This was and still is one of the biggest debates I have with some of my friends and colleagues – whether unconditional love exists.
Before I put my own views across as to the answer to that question, let us explore the word ‘conditional’. It implies, very simply, that there are conditions or terms. Often and in fact, most of the time, everything we sign comes with conditions, be it employment contracts, mortgages, sales contracts and even pre-nuptial agreements. Conditions are there to safeguard one or both parties signing the contracts. I will only buy a house if I know that it has passed all safety tests and regulations.
When it comes to personal life, do conditions apply? Will you be friends with a person who cheats you of your money? Will you help hitchhikers after one stole your wallet? Will you love a person who constantly abuses you?
When it comes to love, this is where the debate starts. I have heard from some people that unconditional love exists, that one can love someone despite the person being unkind, undeserving and abusive. I wonder often if the love that is felt is not confused with personal insecurity and lack of Self Worth? Is it truly possible to love someone who has just dislocated your jaw, and for the fifth time in three months?
I have worked with abused women and have heard how difficult it was to stay away from the abuser because at the end of the day, the abuser is always sorry for his or her actions, because the abuser truly cares, because it was the first time, because it was the abused’s own fault for provoking the abuse. Can we truly love someone who hurts us incessantly, whether physically, mentally or emotionally? Or does this feeling of love actually hides one of either Self Loathing or Lack of Self Love and Worth?
Needless to say, this debate has become quite heated when I had suggested that unconditional love does not exist except perhaps in the case of parents or more specifically mothers. In my own mother, I see this. No matter how badly some of my siblings treat her, she is always forgiving and will always take them back when the ‘prodigal children’ return. It is almost as if she is incapable of writing any of her children off, no matter how badly they turn out. This could be linked to the fact that we all came from her womb and that she carried us for nine months and hence the bond is irrefutable and cannot be broken.
I submit that besides some mothers and parents, unconditional love does not exist. Why? This is because all love has conditions. Will you love a person who goes against all that you believe and care about?
In the case of abused people, the love the person ‘feels’ has turned into something different. It is no longer love that binds them to the abuser, it is fear or lack of Self Love.
In the case of Fear, it can take a multitude of forms – fear of abandonment, fear of new situations, fear of being alone. In the case of Lack of Self Love, this sadly implies that the abused confuses that abuser’s actions for love because he or she does not have any for herself or himself. After all, any attention, even if it is violent, is Attention and in the abused’s mind, attention equates to care and love. And when someone loves you, you love them back.
Love, in my opinion, is a pure energy that binds deserving souls together. If you love someone, you want the person to be happy, free, unburdened. You probably also want to love someone who is kind, loving, generous and respectful. Would you or could you love someone who harms you? If the answer is no, then you would agree that love is conditional – that love is conditional to kindness, respect and generosity.
Putting aside whether love is truly conditional or not, I believe that it should be. Otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for hurt and disappointment. The young are often fed the notion that if they love someone, then they must do all that is told of them to do, even if it feels wrong. This is the how abuse starts.
Perhaps it is more useful to teach love as what it is: respect, kindness and generosity. And anything that goes against those values is not really love but something else different. Love is conditional to those values whether it is your feelings for someone or someone’s feelings for you.
MyMohio 