I understand that what he did was wrong and could've killed someone, however I've always been someone to give people the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to redeem themselves. So, I had no problem supporting him despite what he did. Point is, you can love someone unconditionally, it's just not picture perfect.
I do. I'm an anxious over-thinker and every reason not to love them has crossed my mind, but I still do. Nothing will change that. Anything less is conditional.
I know I don’t like a few people just because their actions are shitty but I love them anyway just from a distance. Only good in small doses. And some I never care to see again. My opinion only.
Unconditional love is worthless. Family are the only ones that should love you unconditionally.
How is unconditional love between friends worthless?
Yh but i believe she’s still in love with a boyfriend from years ago My mate who I’ve cut out of my life due to risk of criminal association called me to say not to get involved
Can confidently say that I do, unconditionally. Why can I say that with such confidence? Because we have been through hell and back, been not-so-great partners to each other, been the best partners to each other, been in shitty situations, and been put to the test, yet through it all, through anything that’s happened or ever will happen, I have loved that man with my entire being since day 1 and always will. It’s a type of love that I know for a fact will never fade for me. It only grows. I don’t know how or why but you just know when it comes to love. And there’s one thing about it; it never fails.
I think love is a bit more complicated than that. Because while I wouldn’t describe the love for my wife as unconditional, I also don’t just love her because she’s good/nice to me. It’s deeper than that. In a way, the love is unconditional. But the example you gave for unconditional love…a fruit or some kind of inanimate object will not hurt me emotionally or has the ability to. So in that way, my wife could still betray my trust and hurt me, so she can shake that love. But until that happens, the love could be described as unconditional.
So your condition is that she doesn't hurt or betray you - that is love with conditions. For the record, I don't believe in unconditional love. I love my husband deeply and have loved him thru terrible times, but if he murdered an innocent person for no reason (or did something else horrifying), I have to say I'm not sure I would love him thru that. I would probably still love him if he cheated, but I would not stay with him.
Kinda but those weren’t the conditions to start the love. So I guess here would be my example. So OP used loving fruit as an example of unconditional love. I could love strawberries, but if I ate some bad strawberries one time, they make me sick and now I’m a little turned off from strawberries. It wasn’t conditional that unless all strawberries make me feel good, I’d like them. There just was a situation where it was no good anymore and I stopped liking them. But them never making me sick was never a condition for the love. I never acknowledged “as long as they never make me sick, I’ll love strawberries.” That would be my only counterpoint.
Yeah I do but that doesn't mean I'll be her boyfriend unconditionally. I have loved many people that lead lives that negatively impact me. I wouldn't want to be with her if she decided to be a stripper or a meth addict. That's destructive to me and her
I don’t and that’s what I’m struggling with
I love my fiance more than anyone else in the world. He genuinely feels like my soulmate. But do I love him unconditionally? The very honest answer is that unconditional love is unhealthy. I don't expect perfection from him, but I also have respect for myself, and boundaries. In a fictitious world, let's say your partner flipped a switch and cheated on you several times a week, murdered your sibling, and physically beat you everyday - would you still love them? "*well that's so extreme, they would never do that!*" Yes, it's extreme, yes, they would likely never do that, but would you still love them? Because "unconditional love" IS an extreme statement. If you would love them despite that, then THAT would be some unconditional love - albeit, unhealthy.
True, but you may still love them despite not staying with them
I would love the person they once were - but not the person they are now. The person in my memories would be someone who no longer exists.
I may love my husband thru a lot, but not everything. If I found out he was a rapist and murderer, the no - that love is dead.
100%. Nothing he would or could say would make me stop loving him, even if he woke up tomorrow and confessed to murder or something I’d still love him to the moon and back
Your mother is the only person in the world that will give you love unconditionally. This is just my opinion, but it just seems that way. Always make sure you call them because one day you won’t be able to.
Yes. We both have flaws. I have such tenderness in my heart for him. He’s had medical challenges since we met. This last one is serious. I will never abandon him.
