Unconditional Love, Is It Real or Even Logical?

Photo Credit J.P.P.

During the period of the day that I like to call, “The Quiet Before the Storm,” you know, that small window of time when you wake up early in the morning before your significant other and/or the children, knowing that you can’t go back to sleep or you’ll risk oversleeping, I like to scroll through Facebook. And before you judge me, I know that I could be exercising, or journaling, or meditating, blah, blah, blah! My early morning, guilty pleasure is good ole Facebook!

As I was scrolling this morning, I stumbled upon a woman sharing a post that read, “Men get loved unconditionally. Women only get loved if they have something to offer.” I was instantly intrigued for two reasons. One, I have never heard that comment made regarding women and two, the healthy debate in the comment section. (I know I’m not the only one who likes to pop that emoji popcorn and sit back, reading how the conversation unfolds!)

Just as I had suspected, the first comment read, “Flip it around and it will make sense.” So, my question to you is, “Do you believe that men are not loved unconditionally and only loved when they have something to offer, or vice versa?” I’ll give you a moment to think on that!

Thought about it, good, now here’s what I think: No one should love anyone but themselves unconditionally. Not your mother, father, best friend from the 3rd grade, your cousins, aunts, uncles, next door neighbor of 15 years, boyfriend, girlfriend, NO ONE!!! You’re probably thinking I’m crazy but there is a method to my madness, I think things through to the minute detail.

Let’s start off by defining the word love. There are several definitions for the term, and it can be used as both a noun and a verb. Based on Merriam-Webster’s definition, love is a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties, attraction based on sexual desire or tenderness felt by others, warm attachment or devotion, unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another, etc. Love is a great thing, a beautiful thing and yes, you should and could love all those people I mentioned above and more, but now we must break down the word unconditionally.

Merriam-Webster goes on to say that the word unconditional means, not conditional or limited: ABSOLUTE, UNQUALIFIED. Let that sink in and take the word and definition for unconditional and add it to the word love. Should you have an absolute, unqualified love for your spouse, friends, family or are we lying to or short-changing ourselves in doing so? Think of these scenarios. A husband and wife have been married for 12 years. The wife gave up so much of herself in the beginning of the marriage. She wanted to become a lawyer, but her husband expressed to her after the birth of their daughter, that he wanted her to stay home instead, and that he made more than enough to provide for their family. As the years went on, the wife saw less and less of her husband and somewhere along the lines, realized that she didn’t see much of herself either.

To make matters worse, her husband had been having an affair with a younger woman for the last two years of their marriage. Should she love him unconditionally because she is his wife and the mother of his child and who is she forgetting to love?

Another example. Audrey and Ashley have been best friends since the 6th grade and are now in their late 20s. Audrey realizes during a lunch outing with other friends, that Ashley tries to find subtle ways to embarrass her or put her down. She thinks of all the times she has had to bail Ashley out of every bad decision she has made and whenever she tries to have a heart to heart with Ashley, she brings up her childhood as a get out of jail free card and says things like, “Audrey, I’m just not as strong as you, you had it better than me. Please don’t be mad at me, I love you. You’re the only real and constant thing in my life.”

But Ashley drains Audrey and rarely has the heart to fill her back up. For years the relationship has felt one-sided and quite frankly, Audrey isn’t sure what she’s holding on to. Who is Audrey forgetting to love?

Last one, and should I get REAL!?

All children are born into this earth through a mother and a father. We have very little choice in the matter, we don’t ask to be born and we certainly don’t get to choose whom we share biology with but here we all are. A beautiful, healthy, baby boy is born out of a crazy, tumultuous relationship to a mother who only wants him to the degree that she can hope to keep his father around. And the father, let’s just say he has no intentions on leaving the mother nor any intentions on being a father, he sees the child as a burden.

For years the child grows up feeling like just that, a burden. Until finally, someone at school notices that he is being abused at home. It is then that abuse has been found and he is taken out of the home and becomes lucky enough to be adopted by a husband and wife who desperately wanted to start a family but couldn’t so they loved him as if he came from them. Fast forward 15 years and the boy, now a man is a successful entrepreneur. His birth mother and father come to him, asking for help. Should he give it to them or is he wrong for feeling nothing for them at all, neither pity, shame, nor hatred; nothing? Shouldn’t he love them unconditionally because they are his birth parents?

I’m asking you to reflect here on the people in your life. Should you love them regardless to what they do to, regardless to how they treat you simply because of their station in our life? I say no. A parent, sibling, spouse, friend, neighbor can hurt you and even hate you more than a stranger. Loving someone regardless to how they treat you or make you feel is unhealthy and could potentially be physically, mentally, emotionally or even spiritually dangerous.

How many women stay in abusive relationships because they love the guy? How many men? How many times do you forgive a person who has intentionally hurt you?

I can’t answer those questions for you, but I know for me, I’ll set boundaries and perimeters on my relationships. To love someone unconditionally means that I have given over the power to choose when to stop loving them. I only want to be that powerless to myself because I believe that when I am, the love that I seek and deserve will manifest itself so deep inside of me, I’ll be bursting with the light needed to attract the love that will take me as close to unconditional love as I can get without touching.

Love conditionally. When love starts to become suffocating and destructive, one-sided and selfish, abusive; know when to dim that light and walk away. Know when and how to love yourself unconditionally, first, selfishly, religiously, gloriously; agape. Your unconditional love is reserved for YOU.

-Nerra Muhammad March 9, 2021