Unconditional love - does it exist outside of a parent-child relationship? Is it realistic to expect in a couple relationship?

[Twoddle]

I have been reflecting on "unconditional love" after reading a reference to it in another post.

A big sticking point of mine and my ex-partner's relationship was that he felt he didn't get the unconditional love from me that he wanted and felt he deserved.

The problem (I think) is that, although we all have our quirks and bad moods and, to a degree, these need to be accepted as part of our package by our partner/spouse, there are some things that are just not acceptable. I think my ex-partner's mum was (and is) somewhat codependent to him: she will do things for him without question, when I feel she should say "no"; she has pandered to him when he has been utterly, irresponsibly behaved and/or rude and/or disrespectful - fussing over him, loving him, when really, a foot should have been very firmly put down ... even if he is an adult! The problem with unconditional love is, surely, that it can border on codependence - putting up with any kind of emerging crap in a partner because love "has" to be unconditional.

Some behaviours, surely, are unacceptable; someone cannot be accepted for who they are when they display them - no?

So, while we love our kids unconditionally because they are our children, do we or can we actually love our partners unconditionally, by virtue of the fact that we have chosen them as our partners on the basis of some key conditions (their personality, values, looks, etc)? And then, if their traits or our "conditions" waver over time, is it not realistic to expect this love to waver too? I.e. it is conditional.

Hmm. Interested to hear others' viewpoints.

Most adult relationships are based on reciprocity, if you look far enough into them. Even codepency, which seems very selfless, is a form of control, so there is even reciprocity there. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

I don't think unconditional love is a very healthy concept, even for parent/children relationships. I also don't think it is always true. After all you get parents who walk out on their children, and even those who abuse/kill them. Also of course many of us are pretty mad at our parents, at the same time as loving them, and many parents/children go through short or long stages of disliking each other. I guess one big difference is that we always feel responsible for our children, in a way that we don't for our partners. But then given that we choose to love our partners isn't that actually more special in some ways than the unconscious link we have with close relatives?

My marriage vows were for richer/poor, sickness/health, better/worse. I didn't vow to love every minute of it, or love him for every minute of it. It's my vows that get me through the times when I think life would be better without him. I take those vows very seriously, and because of them we've both fallen back in love with each other after some tough times.

I agree with MKG about the marriage vows. But I don't think they represent unconditional love, I think they set up the conditions for the deeper love and responsibility we grow to feel after experiencing difficult and joyful times with someone.

I think this adult love is actually a positive thing that can help us to grow wiser and richer. Being mothered by our partner wouldn't do that in the same way.

I feel I love my husband unconditionally, and although there is always the possiblity things may go wrong between us in the future, I would always love him, even if we no longer had a relationship.

But I totally accept the point that this is an adult relationship, and I think the fun is that you do have to work at keeping and growing the mutual attraction and pleasure in each others company. The efforts and the reward of doing this mean the relationship stays vibrant and very precious.

I think you can still love an adult even though you are angry with them and don't like them very much at the moment because of some or other incidence of bad behaviour - you may feel/decide that their good points and the good things they have done in the past mean you still love them enough to consider forgiving the bad behaviour or (if it;s something they do repeatedly) learning to accept it.
Where I really think you'd be on a hiding to nothing is if you are the sort of whiny twatface who thinks your partner ought to love you unconditionally no matter how annoying you are.

I think the difference with children and partners is though that we can more eaily find and 'excuse' for childrens behaviour - teenage years being an example and also we can put some of the blame on ourselves 'we were not a good enough parent' so our love sees us through.

With a partner we love them because they are different and we do need to put limits to that and it is easier to communicate that line to an adult and re-adjust if necessary as life changes us.
Children we have no idea what to really expect and so our boundaries are more blurred. But there is still a limit.

I think we can all forgive 'bad' behaviour but i dont think that is unconditional love.

Also I think because love is so personal what one persons sees as love another does not. I know i have my limits as to how much medical intervention i would allow my loved ones to endure but it is very different from my dhs - i really dont know what we would do if we ever had to make such a choice with our children.

Well I guess if you asked this question from someone who has lost their spouse you would get very different replies. Whilst ours are breathing, working for our families and looking after us it matters not a bit whether you "feel" unconditional love or conditional love towards them. Yes of course I feel unconditional love towards mine, in that I only grave his company out of the 2.5 billion men that are on this planet. As for my kids, well I would do anything for them so I guess that is unconditional love.

