Does Unconditional Love Exist?

I remember a girl I worked with asked if I loved my partner unconditionally and I replied, yes. She then informed me that I did not. Keep in mind I had only met this girl for a few hours! I was like huh? She said ‘if your partner cheated on you, would you still love her? I said nope. She said ‘well then, you love her conditionally’. The condition is as long as she does not do anything that she shouldn’t do, you will love her. That got me thinking.

 What other conditions do we place on our partners in our relationships? In the beginning, their quirkiness and way of doing things we may have found interesting and even showed affection towards it. Fast forward months or years later it can be the same thing that irritates us. ‘I wish you would stop doing that’ we say but what they see is you saying ‘oh that’s what I love about you’. We place so many expectations on our partners and we feel let down and unloved if they don’t meet them. All sorts of pressure and emotional withdrawal they will experience if our needs are not satisfied.

 Sometimes our emotional withdrawal is unconscious and automatic. This happens as a defense mechanism that we created early on in life to protect ourselves. It can be a hard state to shift as it brings up a lot of past emotions that have been lying dormant within us. The main thing to realise is my partner is not understanding me perhaps because I have not communicated clearly enough or maybe they have their own stuff they are dealing with and they are focusing on themselves.

Relationships are a tricky dance. We have two individuals who have come together in union to share their lives together. Not only to share their lives but to share their story. We all have a story to tell that is unique and meaningful to us. It should be respected.

One of the pitfalls is our partners may have had either similar or opposite childhood conditioning. What one may find acceptable, another may not. What meets one’s needs may not meet the needs of the other. Boundaries can be misunderstood and lines stepped over. The main thing that breaks relationships down is a lack of communication.

 It is also communication that can and does keeps them stronger. Communicating how we are feeling can seem like a weakness if we were raised in an environment where people did not express how they were feeling. Our partners are not mind readers nor are we. If something is bothering you, share it. If your partner is not loving you how you need to be loved, tell them.

This hoping they will just ‘get it’ could be what destroys the relationship. Communicate often and figure each other out. It takes time, patience, compassion, and forgiveness. No matter how much our partners love us, we will only accept their love to the level of love we have for ourselves. Have you ever had someone stare you in the eyes and tell you they loved you and felt nothing?

The love is there, they are expressing it but for us to feel it we have to feel it with ourselves also. I know I felt dead inside for a long time. Women would say ‘I love you’ but I felt nothing. Empty and hollow. We may love our partners conditionally but we can begin to love ourselves, unconditionally.

At the core of our being, we are unconditional love but our parents loved us with conditions. If we did not meet their expectations, they would use the relationship as a tool to punish us by withdrawn their affection. All sorts of psychological tools were used as a way for us to meet ‘their’ needs. Maybe they felt unloved by us since we did not meet their requirements. This is called unconscious parenting. If we were aware of what we were doing, we would not do it.

Try to move away from conditions and expectations. If the house is untidy after our partners said they would clean it, let it go. There is so much nonsense that trips us up and splits us further away from one another. As I write this, I myself can be a pain the ass at times to live with because I had parents who drilled into me how a household should be.

What is the alternative? Be alone so nobody can bother or hurt us? We need human connection. Without it, what is the point in all of this?

Love – Let go of things that do not matter – Communicate.

James Deegan.