Unconditional love: what it is, how to detect it and why it can be harmful

Unconditional love is possibly one of the most popular concepts in the world of romantic relationships.. And it is, among other things, because over the last decades a kind of mythology has been created around it: it has come to be extolled as if it were the only kind of love possible, and everything else were deviations from this model ideal.

Unfortunately, the fact that there are so many myths about this love and relational dynamic has contributed to what love really is. unconditional has been distorted and camouflaged under a thick layer of stereotypes and emotional appeals that are often more negative than positive. There are those who aspire to live unconditional love without really knowing what it is.

Throughout this article We will see what exactly this way of loving consists of and relating to loved ones, how we can recognize it in a couple based on a description of their characteristics, and why their idealization causes controversy.

• Related article: "The 4 types of love: what different kinds of love are there?"

What is unconditional love?

One of the most curious things about unconditional love is that this concept carries behind it such an emotional charge. strong that we can forget its meaning despite having it before our eyes, in the very name of the term. Indeed, unconditional love is the way of loving that is exercised without conditions that commit one of the parties, that is, without there being a concrete benefit for at least one of the lovers... beyond the experimentation of love itself.

Thus, unconditional love is special because in theory for its maintenance you do not have to meet a series of requirements and commitments. Even the fact that it's unrequited love shouldn't end it directly, given that as unconditional as it is, to exist it does not need the participation of the person loved. In other words, it is a disinterested love.

So this way of loving is prone to suffering, since it can give rise to situations in which the discomfort experienced by a person becomes chronic because there is no clear line that indicate if that emotional bond is functional or not (something that would happen if there were commitments that establish whether that emotional bond is valued) Union).

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Characteristics and signs of selfless love

Among the most common signs that we find in the dynamics of unconditional love we find the following.

1. Propensity for asymmetries to appear

Since there is a person who loves unconditionally, this easily triggers that the other person lets go of the possibility of obeying commitments.

2. Search for constant contact

Unconditional love is not unconditional at all, because even if the other person doesn't want it, you pay the price. price of submitting to attempts to be in contact by someone she apparently loves disinterested. Due to the asymmetry of the relationship, situations of rejection easily appear.

3. tragic perception of the situation

Normally, those who try to love unconditionally do so influenced by a whole series of imagery from selfless love stories fed by cinema, literature and the like. That is to say, an identification with this type of fictitious or mythologized characters is generated. This gives a sense of purpose to what you do..

4. moments to fantasize

In unconditional love there aren't too many expectations applied to the real world, and that's why the Imagination is usually an escape route to imagine realities in which that relationship is better and more balanced.

5. Doubts about the nature of love

When the love relationship is based on clear commitments, it is not so common to enter states of introspection in which one wonders what it means to love in that way. But when there is apparently nothing to sustain that love beyond love itself, this kind of doubt is more frequent: If the other person can not love us, what exactly does that love that one feels for oneself consist of?

Why has this way of loving been idealized?

As is beginning to be intuited, unconditional love is far from being the model of perfect love that many people believe it to be. How can it be, then, that it is considered in many places the goal to aspire to in terms of intimate and emotional life? Let's see how this applies both to the emotional sphere of the couple and to the one that has to do with the blood family.

His idealization in the couple

For many centuries, love was not the main criterion by which people were guided when getting married, when starting a family. He was banished to the world of passions, that which does not obey rationality and therefore, no matter how intense and pleasant it may be, it should not be taken into account if you want to live in the most sensible and realistic way.

At a time when the vast majority of the population lived at the limit of the resources necessary to exist and support a family, marriages were more like a financial transaction whereby two families passed into to collaborate.

However, as the living conditions of the majority of the population improved, this compromise logic and the role of feelings came to the fore. However, the institution of marriage has continued to maintain its popularity, in part because beyond the religious realm from which they arise these formal links the fact of getting married offers a series of legal resources that help two people maintain a family of manner.

The union between the idealization of the importance of feelings (as if they had always been the fundamental force that has guided the lives of human beings) and their application to the schemes set by the marriage (maintained out of necessity) has led to the idea of ​​unconditional love especially powerful in love relationships applied to the search of couple.

It is what happens when it is assumed that love relationships are forever because of the influence of the history of marriages, and is applied to the field of feelings, and has originated what is usually called he myth of the better half: the belief that we are all incomplete pieces in search of a union that is usually reflected in the wedding.

His idealization in the blood family

When it comes to family blood relations, the idealization of unconditional love obeys another logic. While in the sphere of the couple the disinterested nature of this feeling does not have a clear purpose, in the family it does; Normally, what is important is not love itself, but the fact that it goes along with concern for protection and concern for the other person.

This is typical of fathers and mothers who take care of their sons or daughters regardless of whether the latter appreciate it or not, and it makes sense if we take into account the generation gap and the fact that from the birth of the little ones a clear dynamic of protection is established that is completely unilateral. The rare thing would be if this one-sidedness completely disappeared as the children got older.

But this distinction of roles is not something exclusive to the relationship between parents and children: reproduces through virtually any type of kinship, due to the mutual protection dynamic: an older brother can easily find excuses to control the older brother, and the same goes for an uncle and her nephew, etc.

For this reason, the need to control the life of the other can become a miniature tyranny, since any resistance on the part of the loved one is seen as something that must be ignored due to the difference in roles established by the functioning familiar.

In conclusion

Different psychological and relational dynamics are hidden under the label of unconditional love, which in many cases are harmful due to the lack of of referents about what is the point at which a person should stop projecting her affections towards the other person and should direct them to his own person.

Know how to find a good balance between caring for a loved one and maintaining one's own dignity and integrity is key to maintaining well-being.