You’re married yet you still do not feel quite happy enough. You say that your marriage lacks unconditional love.
And certainly unconditional love sounds so wonderful.
But what is it?
And what’s the difference between conditional versus unconditional love?
I share my own opinion and others’ views on the matter that I’ve personally, hand-picked from some blogs on the internet.
You’ll find them further down on this post.
But first I prefer to start with something more entertaining.
I’m a big fan of the social media platform Pinterest. You can view my Pinterest boards @https://www.pinterest.com/Infidelity1stAK/boards/
So I decided to assemble a list of my favorite unconditional love quotes that I’ve discovered on Pinterest.
Please tell me if you like any of these quotes at the bottom of this post.
-Saved by Jana Smith to “Quotes” board
-Saved by Happy Sonship to “Words to Live By” board
-Saved by Melvin Everett Spencer III to “Quote Me” board
-Saved by MsMelEdwards to “Depression Smackdown” board
-Saved by Brent Farris to “Battle of the Sexes” board
-Saved by Trend Central to “#Inspirational and Fun” board
-Saved by Janet Perez to “Love, Sex, Intelligence” board
-Save by Nick to “The feels” board
-Saved by Lorrie to “Words” board
-Saved by Jessi James to “Unconditional love Quotes” board
Now if you’d like let’s take a deeper look into definitions and examples of conditional and unconditional love in marriage.
To me, conditional love means that we are willing to pull away from our connection under certain circumstances.
Furthermore, it’s the kind of love in marriage that could describe a couple whose relationship lives and dies on outcomes.
These outcomes rely on your spouse doing something for you and in turn your level of satisfaction depends on his/her actions.
So basically you love your spouse provided he or she continues to fulfill your needs and vice versa.
And that’s where your stomach begins to churn as you realize what you define as your happiness is completely out of your hands.
Your spouse treats you well until you do something he/she doesn’t like, and let’s face it, that happens more times than we’d like.
This type of drama-filled, roller-coaster-ride relationship feels insecure and unsafe.
We wait around and hope that our spouse will fuel our self-worth tanks with love.
Thus we unrealistically, involuntarily assign our spouses the never-ending, impossible job of defeating our loneliness and keeping us happy.
“If only my husband said that he loved me more, I’d feel happier,” or “I need my wife to touch me more”, represent examples of conditions we expect in order to feel fulfilled in our marriages.
That’s exactly how my marriages went.
One moment I felt like I was in heaven as I soared through white, puffy clouds and glided past rainbows.
The next moment, my life thunderously plundered from the sky and crash landed on the ground.
I’d bet you could relate.
What would it look like to you?
HINT: I’d love for you to share you opinion at the bottom of this post.Let’s take a couple different views of how some define it.
The most common worldly view would probably say unconditional love leads to long-lasting relationships because it is self-less. You give without expecting much in return.
I personally highly respect this view.
When we push and prod our partners to constantly give more eventually this leads to resentment.
Even the most skilled couples at conflict resolution would struggle to overcome selfish, conditional love.
Certified life coach and blogger Barrie Davenport says that a relationship based on unconditional love beings with the healthy individual.
This means that you can live happily on your own without a romantic partner. And within the relationship itself you accept and support your partner as they are without asking them to change.
I invite you to read her interesting, in-depth article Unconditional Love: The Key to Lasting Relationships. In it she shares her opinion of traits that make up a healthy, long-lasting relationship.
Now let’s look at unconditional love from a different viewpoint.
For Christians unconditional love, done the way God designed it, means to make the two individuals into one.
The husband, wife and God live in a healthy, love triangle. The couple follows God’s selfless plan for love where they serve each other, their family and their community.
In doing so they strive to participate as a team to create a safe and loving environment around them. This Godly environment shields itself from deeds and temptations that could damage their peaceful existence and of those around them.
Jennifer Smith and owner of the popular blog UnveiledWife.com, shares how her marriage finally benefited from this Godly love triangle after many years of struggling with the concept.
“One lesson that I have learned is that marriage works the best when I have a strong unity of peace and intimacy in my relationship with God and my husband. It took me years to embrace this truth, but once I did, I understood the amazing value.”
Jennifer Smith, owner of UnveiledWife.com
At the blog AllProDad.com I came across this post that lists 5 qualities of unconditional love in marriage based on God’s design.
In the first quality the author states his opinion that the marriage serves as the beginning that provides the opportunity to create a self-less, spiritual and emotional union which mirrors the bond between God and His church (the people, his followers).
Check out the post on AllProDad.com here.
Whether you follow the Christian design for marriage or not I think we all agree that long-lasting love appeals to us more than a short-lived relationship.
None of us enters into a marriage with the goal of divorce in mind.
And a marriage between a two partners who expect each other to fill unrealistic emotional voids will not last forever.
And this is where unconditional love in marriage characterizes itself in selfless-ness.
Each approach to this kind of pure love, whether Godly or worldly, places high priority on their partner’s needs which paves the way for a peaceful, compassionate relationship.
Share your opinions below.
Hope you enjoyed my post on unconditional love. Check out my related post 25 Healthy Relationship Traits.
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