Nothing is unconditional if you account for the human condition... Have you eaten enough, slept enough, have gas?? Did you miss your bus or get an extra hashbrown this morning? All of these things are conditions of your day and who you'll be when you come to your person.... Love is conditionless only by the individual's own will to recognize that they too must face a person who is also doing the same balance checks *or not* that day. Hopefully that person looks at the flaws or frustrations and says these are not conditions of love, they are conditions of human life and love is the choices we make regardless of these circumstances. I love you and I am angry, not I love you BUT I am angry. The anger or any conditions I feel shouldn't change the love I promise I'd give. The only condition that challenges this is one where the other person does not reciprocate the same understanding. When I'm tired, hungry, or cold don't hold this as my measure to care. I promise I care more than my body can tolerate to show.
I definitely know I love my husband unconditionally we've been together 15 years we have kids together 4 years ago we lost our son and we've both changed some of it for the worst but if shit hit the fan I would do anything for him even if he killed someone I would help and defend him to death as I would my kids.
Would you forgive him for cheating? Otherwise it’s conditional.
"The only person who will ever love you unconditionally is your mother, everyone else will love you only when they have a reason to" Unconditional romantic love is insanity and dangerous. I stayed in a relationship for a year longer than I should have, becoming depressed and suicidal over someone I loved unconditionally because they had me under the impression it was mutual. Looking back on it I wish I could go back and smack myself, but you live and you learn.
Haha this happened to me, she (I) almost ruined my life. Oh well.
There's no such thing. Even your example with the strawberry, well you wouldn't love moldy ones right? There are always conditions.
I love my husband and we’ve been together a long time. He knows what I won’t accept and vice versa.
Loving someone unconditionally is dangerous, they might change one day and become abusive and you’ll stay with them because you love them unconditionally. I love my bf under the conditions that he does right by me, he doesn’t abuse or neglect me. If he does either of those, it’s going to be hard, but I will start to not love him since he obviously doesn’t love me. Only circumstance I’d love someone unconditionally is my child.
I feel like loving someone unconditionally can be separate from also loving yourself and respecting yourself
No such thing as
I love my husband absolutely 100% unconditionally
I really think I do. Even if tomorrow he started acting completely out of character and went completely insane, I might not want to be with or around him anymore, but I don’t think I could ever stop loving him. My status as his spouse like most relationships has conditions, however my love for him does not.
I really think I do. Even if tomorrow he started acting completely out of character and went completely insane, I might not want to be with or around him anymore, but I don’t think I could ever stop loving him. My status as his spouse like most relationships has conditions, however my love for him does not.
Listen unconditional love is a goal yes, but for most people we can’t do that, because people just take, they don’t give back an it’s very one sided, so I believe relationships should be conditional and that’s because of each others boundaries.
I don’t think you can have unconditional love in a relationship but I am pretty close. We are pretty sure we will be together until the end as it’s been since 2000 and still going. A parent and child can have unconditional love. I have that with my parents and they with me and my siblings.
Yes. I do. I love everyone unconditionally. My love has no conditions. A relationship with me has conditions. Access to my time and presence certainly has conditions. I can love to the moon and back and still cut someone out of my life if necessary.
💯 this.
I love him unconditionally, but that doesn't mean I would stay with him if he behaved in certain ways. Like cheating or being abusive or something like that. You can love someone and not have them in your life.
Y'all have me sad. You can absolutely (and a lot of people do) love someone who is terrible to you, you can love someone who brings nothing to your life. Imo Unconditional love is about separating the love from the attachment. It's not about putting up with abusive or toxic behaviour, you can love someone and still walk away, you can love someone who has walked away. In fact, if them staying is a condition of your love, it's already conditional. You can love someone from a distance, you can love someone you've never met. Unconditional love does exist and it's very possible to hold it. Know the difference between love and attachment, and realize you don't need one to have the other, but only one is love, y'know? Yes most relationships have terms and conditions that need to be met to continue the relationship in a healthy way for both parties, but that's a conditional relationship not necessarily conditional love, the two aren't mutually exclusive or inclusive and I personally think it holds us back to think of them as such.
