What is unconditional love and what does it really mean?

What is unconditional love

You sometimes hear that you have to accept your loved one as he is, and give and take. That love is only love when it is unconditional. But what does that really mean? Do you just have to accept everything? 

Unconditional love. It sounds so beautiful. It conjures up romantic images in me: loving each other despite illness, a beer mug or a haircut that is a little too short. But where is the limit?

Relationship on: love gone?

I had my doubts about the unconditionality of love because of the consequences of a relationship that I had for six years. During that relationship, I was the greatest advocate of indestructible love. Nothing would separate me and my boyfriend at the time, especially not ourselves!

Even when we got into arguments every week, it was more often than on and we became more and more strangers to each other, I bravely fought on. It wasn’t until my boyfriend cheated that the measure was full for me.

Love is an ever-flowing river

After an emotional century of heartbreak, I was done with it. I didn’t love him anymore! No unconditional love, I thought: I will only love a Kloris again when it is worthy of my love, and I would stop giving and taking. Not a crazy thought, in itself. Yet I now know that it is not quite right.

David recently explained it as follows on Radio 1: Love is like a flowing river. The water is there when you swim in it, and you enjoy every minute of it. But when you step out, the water just keeps flowing. You are not needed for the river. It is there without you too. Love is unconditional by definition. Like a circle is always round, and a tree is always made of wood. Take away unconditionality, and you take away love. What remains is an exchange. You have learned to believe in that exchange. When you used to sit still, you got love. If you were sweet, you got love. You learned, “if I do well in the eyes of another, I get love back,” and that the conditions are a risk. You have come to believe that you have to earn love. That’s why you’re never finished. It always has to be better, more perfect, more beautiful, bigger, so that you are loved. But what if that love CAN never come from outside. Because the only love that matters is love for yourself. Only when it is not necessary for the other to love you are you free. Free to love each other endlessly. ” 

Everything is love

I made our love conditional: we broke up, so I don’t love you anymore. At the time, this felt like the only solution, even if it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t actually true either. The river of love had never stopped flowing. I just didn’t notice because I saw love as a trade. Actually, I had been on this barter trade for the entire relationship. However justified my wishes may have been; my ex could never achieve good-enough status with that. 

Not surprising that it eventually snapped. Now, years later, after the breakup set me free and I’ve learned to really love myself, I can really feel unconditional love for my ex. In a different way than before, but the love is there. And it never really left.

You can always love each other

Unconditional love does not mean that you swallow everything. If it doesn’t work, it’s time to leave. It does mean that you can still love someone. In fact, you can love each other forever and ever. Whether you are still together or not.

OR

As Written by Rosabella.

What Is Unconditional Love? Meaning, pinnacle and examples

We sometimes say that in real love you accept the other as he or she is. In a father-mother-child relationship, that thought generally applies. After all, you are connected from birth and you will continue to love each other despite everything.

In a love relationship between two partners, however, this is slightly different. Because can you just keep accepting everything? Or do you still set conditions?

Either way, the term unconditional love is of course very beautiful in itself. It immediately evokes the perfect form of romance: loving each other until death do you part. But where is the limit? Because it will have to lie somewhere in romantic relationships.

What Is Unconditional Love?

In short: loving the other without expecting anything in return. In the love relationship means that you will not try to change the other person because of that, but will take him or her for who and who he or she is. So you accept the other despite his or her shortcomings. In the latter there are again different degrees, because being a bit on the lazy side is of course different from having a notorious cheater as a partner.

Unconditional love therefore applies in particular to someone’s character traits, without mentioning extreme cases such as (emotional) affairs or domestic violence. In essence, it means that you love the other person for who he or she is and consider them indispensable.

Balance between give and take

In any case, love is something that is difficult to put into words, because we are talking about a feeling here. Yet everyone knows what we are talking about when we talk about love, even if the interpretation is slightly different for everyone. However, for love to exist, it is important that you also feel loved to love another.

In most cases, showing that feeling will be appreciated by the other as well. Whether that also means that the other automatically gives back love? No, if only so. Although this is of course the most common and desirable, we all know that giving and receiving do not always go hand in hand.