I think love has to be unconditional to be love at all tbh.

Which does not mean I would put up with shit from anyone, not dh, not ds, not the rest of our families.

That has to do with respect. Respect can, and should be demanded and given to all you interact with, particularly those we are close to.

Dh and ds have the power to hurt me more than anyone else. And that's because I won't stop loving them if they do something really hideous. I may have to cut them off for good, and for certain things I would, but it'll break my heart.

I think if I could stop loving them then I wouldn't care in those circumstances, would I?

The same applies to all my family. If my mum or my sister say something hurtful it upsets me because I love them, if someone I didn't love said the same thing I would frankly not give a damn.

I don't think you can 'deserve' unconditional love though. You just have it or you don't (though ime it grows with time)

re nooka If a parent gets divorced I don't see why that means they don't love their children. Parents rarely walk out on their children, they usually don't want to live with the other adult anymore, although the adult who is left will often portray it as "he left US" many men would love to take the children with them, but the same women who complain about the man walking out on his kids would fight in the courts if he tried to get custody.
I don't love my husband the same way I love my son. However I don't think loving your children means you have to take abuse from them. A loving parent will discipline their child to get them to behave well. Letting your child verbally and physically abuse you and get what they want isn't being a loving parent who wants the best for their child, it's opting out of parenting and trying to be their friend.
I had a state wedding so didn't promise to stay with my husband until death. If we decide we would be happier apart than we are together, if we start making each other miserable then we will separate.
If my husband doesn't want to be with me I would rather he left than stayed out of some misplaced sense of duty.
I couldn't love my husband unconditionally. If he started physically or verbally abusing me, having affairs, treating me without love then I don't understand what it is about him I'm expected to love. His behaviour? No. His personality? No.
I think people who profess to love adults who abuse them have insufficient self confidence to understand what love is and use love as a euphemism for fear of change and being alone.

Littlewoman - like your summation of co-dependency as a form of control, very thought-provoking.

I agree totally with IB. But I'm going to blether on, anyway!

There's a difference, isn't there, between unconditional love and letting someone walk all over you. They are two very distinct things, and Twoddle's ex-H is wrong to think that in his mother they are one and the same. He clearly has a dysfunctional relationship with her which benefits him greatly, but it controls him to the extent that it has apparently caused the break-up of his marriage (Twoddle - I'm assuming here that this was the primary reason for your break-up?).

Having separated unconditional love from doormatsville, I do think uncond love is a beneficial element of all relationships. To my mind, unconditional love says: 'You and I are both as faulty as each other. Therefore I will love you and go on loving you despite all your faults.' I think it's not just a way of accepting the other - it's also a way of accepting ourselves as we are - does that make sense?

I'm fairly sure I love my DH unconditionally (I say 'fairly sure' only because this thread has got me pondering the issue...what an interesting topic!). I know I love my DS unconditionally. With both of them my goal is to enable them to be the best that they can be. So when they are not being their 'best' I will work hard to help them become the best - whether that means setting clear boundaries for my DS, or telling my DH when he's hurt me, or giving my DH the freedom to develop his creativity even if it means we'll be poorer for a while). I think of this as unconditional love.

I'm trying to imagine what would happen to my love for my DH if he started abusing me...to be honest it's hard to say as I wouldn't put up with it so it wouldn't go as far as it does for some women. Like all propblems in our relationship, we'd nip it in the bud and so it would become an opportunity for our relationship to grow.

And if your partner gets some diability and the caring of them makes you miserable would you be staying out of duty or love?

My father has to care for my mother and it is heartbreaking to see him suffer - which in my opionion is duty - but if he left because frankly she is making him miserable (all be it not all her own fault), he would get such flack.

But i do think the respect aspect is interesting - can you love someone who does not respect you? Can they 'really' love you if they disrepect you?

So respect is a condition of love?

I wonder if part of the problem is that we seem to have only one word 'love' to cover a huge variety of emotions - what we feel for a child, a partner, a job, a handbag etc.

I was at a wedding when the priest talked about 'love' of god which sounded more like fear/awe combined and stressed this was a totally different thing to the sexual/friendship 'love' felt for a marriage partner.