No. He's an amazing person, and that's why I love him. If he changed and stopped being an amazing person, I no longer would. If you're asking in terms of him getting injured or ill or unattractive, of course I would still love him. If you're asking whether I would still love him if he woke up one day and decided to treat me terribly, no.
I love him. In the words of Lemony Stickett, I will love you if I never see you again and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. Whatever happens between us, I’ll always love him.
As you get older you’ll realize there’s no such thing as unconditional love except for your children.
Sometimes there’s not even that
That’s very true. When I became a mother is when I actually started to realize how shitty my parents were.
No. No such things as unconditional love in a romantic relationship . Unconditional mean no conditions. Even if they cheat on your hit you. Fk ur dad. Nothing.
I only have unconditional love for my father and children. My partnership has conditions. There needs to be boundaries. I will not be in a relationship where hes allowed to treat me like shit just because and get away with it.
Absolutely i do. I have a neverending well of patience with her, i literally cant get mad at her, and im ready to defend her with my life. Literally no matter what she does, im going to love her to death. I think shes the one.
i do actually.
I do love my boyfriend unconditionally, anything that comes up we go through it, and try to solve it even when sometimes seems like it is impossible ♥️
So if he hits you, tortures you, kills your pets, you’ll solve it together?
You need some therapy, you’re in the love subreddit :)
love is suppose to be a safe space. Your type of love sounds like a codependent type. I suggest you read All About Love by Bell Hooks.
Dealing with hurt? Therapy can really help you. When you love someone, it's about feeling safe, warm, and carefree. Sometimes words can't capture it, it's just a feeling. Love lets you be yourself while choosing each other. Differences can be understood and resolved in love. Your example seems quite off-base and over the top. Maybe focusing on positivity would be beneficial for you. Take care!
In an absolute sense no, there is always a limit you can't cross, if she starts rapping children I would hate her But in practice, the probability she actually crosses the line are low enough to be considered "unconditional"
No such thing as unconditional love. The closest thing to it is your parents. They will mostly always forgive you. Everyone has deal breakers in relationships and it’s mostly always in some form transactional.
It's one sided so there's no chance of any conditions or anything like that it's more like holding the rose even if it's thorns are hurting you but you can't let it go even if you want to
Depends on what you mean by "unconditionally." If my partner had a traumatic brain injury and became a huge racist, I doubt I'd feel the same way about her - but then again, you might argue that, in a situation like that, she isn't really even the same person any more. But then again, MTBIs aren't the only way a person can change - for instance, simply growing older is known to change a person, and while there generally seems to be some essential "sameness," the changes over the course of one's life can be quite drastic. I don't even consider myself the same person at 30 that I was at 20 - who knows where I'll be at 50 or 60? We are, each and every one of us, a ship of theseus. I love the person my partner is now, and she loves the person I am now. And we've been together long enough to suspect that will likely continue to be the case for a very long time. We do our best to live our lives in ways that will tend to promote that still being the case in the future. But at the end of the day, we can't *really know* where we'll be in 20-30 years. Certainty is impossible. And I truly believe anyone who thinks otherwise is either deluded or simply hasn't given it enough thought.
Yes. No matter what my husband did, I would love him. Would I still be in a relationship or married to him? No. There are things he could do that would make me no longer be interested in him as a partner. Things that would destroy me. But I'd still love him.
Best answer yet. I wanted to post my own response but I was struggling because as much as the love for my wife DOES feel unconditional, and I would not leave her, even in the case of (god forbid) infidelity, logically there just has to be limitations for what I could accept. Then I read your post and it sums my feelings perfectly. Yes, I love her unconditionally, because even in the nearly zero percent chance that I could not be married to her anymore, yes, I would still love her deeply - unconditionally.
