Unconditional Love: Vital or Fatal?

Unconditional Love – Experts Weigh in on Living Sans Boundaries

By Kimberly Dawn Neumann

 

If you really love someone, you love them no matter what right? WRONG! While most of us would probably answer off the top of our heads that true love should be completely unconditional, when you really analyze this issue, the reality is that there have to be boundaries in order for two people to exist healthily in a reciprocal and loving partnership. Without conditions, you will likely find yourself in a relational free fall as well as an emotional free-for-all.

With that in mind, we decided to delve further into this issue in order to ascertain how you can love with all your heart while still keeping your head.

How Love Blinds You

Ever looked back on a past relationship and wondered “Wow, how did I NOT see those red flags?” Well, cut yourself a little slack because there may actually be a biological force in play as well as your emotions.  Scientists at University College London reported in the journal NeuroImage that romantic love actually suppresses the brain waves associated with critical social assessment of other people and negative emotions. In other words, once you get close to a person (i.e. you’re falling hook, line and sinker) your brain has a reduced need to assess their character and to harbor negative emotions towards them. Yup…you read that correctly. You can be literally blinded by love.

“The suppression of neural activity in areas involving critical thinking and judgment suggests that love is not only blind, but also stupid,” says Dr. Karin Anderson, Associate Professor of Psychology and Counselor Education, Concordia University Chicago and author of It Just Hasn’t Happened Yet (Clifton Hills Press, 2010). “This biological reality compounded by strong societal pressure to couple may lead us to forge romantic partnerships that lack requisite qualities of compatibility in lifestyle and goals.”  In other words, we “force it” just to have somebody around or to not be the person to whom everyone says “Why are you still single?”

The problem here is that blind and stupid love may lead a person to be unwilling or unable to see the realities of their partner. This can oftentimes be a set up for getting blindsided later on in the relationship. “I hear all too often people say ‘I never thought this would happen to me’ or ‘I never thought they could do that to me,’” says Dr. Ish Major, a psychiatrist and author of Little White Whys: A Woman’s Guide Through the Lies Men Tell and Why (iUniverse, 2009). “If we do a little homework we usually find that the warning signs were there but simply missed or overlooked. It’s never a safe idea to get so busy loving unconditionally to the point you overlook patterns of behavior that could lead you towards a dangerous end.”

The Definition of Unconditional

When people speak of unconditional love it implies love without bounds, limits, or reason.  A love that is today what it will be tomorrow regardless of any circumstances. A love forged of unbreakable bonds which will remain despite the lack of any reward. “Typically, this term is reserved for people speaking of the love shared between family members or the pillars of their faith,” says Dr. Major. “Your mother will always be your mother. Your sister will always be your sister. You may fight like cats and dogs but the basic bond and basic love will never be changed. “

However, when this concept is applied to romantic love, things get a little murkier. “Expecting or granting unconditional love in romantic relationships poses real hazards to individual emotional health,” says Dr. Anderson. “It creates optimal conditions for abuse (‘I love you unconditionally, so you may treat me horribly, but I’ll still remain true’), codependency (‘I’ll be your “everything” and ignore my own needs’), and loss of authentic self (‘I love you so much I’ll be whoever you want me to be!’).”

If the love is truly without conditions then forgiveness for any and all transgressions or slights is expected at all times without question. By this definition you are in effect saying you will be able to tolerate whatever happens no matter what they do because you love them.

“The idea of unconditional love sets the expectation for complete forgiveness but what I don’t hear people talk about in this situation is the idea of forgetting,” says Dr. Major. “People remember significant events in their lives and towards that end we tend to remember quite vividly every time we are ever hurt; physically and emotionally. Our minds remember these events in the hopes of being able to avoid them from happening again. So the question now becomes where does the memory of that pain go?” It may be less about loving unconditionally than about discovering your personal threshold for forgiveness. 