Often we already have a condition with that, because without you feeling loved by your partner it becomes very difficult to love the other as well.

Difference between unconditional and conditional love

This makes it seem in the broadest sense of the word that there are always conditions in love. In most cases, however, by conditional love we mean something completely different. Conditional love is less pure, less deep and is usually not the result of a relationship that goes back a very long time.

Conditional love mainly taps into the qualities of someone that are judged to be positive or even beneficial. Think of prosperity, beauty, but also character traits such as politeness and understanding. In that case, one stays with the other, because he or she is so handsome or beautiful, enjoys so much prosperity, or perhaps has a very pleasant personality. Things will be different when these decisive characteristics come to an end.

How about a successful millionaire who suddenly goes bankrupt? Or a once-acclaimed model that is three times as thick today? Or that a once-polite young man grows into a rude bastard? Then love can suddenly become very conditional.

“I love you when …”

Conditional love therefore means nothing more than that there are conditions attached to love. Conditional love can therefore only survive if one or more conditions are met. It means something like: “I love you if” or “I will continue to love you as long as you ..” There is nothing wrong with that in itself, as long as those conditions are reasonable.

In the most reasonable cases, you should think of the aforementioned balance between give and take. Things will be different if the other is dumped, because he or she is suddenly not as wealthy as at the first meeting.

The pinnacle of unconditional love

Unconditional love, on the other hand, also means that you continue to love each other if things go less for a while or even for a longer period of time. For example, if that bankrupt millionaire suddenly has to move from a huge villa to a small camper in a trailer park. If we look at the slightly more extreme cases, even an extramarital relationship would be overlooked, simply because the cheated partner still loves the other too much to end the relationship.

But looking at the most extreme example of unconditional love, we really should take a trip to the animal world. It is not inconceivable that the same unfortunate millionaire will suddenly be left by his partner when he is evicted from the house and ends up on the street. But whoever will never ever leave him is his most loyal companion, the dog of the house.

For the loyal four-legged friend it does not matter whether he lives with his owner in a mansion or on the street, as long as they are together. In that respect, we as humans can still learn a lot.

Examples

Which brings us straight to some examples that can stand out from both sides and mean the difference between conditional and unconditional love. The most common examples that test love are:

Financial setback

For whatever reason you lose your job, business or even your property. The result is that your income will disappear and it will not look very favorable in the near future. Pretty soon you notice that your partner is suddenly much less interested in you. And that while she was so understanding in the initial phase. Anyway, things went so well for you financially then.

Disease

At the altar you said it like this to each other: you will always be there for each other, for better and for worse, and until death do you part. Now that it appears that you have been affected by a serious illness, you can indeed have a say in it.

You have been seriously ill for a few years and yet your partner has not left your side for a moment. Your partner is your support and you know that you can always count on him or her. That’s unconditional love.

Cheating on me

This is a tricky one, because how do you deal with a cheater? Your partner has gone on a slipper and although he has told you it will never happen again, you are not comfortable with it. And despite that, you do love him. But is it unconditional enough to stick together?

Often other factors such as children and joint property also play a role, so that the continuation of a relationship does not have to indicate unconditionality. Nevertheless, unconditional love can make you continue to love the other person, even if he or she has shared a bed with another.

Does love blind… or not?

She was beautiful when you met her and you can also be open and honest about it: you were so attracted to her because she had such an incredibly beautiful body. “Became?” Let’s just say you are quite frustrated that she is not as beautiful as she was about 5 years ago and it doesn’t look like she is. The big question, however, is whether her beautiful personality weighs just as much for you as her appearance?

Relationship about, love about?

Then we have the cases that the relationship is over , but the love still lasts. For whatever reason, you’re no longer with your partner, but that doesn’t always mean it has to be a fight divorce. Maybe you split up on good terms and you are still friends.

In that case, it may just be that you still love each other, even though you are no longer a couple. However, the fact that the relationship is over does not immediately mean that unconditional love cannot exist.

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