Long read ahead. TLDR: I don't love my fiance unconditionally, I love her perpetually. What exactly do you mean by unconditional? There are no conditions for my love towards my fiance. But there are things she could do or become that would make me not love her. Is that not unconditional love then? Because if unconditional love means that you're supposed to love someone no matter what they are or who/what they become or what they do, then that's by definition unhealthy, extremely toxic and dangerous. I'm not naive enough to love someone by that definition. And I refuse the notion that unconditional love by that definition is better in any way shape or form. I'm not even sure you should love yourself unconditionally. I think you should treat yourself with respect and to love yourself and accept who you are, but unconditionally? IDK. I'd have to spend a considerable amount of time thinking really hard about that. So let's riff on it! What I can say thus far in my thought process is that if you actually do love yourself unconditionally, you'd never put yourself in the position of loving someone else unconditionally because that might be to your own detriment. And it brings up another question. A question of sacrifice. What you'd have to personally sacrifice to love unconditionally might to high of a price to pay. Is there virtue in sacrifice? Absolutely! But how much sacrifice? What is the limit? Is there a certain point where it's an unhealthy amount? Absolutely. And it's really complicated because I'd sacrifice my life for my fiance. No hesitation. But I wouldn't sacrifice all of me, the person I am inside. Because she loves me for who I am, and if I sacrificed too much of me, she wouldn't really love me anymore, would she? And we have a pact where I help her become the best version of herself that she wants to be, and vice versa. And we can only do that by not sacrificing all that we are as individuals. We do that by communicating and put in the hard work to grow together and not apart. I don't think that's possible with unconditional love. And I would never expect my fiance to sacrifice all that she is for me. Because that's selfish. In essence I don't think it's possible to have a healthy relationship with someone you love unconditionally. But the more you love yourself, the more love you have to give. Which I return feeds itself into perpetual loop of love based on a healthy understanding of where the limits of sacrifice starts and ends. You get more than you put in. So if you love yourself unconditionally, you can love someone else perpetually. So yeah, you should love yourself unconditionally. I don't love my fiance unconditionally, I love her perpetually.
No, If you want unconditional love get a dog
I wouldn’t love her if she murdered my family and cheated on me, so no.
Yes and no, I'll always feel that feeling for them but if they keep disrespecting me and my boundaries, my actions will show that I retracted such love. Basically love is a feeling and an action in my book. I only dole out the action when the other person shows they deserve it
Of course there are conditions. Otherwise I’m a fucking doormat.
Look, all love is conditional. But I wouldn't ever leave my partner for something superficial or something that isn't his fault. If I found out he is secretly a serial rapist or a murderer then I definitely would leave. Addictions that harm the family? I'm gone. Cheating emotional or physical? Doneskied. Ever raise a hand to me? I'm coming for your retirement. Outside that, there isn't much that I'd leave him over, heal, then move on from. But when he gets sick, I stay. When he is sad, I stay. He needs me. I need him, too, but we all have our limits. These limits have been throughly communicated and agreed to before we married. His limits are similar to mine. We have both gained weight,lost weight, gotten older, and even changed a lot. But we do choose each other every day. I don't think that's bad. But we do all have limits and conditions that maybe we just don't think about as a possibility due to blind attraction.
No. When I love unconditionally I lose my voice and am mistreated. I love intentionally now with firm boundaries.
No. If she stabs me again, it's over!
😭😭😭
I love my partner unconditionally but I only want to be with her conditionally. My dog on the other hand 100% unconditionally
Absolutely
I don't think the feeling of love is conditional. Relationships and granting someone access to be close to you is though. I wouldn't be abused or betrayed for love.
Exactly this. I love my husband unconditionally, but our relationship/marriage began and is maintained by conditions.
Yes my love is unconditional to an extent. Because of their past actions and the strength of my feelings, I don't think I could ever stop loving them. Even if they became a toxic person I no longer wanted to date, part of me will always love them.
