Unconditional love would be a way of loving the other completely, of accepting him as he is, without reservation and with his faults and his qualities. This love is often cited as the one reserved for one’s children, so rare is it to manage to offer such love to a person, within a couple. What is limitless love? Is it beneficial? What are the risks of imbalance?

First of all, there are several types of relationships in which love can be expressed:

• parent-child relationships;
• brother-sister ties;
• couple bonds.

In all these bonds, two kinds of love can arise: conditional love and unconditional love.

In conditional love, you give your love in “exchange” for something, consciously or unconsciously. It can be an extraordinary quality perceived in the other, or a material comfort, or affection, attention, time spent. The quality of this love is much inferior to that of unconditional love, since here, love is “sold”, even by unspoken. We lose a lot of the beauty of love, which is normally free and without expectation of return.

In unconditional love, we give our love without any limit or expectation of return. It is much more difficult to apply, but much richer to live and fulfill. It is a question here of accepting the other as a whole, with his faults and his qualities, without seeking to want to change him. We can love in someone his intelligence, his kindness, his generosity … But to love this person unconditionally makes it possible to also love his not very elegant overweight, his propensity to remain slumped in the sofa, or even his small daily obsessions. When you love someone unconditionally, you forgive a lot more, and even when it comes to bigger issues, like infidelity, or other moral wrongs.

It is generally about the love that we have for our child, throughout our life, but it can exist between a man and a woman in a couple.

It is a love that lives in absolute, devotion, intense affection and can hardly be broken. It’s romantic love. Nothing is expected in return, and this is where the beauty and purity of this love lies. However, there can be pain in this unboundedness, especially if the loved one abuses this unconditional love.

How can we love unconditionally without suffering?

Physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists seem to claim that unconditional love for someone who is not their child translates into a lack of love and self-esteem. Indeed, forgiving everything without limits to a person and wanting to meet all his needs without asking for anything in return marks a deep disrespect for oneself.

Love without limits is then very destructive, since there are no longer any barriers to guarantee respect for one’s own esteem, for one’s person. When we allow the other to make moral mistakes or to treat us badly, without moving away from him, we show him a demeaning image of ourselves. By letting go of the blatant reasons for a breakup in usual cases, we unconsciously send this message to the other: “do me all the harm you want, I will always stay with you. This type of relationship is then very unhealthy, and often turns into the perverse bond, between the persecutor and the persecuted.

Without necessarily entering a perverse relationship, there will always be imbalance in a relationship when one of the two people loves unconditionally, while the other does not.

This asymmetry will lead to suffering on both sides: those who love more intensely will suffer from not being loved at the same level; he who receives unconditional love will suffer from being “stifled” by the love of the other, from being the only source of contentment.

There is then dependence, and the beginning of the destruction of the relationship, when the unconditional lover is unable to flourish and find other accomplishments outside of the relationship.

To remain balanced, a couple must therefore love each other equally and respect each other’s independence.

Initially, our brains are designed to love unconditionally. And that’s what happens at the start of a romantic relationship: it’s passion, we are in the absolute, the purity of the bond, we literally “take” the whole other, even its small flaws. Then, a few months or a few years later, our “rational” brain takes over, and if we bear too little support for the now clearly visible defects of our partner, it is the rupture.

On the other hand, the loves that last show us that, even by noting the faults of the other, we are indulgent towards them, and sometimes even have tenderness for them. However, the limits are clear: our brain keeps watch while the other does not overstep the line. Too serious a moral fault and that would be the rupture.

Unconditional love would therefore be a step to be experienced and taken in a couple, a spark that allows the beautiful beginnings of a love. But to live a healthy and balanced love, this love must evolve, thanks to the communication, the empathy and the respect.

Those who remain in the state of unconditional lovers remain in a very infantile state: they refuse to grow up, and to evolve in their way of loving. Indeed, becoming dependent on the other by offering him all his being devoted and in love transfixed, resembles the devotion of a small child for his parents, without whom, he cannot manage.

The unconditional lover must then do some work on himself, possibly in therapy, in order to dive into introspection at the level of his childhood, or to redefine his needs and lacks in love. We then learn, coming out of unconditional love, to have mature exchanges with others, to communicate, and to love without invading or suffocating the other in a love without freedom or shared fulfillment.