3 Reasons Why Unconditional Love Doesn’t Exist in Romantic Relationships

According to the bible, in Corinthian 13:5, love is not self seeking. It means that love must be selfless and you should put others before yourself. However, how long should you be selfless and put other people first even though your heart is breaking? Stitching someone’s wound while you’re bleeding to death can be quite challenging. The emotional burden of continuously sabotaging yourself for other people can lead to emptiness and exhaustion. You give everything while they drain you. Most of us know someone who dedicates all of their time and love for their loved ones, and yet they are still unappreciated. It can be a wife giving up her career so her husband can have a fulfilling career while she takes care of the family. Yet, the husband has the audacity to cheat on her and leave her. It can also be a husband who works hard and does his best just to make sure his wife has everything she wants in life. Yet, for her he’s not doing enough and always complains how unpleasant her life is with him.

So, is it practically possible to love someone generously without boundaries or limits? How much can you give before you realize you’re also losing yourself? To shed more light on this, here are three reasons why unconditional love doesn’t exist in romantic relationships.

You and your partner have expectations from each other

In a romantic relationship, especially marriage, you and your partner sign a contract. In that contract, the terms and conditions are written. There are some things that you should and some things that you shouldn’t do, because you make a promise to your partner. So, love here is more conditional. If you break the rules, that’s a breach of a contract. You can’t love your partner unconditionally because it will be challenging to keep up due to expectations and needs. Both partners have expectations and needs they hope will be met in a relationship. It can be related to emotions, spirituality, finances, shared responsibilities, and etc. When one of a couple or both of them fail to meet these expectations, it can lead to dissatisfaction and conflict. For instance, imagine you’re a woman and your non-negotiable is that you want to be a full time stay at home mom and wife. You don’t want a career outside of that and you expect your partner to be the main and solely provider. The problem is that your male partner wants you to work full time so you guys can split the bills. That situation can create resentment and strain in your relationship overtime. So that’s why when you and your partner set expectations, maintaining unconditional love can be truly challenging.

There will be a time you will hit your breaking point

Unconditional love means that you can love someone despite everything including the bad ones, but how much do you have to endure until you hit your breaking point? Every human has a limit to how much pain they can endure. When the limits are tested or crossed repeatedly, it can lead to resentment. Unconditional love requires a perpetual amount of forgiveness which is improbable for many people. For instance, a partner who continues to tolerate disrespectful behavior such as cheating, not helping with the chores and physical abuse from his or her partner towards him or her may exhaust their patience one day and decide to quit the relationship. While she or he can still forgive the partner who cheats, she or he may decide that the relationship needs to be ended. Thus, unconditional love will never work in an intimate relationship, especially when you hit your breaking point.

The things needs to be mutual

Unconditional love doesn’t require reciprocity and mutual effort. When you love someone unconditonally, you should not expect anything in return. However, healthy couples have a good balance of give and take. This balance makes people in both parties feel respected and loved. When love, effort, and respect are being taken for granted, it can lead to misalignment that can ruin the relationship. Unconditional love without reciprocation can lead to one sided relationship that is unworkable. For instance, you’re always the one making efforts and sacrifices while your partner is just taking what you are doing for the relationship for granted. While this may not be a problem at the beginning of the relationship, overtime you build resentment and you feel exhausted as the relationship becomes imbalanced and unhealthy overtime. When there is an imbalance in the relationship, it will be difficult to maintain a healthy and fulfilling relationship. Therefore, a healthy relationship requires mutual effort as it ensures that both partners are equally supported and loved.

While unconditional love may sound so inspiring, is it not always practical in romantic relationships because both partners need to meet each other’s expectations; there’s a limit on how much you can forgive; and the efforts need to be reciprocated.

If you still believe that unconditional love exists in romantic relationships, then what are your reasons to believe?

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

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