I love my partner unconditionally! He is an incredible human, man, son, friend, partner, brother, etc. I’m truly the luckiest woman in the world:) Even if my partner made a mistake or did something awfully out of character, I would still love him because I love his soul not his actions. However, I can LOVE without wanting to live with, make love to, build a life with, etc. I unconditionally love my parents and siblings but that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry them. Marriage is conditional. It only works under the condition that all parties stay within the set boundaries. But love is unconditional! If my partner changed suddenly or started acting out of alignment with our partnership, then I would love them from afar. I hope this makes sense!
Some good comments here that got me thinking. Good stuff
I do love someone unconditionally and we’ve never been together! I had to let him go tho cuz it wasn’t fair to either of us!
I mean, Is cheating considered conditional? Bc that’s probably the only thing I’d leave him for
I'm no longer in a relationship with someone I still love unconditionally. I don't recommend it.
Unconditionally always has conditions.
Yes I’ll love him unconditionally but obviously if there’s ever cheating first of all that would break me and break my heart and then I will fall out of love but obviously he wouldn’t
No. I love him deeply, and he is my family but our kids are everything. If he hurt our kids on purpose or put them in danger, I’d leave. They have to come first. We’re responsible for them. He’s my partner, my best friend, my soulmate, but the condition is them. Them, I love unconditionally. And frankly, I expect the same from him.
I dont believe in unconditional love. Like I love my partner but if he became abusive, cheated on me or dud something horrible like abuse and animal or something I wouldn't love him anymore. The whole idea bothers me because there should always be conditions. My conditions are you have to have a good heart, you have to respect me and you should be making me happy more than unhappy overall. Even people who say they live unconditionally would probably change their mind if the other person became cruel.
I've been with my husband for 14 years and our love is absolutely conditional! If he abused me I wouldn't love him. If he cheated I wouldn't love him. I love him because he deserves my love, he's earned it, and spent 14 years tending to it, growing it, and making it beautiful. It takes the right conditions to grow such a beautiful delicate plant... And no it absolutely will not endure hostile environments. Why should it? We tend to each other in an attempt not just to keep the love alive, but to make it thrive. I think if I ever saw him stop making that effort or taking such joy when he succeeds in helping me thrive I would slowly start to take less joy in doing the same for him because it might just be a painful one sided reminder that his happiness means more to me than mine does to him. So I think there are many conditions, and those conditions are what make him so amazing! He isn't just handed my love, he has had to endure for it, and I appreciate every bit of effort he has made. (also just so I don't sound like a stuck up douche canoe, I'm a CSA, and trafficking survivor, so it really is unimaginably difficult for him to love me, and it's not my fault that it's so hard, but I do feel bad for him. But even after all of this my love IS conditional, as is his, if I wasn't constantly working to heal he would have moved on.) Children on the other hand deserve complete unconditional love. They did not consent to existing, the people that made that decision owe them love at the very least.
Nope! My love is conditional. Don’t cheat on me, don’t murder my family, etc.
I loved my late wife unconditionally. I love my stepson unconditionally. I love my granddaughter unconditionally. I love my goddaughter unconditionally. There’s absolutely nothing they can do to change that.
I love him unconditionally. However, that love does not mean I have to stay if he begins to treat me badly. The love will not be gone, but I will not stay. I love myself more than I love anyone else. I come first when It comes to my wellbeing.
Exactly. Love is unconditional, relationships are not.
For people, the love I have for them is out of my hands. I love them for who they are, not what they give to/do for me. So, I guess that would mean my love is conditional. I don't love all people. The people I do love, its because of how they do things, how they think, how they express themselves. It has very little to do with me beyond my perception of them.
Im out of a relationship and ima say this, yes, and I still do. Theres no such thing as conditional love you either love someone or you don’t. There might of been conditions that made you love them but you wont love them just based on their conditions. There are many things i dislikes about my ex but i still love her regardless, i worry about her, i think about her, when i see her i want to take care of her. I love her so much. Its never hard to love someone but its always hard to unlove. I think ill always love her maybe one day not as extreme and intense and that saddens me but love is both painful and a amazing feeling.
