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Does Unconditional love exists in Marriage??

Discussion in 'Married Life' started by Priya_Mommy, Jun 18, 2010.

  1. Priya_Mommy

    Priya_Mommy Gold IL'ite

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    Hello ladies,
    Offlate, I am here again. During luncheon, I just had a discussion with my colleges(females) about how married life,kids,inlaws etc just like that we all share our thoughts. So, we endedup in a decent debate and lunch time is over and back to seats and busy with our work. Just food for thought - Does Unconditional love exists in marriage??Sounds interesting na.
    Share your thoughts, does your marriage is filled with unconditional love??no matter the mode of marriage can be love,arranged or semi love or semi arranged. Do you really feel, the eternal meaning of love in the essence of marriage?
    Let me tell you my thoughts - I dont believe at all in unconditional love except love of parents towards their children. Rest of all loves are pretty conditional.
    Especially in marriage, everybody will have their own share of conflicts with their respectives. What is the cause of the conflicts that are causing so much unhappiness in these marriages? The answer should be obvious: On the whole, people don’t understand the cause of the conflicts in their marriages, or they wouldn’t continue to get divorced at such horrifying rates, they wouldn’t continue to inflict such awful pain on themselves and their children, and they wouldn’t continue to feel so desperately confused and alone.
    Fortunately, the cause of conflict in marriage is not a mystery.
    I think you all can agree upon. Couples all over the world are applying the principles of Real Love and discovering a level of happiness they had never before thought possible. Understanding the problems in relationships begins with understanding what all human beings need most, and intuitively we all know what that need is. In order to be happy, what we all want more than anything else is to feel loved. We prove that every day with the songs we sing, the movies we watch, the books we read, and the conversations we have. Love is the strongest theme uniting all those activities, but it’s not just any kind of love we’re looking for.

    So what all we wanted???Do we know??
    What we all want most is unconditional love, or Real Love. Real Love is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. It’s not Real Love when you do what I want and I like you. That’s relatively worthless; that’s earning or buying love. It’s Real Love when you make mistakes and inconvenience me, but I’m not disappointed or angry.
    Sadly, few of us have sufficiently received or given that kind of love—not just during our marriages but for our entire lives. From the time we were small children, we observed that when we didn’t fight with our sisters, didn’t make too much noise in the car, got good grades, and were otherwise obedient and cooperative, our parents and others smiled at us, patted our heads, and spoke kindly. With their words and behavior, they told us what good boys and girls we were.

    But what happened when we did fight with our sisters, made too much noise, got bad grades, and dragged mud across the clean living room carpet? Did people smile at us or speak gentle, loving words? No—they frowned, sighed with disappointment, and often spoke in harsh tones. Just as the positive behaviors of other people communicated to us that we were loved, the withdrawal of those behaviors could only mean that we were not being loved. Although it was unintentional, our parents and others taught us this terrible message: “When you’re good, I love you, but when you’re not, I don’t—or certainly I love you a great deal less.”
    This conditional love can give us brief moments of satisfaction, but we’re still left with a huge hole in our souls, because only Real Love can make us genuinely happy. Without sufficient Real Love, we can only feel empty and alone, which is the greatest ongoing pain in our lives. In any given negative interaction with your spouse, it is the longstanding lack of Real Love in your life that determines how you feel and respond, not the behavior of your spouse in that moment. In any given moment, you react to the amount of love you feel from everyone, past and present, not just from the person you’re interacting with.
    So pour in your views!!!
     
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  2. Visu2k

    Visu2k Gold IL'ite

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    Unconditional love is difficult to achieve in a marriage as we know it, as marriage itself is based on commitments and conditions. If those conditions are broken that can become a valid ground for annulment of the marriage itself.

    That said, I think, lack of unconditional love is inconsequential (as we don't know the love we have is unconditional unless we face a testing situation). If we keep unconditional love aside for a moment, even love and marriage are entities that can exist independent of each other. What is more important in a marriage though is mutual respect and understanding during difficult times. Striving to achieve this mutual understanding in my opinion is more practical and prudent than achieving unconditional love.

    I don't mean that unconditional love is impossible in marriage, but it will only come in instances where marriage itself becomes difficult. Say, one of the spouses is infected with a debilitating disease and is bed ridden and the other spouse still love and takes care of them with the same intensity as they used to always - that is an instance where we see that the health or beauty of a spouse is not conditional to their love. But to reach that stage the first step would be to develop understanding and respect for each other.

