Friday, January 10All That Matters

Unconditionally

38 Comments

  • Hmmm, I can’t tell if the author is advocating for transactional approaches to relationships. While it’s important that both people get something out of it – treating things like transactions creates misunderstandings, false entitlements, and causes at least one person in the relationship to feel like they’re owed something or owe others.

    Transactional approaches are often quite toxic for a healthy relationship is the short of it – and I want to highlight that because, jokes aside, it’s a pretty serious thing and we’re often given bad impressions about how a relationship should be. I’m sure you’ve seen to sentiment before where someone pays for something of someone else and then expects some kind of favor in return, often sexual. It’s important to avoid that behavior in yourself as it can lead to pretty hostile behavior towards someone you otherwise care about.

    But yeah, at the same time, you should also be getting something out of it. A lot of it is going to come down to feeling out the broad strokes and figuring out what you want and communicating that. Open communication is seriously undervalued.

  • I think Compassion, at its most pure essence, is something like “unconditional love”.

    The vast majority of love is conditional/transactional in that it involves the necessity for some form of mutual benefit to occur in the relationship for both parties. This is a good thing.

    Love may even be defined ecologically as “The universal property that emerges in relationship when both/all parties hold the well-being of self and other in equal and high regard, acting in alignment with this regard”

    This type of transactional, mutually beneficial love is a major driving force in our societies and ecosystems. Some even argue that it is THE foundational principle behind the phenomena of life.

    A book I recommend on this subject and much more is [Matter and Desire: an Erotic Ecology](https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/matter-and-desire/) by Andreas Weber

  • “I expect to benefit from this relationship” is not the opposite of unconditional love.

    Unconditional love, as the name implies, means that you keep loving them even if they hurt you or stop loving you back.

    “Conditional” love (which isn’t really a term) just means that if the object of your love hurts you enough or stops loving you back, you won’t necessarily keep loving them.

    *Neither* have anything to do with what the other person can do to benefit you.

  • Both philosophies are shitty. There’s no such thing as transactional love. Love is an open door. It’s not tit for tat. It’s just “Come on in, I’m open”. But it can’t be totally without limits or conditions. It has to be an open door that you close when you feel like it. Close the door and rest sometimes. Close it in somebody’s face if they hurt you.

  • Haha yeah sounds like my dad raging at me that’s it’s unfair and one sided he has to clean up the puke of a 6 year old, when he’s sick nobody cleans after him!

    Unconditional love is usually about one’s children, an that’s not actually unhealthy.

  • “I hate humans and the only people I want to hang out with is my pets” for me is always a dog whistle for “I can’t handle any relationship in which I don’t have absolute life and death control over the other party”

  • Love is unconditional for me most of the time. My love doesn’t go away when you hurt me. My loyalty is conditional. I can love from far away. There are lots of people I have love for but they will also never be part of my life again.

  • I’ve always had a problem with “unconditionally” as well. No, your dog doesn’t love you because you’re special. Your dog gives love under the condition that it is fed and/or treated well and/or gives it attention. And if you are someone that does any of those things, it will love you. And if you are someone who gives the MOST of those things, it will probably love you the best. That is also tied in with how familiar you are to the dog and how much safe time you’ve spent with it.

    All in all, “unconditional” is not a word to describe the love from pets. It’s eye rolling to say it or to believe it.

  • Or how about we don’t talk about love in terms of sacrifice and restriction? You can love someone and not be able to meet their needs. They can love you and not have fair or appropriate views on needs vs wants or just have needs that are incompatible with yours. You still love that person, even under those conditions, you just aren’t compatible.

    Love often acts as solid reasoning for sacrifice but sacrifice isn’t necessary for love. Stop testing everyone’s boundaries. Instead, be honest about your own, challenge the idea of how much of yourself you have to give, and make the authentic choice to accept someone with their boundaries or don’t.

    I guess what I’m really getting at is that just because you sacrifice in the name of love doesn’t necessarily justify your love or it’s depth. And not being able to sacrifice doesn’t mean you don’t love someone. A dog that isn’t fed will eventually become aggressive. It doesn’t mean the dog doesn’t love you, only that it’s needs aren’t being met. Stop demanding sacrifice and start ensuring needs are being met.

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