Dating : Can we stop romanticizing unconditional love?

In today’s meme and mean world, I think that the most romanticized idea of our generation is unconditional love. From sitcoms to writers on social media to novelists, people are always asking us to love unconditionally. Take any blog post on relationships and companionship; almost everyone asks you to love unconditionally. I however doubt that even the writer would have problems following it.

I disagree with the idea of unconditional love in relationships. According to me, there is only one place for unconditional love, that is from the parents to their children.

Everywhere else, I believe that love should be conditional.

I know that such a statement is probably against everything that you were taught and what most religions preach too. Now, don’t mistake me, I am not counting charity work or social services as unconditional love. They are social responsibilities. I am talking about relationships that you share with people; friendships, romantic relationships, etc. In such bonds that you form throughout your life, the idea of loving someone unconditionally is something that bugs me a lot.

In romantic relationships, there is no biological imperative for us to love someone unconditionally. Love should be based on mutual respect and courtesy. It should be conditional on the person not being manipulative. In fact, there are plenty of reasons why we shouldn’t love someone unconditionally.

Before I move forward with explaining how important this is, just like every other time, I want to bring some statistics here. Yeah, I understand what you are thinking, “Praveen. Do you really have to geek about number even here?”. I get it guys. Well, when I talked to some of my friends, many people didn’t understand the importance of having to be conditional when it comes to romantic relationships until I showed them the statistics.

In a survey taken around the world by MentalHelp, around 78% of the respondents claimed that they are physically abused and hit by their partners and over 65% of them never told about their partner’s abusive behavior to anyone. Most of them also claimed that they sometimes felt okay going through such tough situations for the sake of the relationship. Around 86% of the respondents said that they felt manipulated by their partners and that they started feeling it only after they had to go through some very extreme situations.

The key thing to be understood here is that not many people know that their partners are manipulative and abusive until a certain line is being crossed, and generally the line is always being set too far. And when I talk about abuse and manipulative behavior, I am not just talking about sexual and physical abuse. I am talking about emotional abuse which is prevalent in most relationships. Let’s face it, you know a couple of friends who are in such toxic relationships with people. Or maybe, even you are in one, you just won’t admit it.

I’m not sure how, but during our adulthood, we are somehow asked to seek and offer unconditional love, to forgive our partners, and be by their side no matter what. This is quite true in marriages too. It kind of sounds romantic and fresh, but it is the same reason why we are manipulated and used most of the time.

The one common denominator that I found after talking to people who’ve been with manipulative and abusive people is unconditional love. I think this idea of having to be by our partner’s side no matter what was probably formed during the formation of patriarchal societies, where men needed women to be unconditional in relationships.

Another pattern that I understood is that, abusive relationships are almost everywhere, but by placing the idea that it is okay to go through such troubles with our partner, we as a society have successfully imparted the idea that it is okay to get along with certain things done by our partners because it is going to be okay if you wait patiently.

Well, that’s not the case. Unfortunately, being unconditional only empowers people to take advantage of you and manipulate you to become who they want you to be. In sitcoms or maybe in Nicolas Sparks’ novels, it might work, but not in real life. It creates an environment where there is no need for abusive and manipulative people to redeem themselves and start treating us the right way. Abusive partners continue to be abusive towards you until you stop them. Manipulative partners continue to be abusive until you stop them. Conditioning your love on mutual respect and courtesy is core to forming healthy and balanced relationships.

Another reason why we resort to unconditional love, is because of the fear of losing the relationship. We fall in love and when we do, we fall hard. The notion that “I’ll go through this to save the relationship. In time, it’ll be fine”, doesn’t work. It only gives more incentive for your partner to be more manipulative and abusive.

The other day, I was talking to a well-known clinical psychologist in Chennai and her exact words were,

“I’ve seen too many people with manipulative partners. The thing is, no matter how long we wait, these people generally don’t change. And the only way you change the person is by drawing a fine line and letting them know that they are supposed to respect your decisions.”

We need to understand that by being patient with our partners, it is not going to change them. Neither is it going to help you too. Being in a prolonged toxic relationship where your choices and freedom isn’t respected is only going to hurt you in the long run. Not being conditional in relationships will lower your ability to self-love, which according to me and many psychologists is the most important factor for emotional well-being.

Our love life should be based on the issues in the real world relationships, not based on some fantasy from writers.

If your partner wants to manipulate you and turn you into the person that they want you to be, I am not sure how anyone can justify that behavior. And if you expect mutual respect and courtesy and your partner is unable to give you that, I am not sure your partner actually loves you. Loving someone shouldn’t be confused with having to give up the basic needs for emotional well-being. Trust me, you can control your future actions, but if you let yourself be in a manipulative environment, it is hard to control your own feelings.

Love is beautiful. Romantic relationships are important. But they should be based on mutual respect and consideration. PERIOD. Love should be conditional on such factors. And it is okay to demand that in our relationships.