What do you think... is love ever completely unconditional? If so, do you think it's limited to certain kinds of relationships (I.e. parent-child)?
I tend to agree with Ayn Rands notion: No such thing as love without condition, i.e. unconditional love. A person loves another if that person does not lets say, abuse the other person giving the love, or steal, or lie, or cheat. If a person loves another, and the person being loved is perpetually causing pain, love will dissappear. There are conditions even if one believes there are none. Anyone can develop hatred towards someone they thought they loved "unconditionally": Wife, husband, friend, son, daughter, etc.
Why? Because there are always unspoken and even subconcious conditions to receive or to give love.
That is so true when the love is one-sided.
I believe so. Between a parent and child, it is strong. Either side may not like or approve the choices, behavior, and lifestyle but the love is always there. Not to say there aren't acceptions to the rule.
In romantic love, I've seen a couple of examples. They went through hard times, had fights/arguments, and disgusted each other at times but when one was in need the other was there no matter what and to me that is unconditional love. I don't think it would have worked had it not been mutual. I wish it was the norm and not a rarity.
I do not like conditional love. (I will love you under the condition of "XYZ" and if you don't meet those conditions I will withdraw my love.) That doesn't make sense to me. I much prefer...(I will love you unconditionally unless you destroy it.)
Yes I think it exists, no I don't think it's just one kind of love,also I think it's very,very rare.
I find that most of the posts here are great. Loving unconditionally would be hard as there always seems to be something that gets in the way. For me love was not the problem, it was the fact that I could not longer live with and support the actions of the person I still love to this day. A sad fact but reality sucks sometimes. I have since found the love of my life, yes there are problems but not with us as beings. There are conditions (medical) that arrive and take their tole. Does not stop the love or the fact that we are happy together. Would be a lot better if we were not sick.
Yes, I have unconditional love for my adult daughter and dog. As for adult relationships, there are probably ones with unconditional love, but people often fall out of love. When I get mistreated in a relationship my love stops.
My mother does not approve of everything about me but she loves me no matter what. That's unconditional for us.
Very Very good. . . I can have unconditional love. . Unless you are a reprehensible monster and do icky things. . Too much weight and finality in unconditional love. Because when a crime against humans is committed We are to shift gears. . . And seek unconditional justice. I can still love but not accept the behavior and shun them
Maybe, MAYBE, Child to parent. But other than that, no. To love unconditionally you would have to be willing to accept every horrible thing the other person could imagine doing to you and to anyone else in the world, for any reason, at any time, and still be like, yup, that's perfectly fine. No mentally functional human can love without some conditions. I hate to even imagine the power that kind of love would give another person.
I have a thought experiment for this, and yes it is something I did post on here before but it was a while ago.
Imagine all the people that you consider yourself to love. Pick the one you love the most (if its more than 1 person then just pick any of them). Now imagine that person tortures and kills all the other people that you love. Do you still love that person? If so unconditional love almost certainly exists for you. There are 2 comebacks, 1 is the unconditional love of babies/children. This is temporal unconditional love, as the baby is not yet capable of committing the crimes. 2 is when people say 'oh well, the reason I have unconditional love for this person is because I know they would never do anything like that'. If this is their stance, then point out this is not unconditional love. This is love based on the condition that this person never changes their behaviour.
A bit dark, I know. But if you really care about the idea of unconditional love, ask yourself the question
Parent-child, but some men have it.
Most normal, cis hetero men can "fall in love," since they need this besotted condition to be able to stick to one woman and help care for progeny, increasing their chances of success.
Women with strong masculine traits can often fall in love also, but for women, this is dangerous..being besotted, forgiving anything, making excuses for dangerous behavior in men, etc could get her abused, or even killed.
Women with strong female traits instinctively manage men, withdrawing attention and approval the moment men disrespect them.
If the men don't immediately stop the bad behavior, they will soon find their stuff tossed on the lawn, and the house locks changed.
Then the women move on..no forgiving the men, giving them another chance, etc.
The nihilist in me says no, but the romantic in me says, “but you can be to such a level of unconditional that you’d never really surpass it in normal circumstances.”
I feel it for my children.
my dogs feel it for me so how could I not feel it for them.
@LeighShelton When my kids were little, they felt it for me until I brought the taser out. Lol
pmsl seems reasonable to me and less of a mark than a bat with spikes. brilliant ha ha
No. I do not think one sided love is love at all. It must be a consensual exchange between two or more people and that in itself implies a condition.
I think it exists but is an extreme form of love that borders on obsession. To test any given relationship one must only ask, "Would I take this person's side if he/she were accused of murder under a cloud of overwhelming evidence?" If the answer is yes then the "love" may actually be pathological.