As I woke up this morning to scroll through the 500 spam emails that had accumulated overnight on my lock screen, a notification from Medium.com immediately caught my attention. “Four signs he loves you unconditionally” my daily reading suggestion remarked. Intrigued to find out whether the man who had woken up beside me merely 20 minutes ago matched any of the signs the author had mentioned, I sat right up and got to reading with my eyes only half-open. After I put my phone away to nap for another 15 minutes before I had to wake up, I could not stop thinking about the spectrum of unconditionality in love.
I have been asked by several friends on many occasions whether I thought that healthy romantic relationships constituted unconditional love, however, each time, I found myself conflicted between a firm yes and a determined no. “If tomorrow I wake up with a bruise under my eye perpetuated by my partner, am I expected to love them despite that?, “If I catch my partner cheating on me, am I supposed to forgive him and love him despite that?” Truth is, I didn’t have a clue. The only reference or background I had on the matter was Meredith and Derek’s post-it note from Grey’s Anatomy- “Are you going to love me, even when you hate me?” Words from your mouth sound sultry and easy, Mer, but IRL, is that how it really works? Is that how it SHOULD really work?
After having avoided contemplation and research during all those times, I found myself scrolling through databases and every search engine frantically during my not- so- busy quarantine ridden morning. Among all the quora.com and reddit answered questions, I came across a book written by one of my better-liked authors, David Richo. “The Five Things We Cannot Change” is a book flooded with the term “unconditional”, except it addresses the unconditional yes to life’s givens- the five laws of nature that make us human. According to Richo, everything comes to an end, life doesn’t always go according to plan, pain is a part of human growth, and life is not always fair. (Richo, 2005) I reached page 100 of the book and I had devised an answer to a question he did not even attempt to answer, yet succeeded in doing so through his real as hell crystal talk.
Unconditional love, in the context of romantic relationships is not black or white. It is the grey area that denotes unconditional commitment, a phenomenon that underlies the effort one puts into making the relationship and thus, the commitment, last for as long it possibly can. It is the phenomenon that aims to understand the why’s of the rights and wrongs of the relationships before jumping to the what’s of the outcome. It means giving your partner the benefit of the doubt when they stray away from your perfect version of romance that you derived from all the rom-com movies you have watched during quarantine. To better understand this, I outlined three fundamentals of loving someone unconditionally, and what it takes to do so.
1.Unconditional Commitment as a Process
My partner, determined to teach his 23-year-old girlfriend how to ride a bike, took me for a practice session to an empty basketball court in NYC filled with 6-year-old’s riding their own non-trainer wheeled bikes. As we were on lesson number 2, he held me while I got on, maintained his grip as I pushed to the ground and broke into inertia, and only let go once he noticed I wasn’t using his support much at all. As soon as I fell, I noticed a couple of the 6-year-old’s and some of their parents break into a mild chuckle. Insistently embarrassed, I turned to my partner, who picked me up and taught me how to peddle along again.
Love, like learning how to bike, is a process through which one gains a sense of comfort, balance, and trust. Over time, you learn to push yourself and ride through the different lanes of life, knowing that you can always return to your partner, your secure base. Having the security that your partner will be waiting for you at the finish line, regardless of whether you won the race, hurt yourself, or lost your way is the first mark of a healthy, unconditional commitment.
2. Allowance for Unconditional Commitment
About a year ago, my current partner, who I was also dating then, randomly decided to break up with me. Confused, hurt and angry, I drowned myself into a spiritual practice to make sense of what and why this was happening to me. One day, I thought I had found myself the perfect partner, the love of my life and next Thursday, I saw that he was trying to find himself a partner, a partner that was not me. I had tasked myself with understanding the why of his decision- was it intentional, i.e., did he go out of his way to hurt me for no apparent reason? Or was it consequent, which would mean that our ending was for understandable factors such as our age gap and different life stages? Through the five months that we were apart, exercising minimal contact, I could not shake off my newly accessed intuition when it constantly longed for reconciliation despite the pain.
So after our hiatus, when he did come back, I was not surprised to see that I felt the exact same way as I did in lousy, cold November as I did in beautiful, hot June. However, as keen as I was to reunite with him and put myself out of the misery of writing break up articles all week, I was hesitant to trust him again. Through the loving- kindness mindset that I had developed through my mindfulness practice, I made the decision to open my heart and allow myself, as well as my partner, to witness what I was at my most loving and vulnerable moments through which, I could establish a sense of trust and balanced unconditionality towards him once again. Allowance does not mean putting yourself or your partner second, instead it means following a middle path that makes room for accepting them while maintaining your boundaries.
3. Unconditionality as a Conditional Phenomenon
Love, like life, follows a cause- and- effect and a give- and- take process. You feel valued in a relationship if you are met with love, respect and validation, and in turn, you are able to reach a stage of commitment. Deciding who to commit to unconditionally requires one to love another person without the several constraints of their own ego. It is a love without “fear, desire, control, judgment, complaint, and expectation.” (Richo, 2005) The process of reaching the point of such unconditionality, however, can be daunting and filled with such neurotic emotions. How does one then complete this journey successfully and choose who to commit to in such a vulnerable manner? There is no one right or wrong answer to such a vast question, so I’ll give you my version of it:
I will unconditionally commit to someone who will not aim to decrease my pain or minimize the challenges life throws at me, but will be with me through it. Someone who respects me, validates me, does not control or judge me, and provides me with a level of affection I can provide them with. Moreover, someone who can constitute as a “secure base” from which I can explore and to which I can return to, without any inhibitions is someone who can walk down “secure attachment, healthy relationship” lane with me. While such answers may find their basis in the rom-coms that I have watched, they also stem from the psychological and spiritual work that I have done on myself to truly understand what I deserve.
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Previously published on “Hello, Love”, a Medium publication.
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