Why Healthy Love Has Conditions

“From working with and meeting thousands of couples in my mediation practice, I know that love is C-O-N-D-I-T-I-O-N-A-L,” says Laurie Puhn, J.D. author of Fight Less, Love More: 5-Minute Conversations to Change Your Relationship without Blowing Up or Giving In (Rodale, Oct. 12 2010). “To put it clearly, when certain actual conditions are missing in a relationship, the love disappears and the relationship will dissolve.”  Puhn says that in order for a mature love to survive and thrive, five essential conditions that every human need and want must be met: appreciation, respect, compassion, trust, and companionship. “If any condition is compromised by lies, neglect, rudeness, unnecessary criticism, stubbornness or secrets, for example, then the love is no longer grounded,” says Puhn. 

“While it’s nice to know there will be love and forgiveness no matter what, we need to know our partner cares enough to get upset if we cross the line -we need to know our partner has enough self-respect to have limits and that if a limit is crossed there will be negative consequences,” says Dr. Major. “Oftentimes I see couples lose respect for each other when these boundaries aren’t established. If you don’t set these clear boundaries it can be an unspoken invitation for your partner to walk all over you…not unlike a doormat. “

Truly unconditional love to the point of overlooking personal slights and infringements upon one’s wellbeing can be dangerous.  “Unconditional romantic love is always unhealthy…to say, ‘I love you regardless of what you do or say to me’ is absurd,” says Dr. Anderson. “Not only is it unhealthy for the one giving love unconditionally but it’s also unhealthy for the one receiving unconditional love.  It creates a false ideology i.e. ‘Love means being completely selfish, putting my own needs and desires above my partner’s at all times.’”  In a relationship such as this, receivers of unconditional love experience stagnation of personal growth and development in that their narcissistic egocentrism is reinforced. 

“The key thing to remember here is that love, unconditional or otherwise isn’t supposed to hurt,” says Dr. Major. “Remember that you deserve to be happy too. So in the face of hurtful things happening to you in a relationship I don’t question the idea that people can choose to love unconditionally; the more important question for them becomes why would you?”

How to Love with Abandon AND Boundaries

“While initial love does blind us to our mate’s flaws, over time, the reverse happens – we eventually come to expect and overlook the good while we focus on and bemoan the bad,” says Puhn. “The goal in a healthy relationship is to live in the middle zone in which we recognize both, but choose to spend most of our energies verbally recognizing the good, and we only bring up the flaws that affect us, and we discuss them in a constructive and helpful way.”  Puhn suggests couples be alert to the little moments when they can breathe life into their relationship with simple comments like, “Thank you for getting me that glass of soda,” and “I’m going to bed now, just want to say good night.”

For most of us, romantic love means being in a relationship that is mutually rewarding, pleasurable and beneficial. If anything ever happens in that relationship to change these conditions, that romantic love can and oftentimes does fade.  “Typically when couples speak of ‘unconditional love’ it is with the unspoken understanding that certain criteria will always be met -that is no one cheats, no one lies, no one steals, no one abuses the other,” says Dr. Major. “Depending on who you are, you may not need all of these criteria to be met in order to proclaim your ‘unconditional love’ for another; you may only need one or two of them to be satisfied. It’s different for everyone depending on your temperament and your romantic history or reference point.” As long as those basic understandings are being met the couple will love each other ‘unconditionally’ within those confines. It’s only when those basic understandings fail to be met does the rationality and logic of “unconditional love” begin to be challenged.

Perhaps what we’re seeing here is that it might help to reframe the idea of “unconditional romantic love” in more moderate terms. The concept may be more attainable if we view it as a love that endures despite unfavorable circumstances. In this case, you would not be asking a yourself or a partner to disregard reality for love, but instead to look at it as a glue that will help you work through obstacles or strive to find compromises while respecting each other’s limits and boundaries. With that definition, then you can truly feel free to love with all your heart.

This article by Kimberly originally appeared on Match.com’s HAPPEN magazine http://www.match.com/magazine/article0.aspx?articleid=12019