Romantic love has been one of our biggest fascinations for centuries, so you’d think we’d have a good understanding of what it is by now. And yet, when we hear people talk about love, we quickly come to see that we’re painfully ignorant.
Because passion is not absolute; the greater majority of partners do not go on ‘until death do us part’. And the love for our significant other is very much not unconditional.
But we love to pretend that love is all these things, even though we’re painfully aware of its limitations.
We experience it with our parents, whom we often love deeply but not enough to pick up the phone every time they call. We feel it with our children, whom we care for more than anything in the world and yet we find ourselves counting down the minutes until they go to bed. And we, of course, notice it with our partner, who can fill us with rage just by saying something in the wrong tone.
Our loved ones have a knack for behaving in ways that get on our nerves. If we’re fortunate, that’s as bad as it gets. But when we’re victims of lies, ambivalence, and betrayal, the cut goes deep.
That’s when the strength of our love is stretched to its limits. Continuing to love someone who has hurt us deeply can feel impossible, especially when they’re also the person who’s supposed to be our greatest ally.
Now that our world is upside down and nothing makes sense, we start to doubt everything: our partner, our feelings, our choices, and if we’re lucky, unconditional love itself.
Although a noble goal, further reflection suggests that love without boundaries is something only a parent can give to their child. Although needing constant care, a child doesn’t make the large demands we adults do. It doesn’t demand you help with the household chores, it doesn’t demand you attend an office party next Friday, and it doesn’t insist you listen to them vent after a tiring day at work.
Since babies only need the most basic emotional and physical needs, parents can offer their unwavering and self-sacrificial support. But no matter how much we care about our partner, adult relationships can’t be limitless. Our complex emotional needs forbid it.
Adult love requires a balance of give and take, boundaries, and mutual understanding.
Although we might deeply crave parental love from our lover, it’s not something that can be given once we cross the threshold of adulthood.
Why?
We can’t reasonably expect anyone to cater to our every need. It’s simply too much to ask. Especially when we consider that our partner might be in the mood for completely different things than us. And that’s okay.
As long as our relationship doesn’t have too many ups and downs, unmet needs aren’t necessarily a sign that our relationship is going poorly. They’re a stark reminder that maturity is telling us to take better care of ourselves and to love our partner even when we don’t like every part of them.
Saying you only love unconditionally sounds nice. But it’s not true. And since it often stands in such sharp contrast to how we really feel, neither is it good for us or the person we care about.
What’s normal and healthy is to occasionally dislike the person we love. It presents an opportunity to get to know ourselves again like when we didn’t have a partner to lean on.