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unconditional love
Posted by niscum on 22 December 2011 - 6:15pm.
Does this really exist?
One hears a lot about it but I don't see many examples of it and at what point does it cease or is that an oxymoron?
I think it must be rather like assigning rights to eg children, the mentally infirm and furry animals - you do it whilst they are in that state but if things change then you review it.
What's your take?
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Love at first sight
I'm certain that it happens all the time.
It was unconditional for me.
She had other plans
When I first held my kids, I felt unconditional love for them
Surely there's no parent who'd disagree with that?
Indeed not.
My girls could literally do anything: nothing could stop me loving every cell of them until the day I die.
But I think parental love is the only unconditional kind.
Agreed
.
Agreed also
Don't most parents have unconditional love for their children? Bit surprised its existence is being questioned.
Sadly
I don't think every parent does...
Agreed once again
You never realise until you've had a child.
I think you can
have moments of it. But it's transient like happiness.
As Alan alludes to..
it's important they love you back.
Otherwise it's unconditional surrender.
good point
.
I unconditionally love ...
My children, my wife, my immediate family and, now I've started thinking about it, my friends as well. By this I mean that they need do nothing whatsoever for me to love them, in whatever form that word takes.
If love is, in fact, conditional, then it's not really love at all, is it?
The flipside of that is...
...could any of those people do anything to make you STOP loving them? I love my wife, but there are definitely things she could do that would make me stop loving her, and vice versa. We've talked about it. We're devoted to each other, but there are betrayals and hurts that would be irreparable.
True
I've said to my wife that there's nothing that could stop me loving my children (liking them is occasionally up for discussion), but then equally, given that nothing could stop me loving them, it's arguably a less... what's the word? Pure, maybe? Not right, but let's go with that for the moment. It's a less pure sort of love than that I have for my wife, by dint of the very fact that I *could* stop loving her yet still do.
Ultimately, you can't qualitiatively compare different kinds of love, but those differences do count for something.
I haven't expressed myself terribly clearly there (plus ça change), but I hope you can see what I'm trying to get at.
Of course
But, as my mum used to say (and she knew a thing or two), not liking someone is very different to not loving them. I can concieve of circumstances in which I don't like one of those people, but stop loving them? I can't see it.