I totally agree with this. Well stated.

LMAO "Hell naw" well said.

LMAO so that's a no.

Some people are good in small doses. Loving them is much easier when you're not lovers or sharing a home. I guess that's a condition isn't it...oops.

I'm not trying to be combative in any way, but I want you to reconsider what you're saying and ask yourself if it's accurate. Could your spouse behave in any way, meaning could she/he do anything that would eliminate your love for her? If the answer is yes, which I suspect it will be, then you have just placed a condition on that love. These conditions would include her/him falling out of love with you, infidelity, deception, theft, purposeful endangerment of your well being and many others.

You're not being combative at all, and you make a good point. Not everything is black or white, but a lot of gray in between and thanks for that comment!

I do not doubt you. I'm just asking you to consider something. You said nothing she did could make you love her less. Could she do something that would make you love her more? If that's possible, I would argue that she could do something that would make you love her less. I don't mean stop loving her. I just mean that how intensely you love her can vary based on her actions. I'm only asking not asserting if this is true.

@paul1967 I understand your point and appreciate the wording. I don't think it's possible to really rate love on a scale such as this. I already love her as much as I believe I could. It's hard to explain. I don't think my love for her could be affected by any action she makes. I love her and that will always stand true. Pride in her good decisions and sadness in anything negative she does will not affect my love for her because my love for her isn't dependent on her actions or inaction.

@RachelLiz Well put and thank you for your time and effort to explain to me how you view your love of your daughter. You made me understand something that I hadn't considered which is pride and disappointment being separate from the core of your love for your daughter.

You might want to review @VictoriaNotes post. VictoriaNotes includes a link I hadn't considered which is temporary unconditional love. Which would mean for a period, the brain is capable of forgiving anything with no loss of affection. I can say it's interesting, but I'm not entirely convinced that it's reliable in the natural world. I think it may be possible to influence the brain enough in laboratory conditions to show these results.

I think on this often. The closest I can come to is that my child would not do something so abhorrent, as that is not who my child is. I don't think this is avoiding the question. Say for instance, I had such a child who could/would do such a thing, then I would not have unconditional love for that child, and probably realise it well before anything happened. I have a brother who I half expect will result in a visit from the police saying he was shot doing something crazy.

@Rugglesby To me (just my opinion, feel free to disagree) You cannot say I have unconditional love for someone, and then say the reason is because I know they would never do something so horrible. If your love is based upon them behaving a certian way (or in this case not behaving in a certain way) then I see this as the very defintion of conditional love. Even if you have really good reasons to believe that they will not do these terrible things, there are all sorts of horrible things that could happen to any of us at any time, even for long periods of time, that can change the way we think and behave. Yes we are talking about the extremely unlikely, but extremely unlikely and impossible are 2 very different things.

@RobH86 Understand completely what you are saying, I partially feel the same. People change but in recent years I have been exposed to some really strange things. People getting amnesia, alzheimers and such, the way I was considering it, is they are not the same person. Same body, but different personality, even different person. So the children I love would not do those things, if they did, then they are not the children I love unconditionally. So, your reply is in most ways completely accurate.

@RobH86 I think my threshold for bad behavior is the difference between how I feel about my kids versus everybody else on the planet. My kids could do lots of bad things, and even hurt me deeply, but I'd still love them. A spouse not so much. Not even close.

I don't doubt you one bit for your sincerity, and you brought another aspect to the equation that I hadn't considered, kids with special needs. Not because they are disabled but because in my experience with down syndrome and other kids with special needs, they are uniquely qualified to be better than most of us at loving.

You are so right @paul1967. I still am called "Mummy".

@sassygirl3869 and you will always be his/her mummy and with all the love and appreciation that goes along with that title. How can you put condition on that kind of love? You can't.

Becky and Mom

@sassygirl3869 Thank you for sharing that.

You say yes, but yes to what? Unconditional love exists for both your spouse and your children or just one or the other? You know yourself better than I do so if you're saying this is true for you then it's true for you, and I won't question it. I would like you to consider some conditions that I place on my spouse. She needs to share my love. I can't maintain a love for someone who doesn't feel love for me. My physical well being must be nearly as important as her own. If she decides my life insurance policy is of greater importance to her than my life, I will fall out of love with her. She must be honest with me. If she's out sleeping around with other people I will fall out of love with her. I don't have children so I can only assume that those with children have a better understanding of that love. Thanks for taking the time to read my response.

I agree, and to those saying otherwise, I suspect the knowledge that their children aren't evil prevents them from imagining how they might feel if they were.

However, I do have second-hand knowledge of how I might be wrong. My current girlfriend had a daughter who tried to run away several times, and when she kept getting sent back to her mom, she decided to stab her mother to death (which she obviously failed to do.) My girlfriend claims that even though she refuses to allow her daughter back into her life, she still loves her and wants the best for her. So this isn't conclusive evidence one way or the other, but it does cause me to wonder how evil would a child need to be to break that love bond.

I honestly believe that there is one person in this world that loves me unconditionally, and that is my mother. I don't think there is anything I could do to make her stop loving me - the worst thing I could do (but NEVER WOULD) is hurt/kill other members of my family - her other children (my siblings), her husband (my dad), or my niece & nephew (her grandkids). She might not be able to speak to me again, but I honestly believe that she wouldn't/could't stop loving me. I think I love her unconditionally also...I would certainly die for her, but I'm just not as good of person as she is...