Unconditional love

Dreamcatcher

Sorry, I am well aware that I may be in the wrong forum with posting this...
But, what is it in your opinion? (What are it's implications?)

If you are a parent of a young child, then it's unquestionably your duty imo to show your child that you love them unconditionally.
If you are an adult in a long-term relationship with someone that you love or are married to that person, do you make sacrifices in your own life to unconditionally love a person who has problems that you can perhaps help them work through.
It's a phrase that baffles me, but nonetheless people live with it, and people may become closer as a result?

I'm just wondering what other people think about this?
Thanks.

LadyJ

I think unconditional love is a term best kept in the family,if ya catch my drift!
I think in a relationship there's always conditions to love. There has to be! Otherwise people would take each other for granted way too much. Fidelity would become a girl's name and loyalty,a thing of the past.

Gordon

Moved from PI.

BuffyBot

I think there is such a thing as unconditional love - but it's a rare thing, and as individual as the people who experience it. I think the term has suffered somewhat through overuse, and that's why some "unconditional" loves end up having conditions attached.

Sleepy

It's also possible to love someone unconditionally without actually being with them.

Zulu

It doesn't have to kept inside the family. And you don't necessarily love your family members unconditionally.

Sleepy

Very true, Zulu, I have friends I'd care a lot more for than some of my family members.

CathyMoran

I do believe in unconditional love both within families and with close friends/loved ones. Yes, you do not necessarily have to be with the person to love them unconditionally (some of my best friends or even an ex bf spring to mind), people are people, sometimes you can just form a very strong bond with someone, then we go into the area of altruism, I would be a great believer in that, if you can do something to help someone why not?

Kell

Inside the boundaries of a sexual relationship, I think there is a possibility of unconditional love without sacrifice or condition. Its just a case of most people settling on someone in their life rather than waiting it out for the ONE.

There are plenty of people you may potentially meet in the world that you will never have to take shít from, never have to compromise your feelings to and never have to take a back seat to. You just gotta be confident and patient enought to find them. Everyone deserves the best in life so why not be really choosey about it?

K-

simu

It's another one of those parases you can't take literally. There are always some conditions to love. The phrase usually means you love someone very much and that it would take a hell of a lot to change this.

Neuro

simu wrote:

It's another one of those parases you can't take literally. There are always some conditions to love. The phrase usually means you love someone very much and that it would take a hell of a lot to change this.

I agree with SIMU on this point. All relationships, be they with sexual partners or friends, are fundamentally contracts of exchange: the reason you love someone is because they love you back. There's nothing particularly ethereal or spiritual about it; in fact love is quite selfish when examined closely.

Love arises when the desires of two individuals can be mutually satisfied. When this symmetry fails however, the individual whose desires are not being fulfilled falls out of love with the other individual. This other individual may still be very much in love with their partner, but this is only because their desires are still being met (asymmetry of desires). It may appear to be Unconditional Love, but in reality is a selfish longing to maintain a relationship that remains personally beneficial dispite the other partner's unhappiness.

BuffyBot

Neuro wrote:

I agree with SIMU on this point. All relationships, be they with sexual partners or friends, are fundamentally contracts of exchange: the reason you love someone is because they love you back. There's nothing particularly ethereal or spiritual about it; in fact love is quite selfish when examined closely.

Love arises when the desires of two individuals can be mutually satisfied. When this symmetry fails however, the individual whose desires are not being fulfilled falls out of love with the other individual. This other individual may still be very much in love with their partner, but this is only because their desires are still being met (asymmetry of desires). It may appear to be Unconditional Love, but in reality is a selfish longing for the relationship to return to its previous personally beneficial state.

Compassion, not mutual Love, is what we should all aspire to in my opinion.

I have to admit that I don't believe you can define it so "mathematically" for want of a better phrase. Not all relationships are "contracts of exchange" and I think to try and boil them down to that level is removing a lot of the value from them.

Neuro

BuffyBot wrote:

I have to admit that I don't believe you can define it so "mathematically" for want of a better phrase. Not all relationships are "contracts of exchange"...

Can you provide some examples?

BuffyBot wrote:

...and I think to try and boil them down to that level is removing a lot of the value from them.

I disagree with you on this point. I don't doubt for a moment that people feel love for each other at an emotional level. But by analysing relationships for what they really we remove much of the idealism and excessive romanticism that clouds people's judgement on the subject, not the underlying value of the relationship. In fact, by knowing how relationships actually work we make them stronger by ridding ourselves of false and irrational expectations from the outset; fantasies such as 'Everybody has one true love', 'Love lasts forever' and 'unconditional love' can be very damaging.

BuffyBot

Can you provide some examples?

Well, that's the prediciment - I haven't figured out how to insert the concept of "love" into a bulletin board message. Perhaps if it was a more mathemathical concept, it might be easier to do.

In fact, by knowing how relationships actually work we make them stronger by ridding ourselves of false and irrational expectations from the outset

We could go around in circles on this one - but you really can't state that everyone who has ever been in love has had false and irrational expectations.

Sleepy

Neuro wrote:

the reason you love someone is because they love you back.

