06 Aug “Authentic love for another is rejoicing in the loved one’s very existence.” (JORGE & DEMIAN BUCAY)
It feels very good to say to someone that we’ll love them regardless of what happens. The classic wedding vows — “in sickness and in health,” “for richer, for poorer,” and “until death do us part” — can be regarded as promises to love a partner unconditionally, which we know isn’t possible.
In everyday life, people really like to ask these sorts of questions and give these sorts of answers: “Would you still love me if I gained forty pounds?”
“Of course!”
“Would you still love me if I were poor?
“For sure!”
It’s not that these answers are lies. But what’s not guaranteed is that we’ll love someone come what may. A lot of the time, we insist we will because we feel it’s the best way to show how much we love them. People tend to regard love that has conditions as being of lower quality or somehow inauthentic, but that’s not the case. The amount of love we feel for our partners, friends, and parents will always be conditioned by things that happen in the relationship. It’s not guaranteed that we’ll always love them regardless of what happens or what they do, nor that they’ll always love us, no matter what we do. If your friend cheats you out of your money again and again, it’s not only probable you’ll stop liking him, it’s definitely a healthy thing for you to do so; if someone treats a partner violently, one would hope that the victim will fall out of love with the abuser; if an ex-husband or ex-wife uses their children to manipulate their former spouse, whatever love might have survived the separation is logically at risk.
My uncle Rafael used to tell an old joke that illustrates just how painful ‘love’ can be when it’s too conditioned by things that have nothing to do with love.
Jacobo says to his girlfriend (who’s thirty years younger than him), “Margarita, will you still love me if I lose all my money, even the last cent?”
She gives him a smile and a sappy hug and says, “Of course I will, my love. And I’ll miss you tons!”
Of course, there are things we let slide when it comes to the person we love but wouldn’t accept from anyone else; there are characteristics we think are amazing when it’s our partner who has them but that perhaps don’t impress us in someone else; there are also flaws we can handle in others but don’t tolerate in the person we share a home with. What’s certain is that we don’t put up with — nor should we put up with — another person telling us what to do just because they love us. Love isn’t about imposing conditions; if it’s authentic love, it frees us instead. The tacit or explicit expectation that a person’s love be unconditional clearly leads to the worst problems a couple or two people in any type of committed relationship will face.
The horizon to which all healthy love should aspire (and the love between parents and children is no exception) is independent of the conditionality or unconditionality of the emotion itself, and it is most beautifully expressed in the following words by Joseph Zinker: “Authentic love for another is rejoicing in the loved one’s very existence.”
I think that’s what we should be aiming for in all our relationships: learning to love someone simply because they exist and to celebrate their presence in our life without asking them to be one way or another, without hoping they’ll change or meet our expectations. This is a good and healthy way to love someone and of course it’s very difficult to do.
Of Parents and Children: Tools for Nurturing a Lifelong Relationship
Jorge Bucay& Demian Bucay