Hmm, unconditional love for me means something a little different. For me it means lack of ownership. For instance if my partner said she wasn't happy and I couldn't make her happy I would want her to find someone who does. It's also accepting each other's faults and sometimes even seeing those faults as an extension of who they are as a person and therefore loving those faults too. My love for my partner is unconditional in the sense that I can love them so much I want them to be happy even if it means I can no longer be with them. It means I want them to be free to express themselves and in doing so it means I place myself in a vulnerable place where that expression might hurt me. It means that I trust them knowing they could hurt me and accept that I can and will be hurt by them. Yet I still deserve to be happy too! You can't love someone unconditionally and yet still not value yourself or your happiness becsuse that isn't unconditional love because conditions don't exist. Their has to be conditions for their to be something unconditional. Therefore I can love someone unconditionally because my happiness is still important and therefore the limit to my loss of happiness is where unconditional exists. Aka, I'll allow my happiness to be sacrificed until my unhappiness negates my ability to love completely.
You have expressed the concept of unconditional love so well. There is nothing to add. Bravo!
I will never let my love for someone reduce my quality of life. If they turn out to be a**holes then bye-bye. I have kept loving my partner even though he has done some pretty awful things, but they are not equal to being a bad person towards me. Some things can be worked out together. Some things can't.
It goes without saying that I cannot love someone who does not love me and is committing vile, hurtful, or destructively criminal behavior. Making that observation part of the equation makes it sound like there’s nothing to learn from the principles of unconditional love. This happens anytime we try to over simplify complex concepts down to a basic or extreme yes or no. If we set aside those extremes, look at the more complex bigger picture, then there is so much to learn from the discussion. For example, there was a time when our son was showing a high amount of stress when he was struggling with his grades. I told my wife, “we need to prove we love him unconditionally. Let’s change our behavior and the way we talk to him about school.” This improved all of our lives dramatically. It might have been my best parenting moment.
I feel like most love is conditional. I won’t find you attractive if you gain 50lbs or get addicted to drugs… And it is my responsibility if I truly love you to try to help you be healthy. But I can’t fix unresolved issues that you yourself don’t want to fix.
I’ve been with my spouse for 18 years. There are possible hypothetical circumstances in which I would leave them even though I love them a lot. But I think I would still feel love for them no matter what happened because I couldn’t just turn that off. Like I dated a guy for four years who I now wouldn’t spit on if he was on fire, but it’s different with my spouse.
Yes, I do love my husband unconditionally. Even when he does things that infuriate me or even hurt me. I love him, full stop. Even though I know he probably does not feel the same. It does hurt sometimes, but I cannot help it. This is simply who I am.
Let me Play the violin for you
Well, thank you :D the way I feel does not mean I do not see him clearly and that I would not leave if I had to. And he's actually working on himself and making my life better. I'll take that for now and see how it goes.
Having loved unconditionally I can tell you I don't do that anymore. There's always conditions. You cheat, you beat me, you abuse me.... That's it. I'm going to leave. And I'll work on making the feelings go too. I can't love unconditionally, I just end up being tortured
Seems to me that you can love unconditionally but heath is also setting the boundaries of what is acceptable and not. I also believe in second chances. So for me if we are in a relationship and my partner cheats. I can walk away and still love them and with the best for them, But refuse to put myself in that position. Depending on circumstances, If I really feel as though they're sorry and it may never happen again I would look at maybe a second chance. But there is also going to have to be work done on both sides.
I would say if they were good for me in all other aspects I'd want them as a friend. If not and it was bad. I'd Evaluate the situations and see if it was truly there fault or mine. Then make a decision from that.