Never heard of unrequited love then Neuro?

Neuro

Sleepy wrote:

Never heard of unrequited love then Neuro?

Yes, and we usually grow out of it by the time we leave secondary school.

Unrequited love or, more accurately, unrequited lust is another example of asymmetry of desires: boy lusts after girl because she's gorgeous, she doesn't lust after boy because he's average looking and she can easily do better. If we want to better understand why she doesn't find him appealing, try this simple mind game; how appealing would he find one of the less attractive girls? This is how his 'love' sees him.

In psychology this is called the Matching Hypothesis and examples of it can be seen every day. If you look at couples on the street you'll notice that they tend to be very similar in terms of their physical attractiveness. This is simply because all people will seek out the most attractive partner who is willing to go out with them. In other words, people generally never sell themselves short. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matching_hypothesis

As I said before, fantasies such as 'Everybody has one true love', 'Love lasts forever' and 'unconditional love' can be very damaging. Unrequited Love is a by-product of those fantasies.

Sleepy

So you believe people will allow themselves to die in place of another to satisfy a desire to have sex with them? Seems like psychology is missing something to me.

Zulu

Neuro wrote:

I agree with SIMU on this point. All relationships, be they with sexual partners or friends, are fundamentally contracts of exchange: the reason you love someone is because they love you back.

Well that's not true.

fact love is quite selfish when examined closely.

That all depends on how you examine it.

When this symmetry fails however, the individual whose desires are not being fulfilled falls out of love with the other individual. This other individual may still be very much in love with their partner, but this is only because their desires are still being met (asymmetry of desires).

...and when their desires stop being met? When the other moves away and starts another "mutual exchange contract" with some one else? There love becomes instantainously null and void and transforms into lust?

It may appear to be Unconditional Love, but in reality is a selfish longing to maintain a relationship that remains personally beneficial dispite the other partner's unhappiness.

You are attempting to define love.

Fr. Robert Maximillion, offered himself in the place of a family man when nazi officers were choosing to execute prisoners. He did this out of love. Mutual exchange?

Zulu

Neuro wrote:

In psychology this is called the Matching Hypothesis...

You see the problem with psychology is that it's not maths. It's not right and wrong.
It's all about schools of taught; they offer possiabilities not definate answers.

simu

Neuro wrote:

the reason you love someone is because they love you back. There's nothing particularly ethereal or spiritual about it; in fact love is quite selfish when examined closely.

Well, there's more to it than that. People can love others for all sorts of reasons. You could classify all human actions as selfish if you wanted but I don't see the point in doing that - it doesn't really get us anywhere new.

Dreamcatcher

simu wrote:

It's another one of those parases you can't take literally. There are always some conditions to love. The phrase usually means you love someone very much and that it would take a hell of a lot to change this.

Good point. I think that you are right - this is what it boils down to for most people(but I'm still mulliing over it a bit... hmmmm!)

Neuro wrote:

Buffybot wrote:

...and I think to try and boil them down to that level is removing a lot of the value from them.

I disagree with you on this point. I don't doubt for a moment that people feel love for each other at an emotional level. But...by analysing relationships for what they really are we remove much of the idealism and excessive romanticism that clouds people's judgement on the subject, not the underlying value of the relationship. In fact, by knowing how relationships actually work we make them stronger by ridding ourselves of false and irrational expectations from the outset; fantasies such as 'Everybody has one true love', 'Love lasts forever' and 'unconditional love' can be very damaging.

I think I agree with this and thanks for posting with such insight, especially the final part there, is an important and thought-provoking observation.

Neuro wrote:

All relationships, be they with sexual partners or friends, are fundamentally contracts of exchange: the reason you love someone is because they love you back.

So I guess you are saying that if this tacit, mutual contract is "broken" wittingly or unwittingly by one person, and the relationship continues, then the other person feels "wronged" or something doesn't sit well with that person, then the continuation of the relationship is then "unhealthy"(which perhaps="unconditional"?), and the "contract" will somehow have to be renegotiated sooner or later, or maybe the contact will just end...interesting way of looking at it - I'd never really thought about it like this before - Thanks!

Neuro wrote:

There's nothing particularly ethereal or spiritual about it;

But I think that love, true love, unconditonal love or however one refers to it, MUST contain a spirital element, or else there's nothing loving about the relationship - it is nothing more than cold, selfish "contract of exchange".

Neuro wrote:

in fact love is quite selfish when examined closely.

...BUT "fundamentally" and "When examined closely" every thing a human being does could be said to be "quite selfish".

Sleepy wrote:

So you believe people will allow themselves to die in place of another to satisfy a desire to have sex with them? Seems like psychology is missing something to me.

You're paraphrasing but I can see the point that you're making.
Zulu's example:

Zulu wrote:

Fr. Robert Maximillion, offered himself in the place of a family man when nazi officers were choosing to execute prisoners. He did this out of love. Mutual exchange?

I'm not familiar with that case, but what comes to mind here is the possiblity that there's a fine line between the concepts of
a. extremely passionate/unconditional love
b. martydom
c. insanity
?