Results from a study support the idea that loving children unconditionally improves their lifelong health and wellness. This suggests parental unconditional love could offer some protection against the harmful, often lingering effects of childhood trauma or abuse.
In the context of friendship , unconditional love might weather tests like conflict, falling out of touch, or differing life goals. Altruism refers to helpful actions taken to support and benefit others, often at your own expense. You offer your love for their support and benefit.
This is one point of contention in discussions of unconditional love in romantic situations. Unconditional love, however, requires unconditional acceptance. So, you forgive mistakes and continue to offer love and acceptance, even — and this is important — if their choices distress you or cause harm.
You can , however, love someone unconditionally without having a relationship with them. Confusion and misconceptions about the true nature of unconditional love can seem to suggest this type of love reflects unhealthy or toxic relationship dynamics.
Conflict is normal and healthy in relationships. You might not stop loving them, but neither do you ignore the breach of trust. Depending on the circumstances, you might agree to work together on rebuilding trust and your savings , but you might also see no future in the relationship. You can walk away still holding forgiveness and love in your heart. No one person can provide another person with everything they need.
Perhaps your partner says unkind things after drinking. You want them to be happy, but what if quitting drinking and dealing with the issues that trigger the urge to drink would improve their health and help them find greater happiness? Blanket tolerance for harmful behavior can prevent them from making needed changes.
The responsibility for their actions rests entirely in their hands. As one philosophy professor pointed out , even the love between a parent and a child falls short of unconditional. A parent might love their child no matter what they do, but this love still has a condition: They love their child because their child is theirs.
In a similar vein, consider the love you have for your partner or anyone else. What triggered it originally? Perhaps you felt attracted to certain specific characteristics: sense of humor, a kind heart, intelligence. If they no longer had those characteristics, would your love continue, unaltered? From a philosophical perspective, if conditions never change, you might never know whether your love truly is unconditional. In reality, love grows and shifts over time.
Unconditional love is a weighty term for something that most of us don't really understand. In my work as a marriage therapist, I've found it's often used to express a type of love that exists beyond bounds. And because of this, it often creates a justification for staying in unhealthy dynamics. The term unconditional love does not mean love without limits or bounds. It means, "I offer you my love freely without condition.
It is important to offer this type of unconditional love in our relationships. Otherwise, we are offering love with "strings attached. Unconditional love means loving someone through hardships, mistakes, and frustrations.
In fact, it is what every meaningful, lasting relationship is made of. When we enter relationships with other people, we are entering relationships with another human being—a person full of quirks and flaws and challenges. And we also show our own quirks and flaws and challenges. One of the most beautiful experiences in human life is learning to lean into the tension of those challenges by offering connection, love, and understanding and by accepting influence, creating compromise, and moving forward in a way in which both people win.
We often think of parents' love for their children as unconditional love i. In truth, we do at times see this type of "strings attached" love presented in parent-child relationships just as readily as it might be in a romantic relationship. A parent provides a certain amount of love to their child and expects some sort of return on their investment.
In the above examples, the parent is not offering unconditional love; rather, they are offering love that is contingent on the child fulfilling certain conditions.
There is a ledger, and the child owes a debt. This makes for a very unhappy and disconnected relationship, or even a toxic family relationship. It is healthy to offer your love without strings attached. Otherwise, we are not truly loving the other person. Rather, we are using affection as a tool to control. Our relationships require basic expectations to be fulfilled—kindness, respect, and safety. When these are not fulfilled, we might have to set hard boundaries. These boundaries might look like distancing oneself or cutting off entirely.
If you do cut off, it does not mean that you offered your love with conditions. Remember, your love did not make them indebted to you. They do not owe you anything. But you do owe yourself safety, respect, and kindness. You can walk away from people that you've loved very much in order to take care of your own needs and safety.
Love without boundaries can lead to unhappiness at least and abuse at worst. If we do not let our partners, parents, children, and friends know where we stand in terms of how we expect and need to be treated, then we will not have an equal voice in the relationship. Sometimes, we ignore these needs for boundaries in the name of "unconditional love.
We are offering codependent love. In codependent relationships , we are so set on maintaining the dynamics in the relationships that we excuse or enable unacceptable behavior. Again, this leads us to a place of unbalanced power and control rather than into a place of truly connected love in which we offer each person an opportunity to be responsible for their behavior with us.
There's a distinct line between loving someone through the hardships vs. The latter becomes apparent when the relationship is no longer offering the basic needs of a relationship. If someone has harmed you and they are not willing to repair it, then you need to set a limit for your own well-being. If you find that the relationship has devolved into behavior that lacks kindness and respect, then it's likely that a boundary needs to be set.
This is especially true if you have tried to communicate clearly and still see no change. If you are enabling the person in a way that negatively affects your well-being, that isn't unconditional love—it's unhealthy, codependent love. While we can offer unconditional love to others even when they are being difficult , we don't have to offer love without bounds.
You can offer love that has no strings attached while still having boundaries. Unconditional love gets muddied when we believe that we have to continually offer that love even when basic relational expectations are no longer being fulfilled. When you love someone unconditionally, it means that you put their happiness and wellbeing before yours.
But unconditional love means being patient and waiting for them to get back on their feet even if it takes time. Of course, unconditional love means being patient during tough times, but unconditional love also means being encouraging. Your unconditional love can be the difference between helping your partner through tough financial periods or them giving up and feeling hopeless.
Your support can work wonders, keeping them encouraged to get through these difficult periods as a team! When your partner is going through tough times, it can be a lot to go through and they may need someone who will just listen without judging or misunderstanding them. Your unconditional love is important because you can help to keep your partner encouraged by letting them know that they are making progress even though things may seem difficult.
Encourage them by telling them how important they are to you. When they are doubting themselves, show support by encouraging them to keep going and reminding them that you believe in them no matter what — even if things seem difficult now.
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