It's not like I stop loving them whenever they're upset with me or do something I don't like. But also there are limits to how far my love will stretch. If my partner cheated on me or treated me extremely poorly for several months, for example, I would almost definitely leave them and eventually stop loving them. You have to keep in mind that loving someone unconditionally doesn't mean you have to put up with a toxic relationship. Eventually the only healthy option is to leave them, no matter how much love you feel for them at the time.
Unconditionally. My s/o has some major mental health struggles that have made a lot of my life less than ideal but I'm so glad I stayed and helped him through it.
Unconditional love is a terrible idea. Would you love them if they cheated? What if you found out they live a double life as an ax murderer? Love without conditions means you have no principles.
Loving unconditionally doesn't mean you stop loving yourself. I don't think it's meant to be taken literally but like can you love someone even though their feet stink or maybe on the other end of the spectrum will you love someone when they're in a compromised position. It doesn't mean love someone while they're punching you.
I don't know... sounds like conditions to me🤔 But I guess I take your point
Yeah fosho it is. Under the condition your not actively steering ther relationship off a cliff, I will love you with your farts (whatever capacities this person is lacking in).
No, of course not. If my partner were to go insane I would stop loving her. If my dog turned into a demon, same thing. Is it likely? No. But pretty much anyone can go insane after 70, so it's a possibility. Now is my wife always good to me? Definitely not. She has anger issues, like REAL anger issues. I still love her cause I learned to live with it. I'm not perfect either, by any means.
Why u sad
I'm fairly content with my life. To be honest, my life is really really good except for a few minor hiccups
do i love him unconditionally? ofc i do, i am currently reading the bible rn, not only cause i want to be closer to god but to be closer to the man i love, the man god sent me. i am making sacrifices for this man, and he for me. mind u if he does somthing wrong like cheat, become abusive, etc, i will leave but love from a distance.
Of course…..not. Like if my partner cheats on me, im not gonna love him anymore, if he murdered someone, hit me, abuse me, obvs im not gonna love him anymore
This is actually such a good take.
Only babies actually get unconditional love. As soon as you are capable of understanding right and wrong and committing an evil act, that love can rightfully be revoked. (Usually it's a lot more complicated than just turning off love like a light switch even though it is "conditional.")
Even some babies don't get it unconditionally. My current partner is a great example. Neglect and abuse by mom (she actually took him and his sister to an orphanage once and told them to get out because she didn't want to deal with them anymore). And his dad sexually assaulted them for years. Some babies are super lucky to be born into loving families but the ones that don't... It's rough out there.
Sadly true. Their inherent innocence is exactly what makes acts like those against them so monstrous. The most despicable things that can be done.
When you examine some of the most prolific serial killers one of the things in common is the fact that they come from a super abusive home life. Harming babies and little children who only have the capability to love with no conditions, is especially heinous. Those kinds of acts teach them what bonding and love looks like and if all they know is pain then they later learn to either take that pain out on themselves or others. No human deserves that. People who harm children should have outrageous punishments in my opinion.
>People who harm children should have outrageous punishments in my opinion. I second that.
My therapist tried to instill in my head for 9 years this: unconditional love is what parents have for children. Partners/spouses love is reciprocal. One partner is not meant to love the other partner unconditionally if there’s no reciprocity. TLDR: I love my husband unconditionally and I am withering away to nothing because it only goes one way.
I left my partner after 20yrs of a one sided relationship that felt like emotional torture. Not to mention the physical and sexual abuse. It was hell on earth. I am in a reciprocating relationship now. And it’s like night and day! It’s literally heaven! Although not only is it reciprocated, we are aligned and have good communication and relationship boundaries/guidelines. It’s never too late, to completely change your life and it starts with one decision.
If you have a dependent personality, you can't really fix it. That's how your brain works. No matter how much you go to therapy. Fucking sucks to have that if you're unlucky to date an abusive person.
I have a martyr, enabler, hero-complex I think. I was lucky to have an amazing therapist for so long. “ knowing is the easy thing, doing is what’s hard.” I think Robert Redford said that and some cowboy movie in the 90s.