    Some say, unconditional love can only be between a mother and her child. That may be true most of the time but I think unconditional love is possible to a few who reach that stage.
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2010
  3. asuitablegirl

    asuitablegirl Gold IL'ite

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    Actually I don't really believe in unconditional human love. I believe only God can (and does) love us unconditionally.

    Not all parents love their kids. And some parents who do love their kids a lot now... all have some point where they would stop. Everyone has their breaking point. Would you still love your kid if they grew up to be a child molestor? Or a rapist? Or murderer? Or if they murdered your spouse? For some it doesn't even have to be that extreme... it can be if the kid opted for love marriage, the 'wrong' career, turned out to be gay, etc.

    As for a spouses love, likewise, I don't think it's unconditional. I'm sure there's SOMETHING I could do that would make my dh break our relationship. For example, I asked him if I murdered somebody what would he do, and he said he'd break me out of jail and flee the country. Yet if I cheated, he said he couldn't take that. So... there you have a condition!

    Sometimes he tells me, if I ever get a tinker bell tattoo, that would be the end too! :rotfl(He hates those tinker bell tattoos).

    Anyways, does having unconditional love even matter? I don't really care about it one way or the other. Personally, if I do something autrocious to my husband, or completely violate my vows to him or the sanctity of our marriage... do I even DESERVE to be loved by him anymore? Does anyone really deserve unconditional love? That's a hard question to answer!
     
  4. Visu2k

    Visu2k Gold IL'ite

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    ASG when I was thinking of unconditional love, I was not thinking of extremes like loving a child molester etc.

    I was only thinking of love in the most testing of times.

    If you say God is capable of unconditional love, then I would say why would he create a child molester in the first place. Doesn't he love the victims?
     
  5. Visu2k

    Visu2k Gold IL'ite

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    Love that is "unconditional in its truest meaning", I think, is stretching it too far.
     
  6. asuitablegirl

    asuitablegirl Gold IL'ite

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    Visu, I don't have all the answers. I only know what I believe...

    I believe in a 'hand's off' God who gives us free will to chose right from wrong, and then at the end of our lives we'll pay the consequences or reap the rewards of how we behaved on earth. So, I don't believe that God created a child molestor. I believe a man and woman had a baby, who God gave the free will to do as he/she wanted. If that child grows up to do wrong, I don't hold it against God, I hold it against that individual.
    When I responded, I wasn't addressing your post, I was just thinking in general in response to the PriyaMommy's OP. But since we're talking about it now... when I think of the word 'unconditional', I think of 'no matter what'. So, to test the boundaries of what unconditional is, one would have to consider extreme conditions, since unconditional love is in itself, an extreme type of love!

    Maybe unconditional human love DOES exist and I just haven't seen it yet. I'm totally open to believing or being pursuaded by other poster's. It's a topic I've only thought a little about.
     
  7. Visu2k

    Visu2k Gold IL'ite

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    Sorry for digression may be this needs a separate thread, but how do we know what is God's view of what is right and what is wrong. If we don't know, why should we pay the consequences, if we wronged according to Him.
     
  8. asuitablegirl

    asuitablegirl Gold IL'ite

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    I guess when we subscribe to a certain religion, we agree to believe in a certain set of rules. Mostly I have noticed though, there are similar things in all religions... like no murder, no cheating, etc. I have never met God, so I have to believe that the religious books I read point me into the right direction of what God wants. Also, I think God built humans to have a conscience, so we can use that as a compass to lead us (so long as we listen to it!).

    I don't think God has set any rules which we can't follow. However, nobody is perfect and that is why God offers forgiveness for those who seek it.
     
  9. Spiderman1

    Spiderman1 Gold IL'ite

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  10. sita2223

    sita2223 Bronze IL'ite

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    I thought so too... but after seeing my ILs who will not think twice before spoiling their son's life just to please their daughter (SIL), I will have to disagree. Not all parents love each of their children unconditionally. Sad, but true.

    Also I read many posts here where in-laws (parents of DH) are only happy as long as their son buys them expensive gifts, treats his wife as crap, stays mommas boy, invites them to US, keeps showering them with money etc..... Sad!
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2010

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