I agree with those who don't like the idea of 'unconditional' love. I love my daughter but if she were ever, for eg to torture and murder another person I couldn't love her. I would remember the little girl she was and how I loved that little girl, but certainly not what she had become.

I agree with Madamez - it does seem to be the more irritating and unloveable adults who bang on about their need for 'unconditional' love.

I wonder if part of the problem is that we seem to have only one word 'love' to cover a huge variety of emotions - what we feel for a child, a partner, a job, a handbag etc.

I was at a wedding when the priest talked about 'love' of god which sounded more like fear/awe combined and stressed this was a totally different thing to the sexual/friendship 'love' felt for a marriage partner.

I agree with those who don't like the idea of 'unconditional' love. I love my daughter but if she were ever, for eg to torture and murder another person I couldn't love her. I would remember the little girl she was and how I loved that little girl, but certainly not what she had become.

I agree with Madamez - it does seem to be the more irritating and unloveable adults who bang on about their need for 'unconditional' love.

My partner has done unspeakable things to me (in the past) and I never, ever once stopped loving him. I put my foot down pretty hard a few times. I think it is because one loves unconditionally, and the other person knows it, that one can be so firm about what is and isn't acceptable behaviour.

This goes for partners and children.

HappyWoman - I haven't thought about that before. I can imagine that if I stayed in such a relationship only out of duty it would be because I were married to someone who'd been unkind to me, or to someone who I'd never loved in the way that I do love my DH. So I think if I were in that situation it would probably be a combination of both love and duty.

Going back to HappyWoman's 'respect' question...this is a question about loving someone who essentially doesn't love you back, right? Which sounds to me more like infatuation, or dependency of some sort. Is it that simple?

Spero - good point about the different loves. What are the four loves (in Greek)? Filios - familial love. Eros - sexual love. What are the other two?!

If our parents were as they should be, then we (most of us) have felt and experienced unconditional love. I know my Dad adored me and in his eyes I could do wrong, but it didn't affect his love for me, I was always sure of it. (Not so with my Mum) but I have experienced it. I married quite young and loved my husband unconditionally, I really did. He had lots of faults, lots of things that I wish 'weren't' but I measured his love for me as I did for him. Unconditional. Then after years and two children later, he went off the rails and had an affair. I could not believe it,. It wasn't the affair, or the thought of him having sex with someone else that crazed me... it was the neglectful, couldn't care for me anymore attitude that broke my heart. I never recovered from this. We stayed together and recovered our marriagefor a further 15 years (I was never unfaithful to him)for the sake of the children. Then I couldn't take it anymore and we broke down the pretence entirely, and divorced a few years ago after 26 years of marriage. He broke that unconditional love I had for him. I never loved him unconditionally again or any other man come to that.

Mrs T, I think 'agape' (spelling??) was the love of god (which didn't sound much like love at all). don't know what the other one was, is friendship covered by Filios?

But Anna888 what if you found out you were married to - for example - Marc Dutroux? (again with the spelling) could your love survive that? And if it could, just exactly what is that kind of 'love'. Who or what are you loving?

Possibly an extreme example, but if I was with a man who hit me hard and often, it is difficult for me to conceive what exactly about his personality/soul i would be 'loving'.

i'd say you can love your partner unconditionally but not forever. People can change over the time, and you may find yourself loving uncondiionally the person they once were.
I think it is different with your own children. A totally different kind of attachment IMO, stronger and less rational.

a very interesting question anyway.

Spero - but would you stay with a man who hit you hard and often?

Sweeney - I'd say that if you're loving the person they once were, that's conditional (and damaging to a relationship) - i.e. you're not loving them as they are now, because your condition for their love is that they become like your memory of them in the past.

Mrs TH, no of course I wouldn't, but doesn't it take about 70 incidents of violence before a woman leaves on average (don't ask me where I got this from, think Home Office statistic).

a lot of my clients said they didn't leave the first (or second or third) time because they 'loved' their violent partner. Do you think that maybe some people get trapped by this concept that ideally love should be 'unconditional' for it to be 'real'?

I just think the whole concept of unconditional love is really interesting. How can it possibly be unconditional? If someone does something revolting and inhuman, how can you still love them? What are you loving?

MTH, you misunderstood me, I didn't say love for dh is on condition they remain as they are when you first met. If dh changed and started to hate me and show so, I would probably lose my love for him too over the time.