Okay.. You might love katty perry song's "unconditionally"
As a person in relationship. When its all get hard, we often said "how could he/she do that? He's supposed to love me unconditionally."
OK, full stop.
First off, whenever I hear that someone is supposed to do anything in a relationship, an alarm goes off in my head.
The phrase "supposed to" is basically the same as saying the
word "should": it's a poisonous mindset word for relationships.
It has a tone of blaming, shaming and coercing the other person to do what you want them to do... or else.
More importantly, when I heard She/he say that the partner supposed to "love unconditionally," I thought to myself, "Wait... do You seriously think that?"
Granted, I am very precise in the way I say things and how I use language. So let's make clear what it means to do something "unconditionally"...
To do something unconditionally means that you do it without any criteria, conditions or expectations.
In other words, if man said thay, means he was saying that he believed that she's supposed to "love him" no matter what he does or doesn't do, how he acts, etc.
He's essentially saying,
"Welp, my job is done. I'm in a relationship, she loves me, so I don't have to do anything... She will just love me forever and it doesn't matter if I stop doing the things that I used to do at
the beginning of the relationship, please her in the ways I used to please her or act like the guy she fell in love with.. No more goodmorning.. No need impression."
Sadly, our culture believes that!! You think once you have a relationship, you can kick back and life somehow gets easier. You think You can get lazy and not worry about your relationship since that area is handled.
(And I'm not talking about just Man, I'm talking about everyone: men and women.)
Sample case of woman Lazyness:
My buddy got married a couple years ago and now has a son. His wife has gained about "50 pounds" since when they first started dating. (Due to selfcare lazyness)
My buddy does love his wife, but he reluctantly told me that he no longer feels any attraction to his wife and is ashamed that he finds himself resorting to porn and checking out other women.
Now before I continue with the story, I know a lot of women are reading this and thinking This sounding like a total jerk for daring to bring up a woman's weight gain, let alone
suggesting that love has conditions.
I don't want to upset you. I don't want to hurt your feelings. And no, I don't believe that relationship success falls 100% on the woman or Man.
All I know is that if you want success, then you deserve to know what will bring you success - someone needs to tell you the truth, even if it's unsettling sometimes.
Back to the story about my friend and his wife...
At one point, they were having dessert at a friend's house and she got up for a second piece of cake. My buddy quietly said to her, "Babe... you really shouldn't be eating two pieces of cake."
She smiled at him, looked him right in the eyes as she shoveled a delicious forkful of chocolate cake into her mouth and said, "I know... but it's OK baby... you love me."
As you could imagine, my buddy feels trapped in the relationship, helpless and hopeless - he loves his wife and doesn't want to leave her, but any time he tries to guide her to being the girl she used to be (the girl he fell in love with) she feel it's unnecessary, since he's supposed to love her unconditionally. Lol.
Here's my point: Relationships DO have conditions. Love might not, but relationship and attraction does.
Look, you selected each other basedc on a criteria. There were conditions.
I can't imagine that either you or your man just threw on a blindfold, pointed at a crowd of people and randomly chose each other.
You met each other's conditions for a relationship partner and you expected that you would both continue to meet each others conditions.
Yes you love each other, but a relationship is more than just love.
Relationships have conditions! Biological attraction has conditions!
Hate to be the one who breaks the bad news, but it's true... the good news is there's a much better approach to relationships that will work great for you...
A much more helpful view of relationships is that you are in service of one another. The man you are with gives to you in loving service as best he can... and you give to him in loving service as best you can too.
That's much different than our culture's attitude of,
"Welp, I'm married. Glad that's handled - time to sit back and let a
lifetime of perfect love just effortlessly happen for me."
It sounds ridiculous when I say it outright like that, but that's the silent and deadly attitude most people have about love and relationships - like it's something you lock in and it's just handled, instead of an
ongoing constant... relationship.
I remember someone suggesting something excellent once that stuck with me
He spoke to an old man who had been married happily for 70 years or so. And when he ask the old man his secret, the old man said,
"We just kept repeating the first 90 days of our relationship. We never stopped 'dating' each other."
Damn! Amazing how simple is that?!
If you want the best relationship and love life possible, then...
The things that attracted you to each other at the beginning of your relationship should never stop. The things that made you fall in love with each other should never stop.
Again, our culture has this weird idea that dating is meant to get someone on the hook and then once you've got them you can just be a slob afterwards.
And you might think that I sound jaded and cynical, but there's
a reason why most marriages end in acrimonious divorce today.
I need to say the hard truth ! someone needs to try and help.
Yes, obviously the man needs to be holding up his side of the relationship. But every day you are in the relationship, you're choosing to be.
She or He's not forcing you. They
doesn't have a gun to your head. So if he's truly not servicing you in your relationship, you can leave...
But if you choose to stay with her/him... and you want the best love life and relationship possible... you need to look at a relationship as dating that person forever and being at your best, brightest, most attractive self in service of your relationship.
When you come from that place in a relationship, that's when you start seeing him/her show up in the way that you remember her/him being at the beginning too.