I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of unconditional love versus conditional love lately. Like the ideal of a perfect marriage, I’m now of the opinion that pure unconditional love doesn’t exist either.
I don’t think humans are capable of that. I think some pets come close. They forgive us most trespasses and don’t shun us just because we age, gain a few pounds, lose our jobs, drink or smoke too much, or whatever other vice, hardship, or trouble we may suffer, encounter, or endure.
But even pets have their limits. Just like people in relationships, they rely on their humans to pay attention to them and tend to at least their basic needs. However, abuse that and it’s possible to lose their love. For instance, consistently be mean to and harm it. They’ll learn not to trust you, like you, or want anything to do with you.
Yet, start being consistently nice to it again and you can earn back their trust and love. This is where people are different.
Sure, you can suffer a significant other being mean to you, ignoring you, and maybe even harming you and still go on loving them. But with enough bad vibes the hurts grow and eventually the forgiving and forgetting gets harder to do. Keep consistently being mean to another person and they will walk away for good. Only if you’re very lucky will they give you a second chance if you ask for one.
But sometimes being mean has nothing to do with it. As Sherry pointed out in What Does Unconditional Love Mean to You?, you might fight and not like your spouse very much for a while, but the love is still there –-even if you might not show it for whatever reason. But some people get to a point where the fighting all the time becomes old. It becomes the condition that makes them fall out of love with their spouse.
Likewise, some may find they don’t like their spouse’s flaws. They get to a point where they no longer find them endearing and can’t see past them anymore. The love they feel for their spouse becomes contingent on those flaws going away.
Take Jeana from the Real Housewives of Orange County. After twenty years of marriage hers is ending because her husband thinks she’s fat. Turns out there was nothing unconditional about his love. He only loved her for her physical self.
I think we all, whether we want to fess up to it or not, have some “condition” our spouses could violate that would make us stop loving them. We may not be aware of what the condition is, and hopefully it’s not as superficial as Jeana’s husband, but we’d know it if we ran into it in a dark alley.
Here’s to hoping we never live to see that day and or venture down that dark alley. And same goes for our spouses.
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