We all know what unconditional love is and how to apply it in a proper way. We all know parents love for their children must be unconditional, Gods love for his creation is always unconditional, and we know we need to develop unconditional love if we love someone truly. Unconditional means, love someone without any effort to change someone’s behavior, personality, and beliefs- accepting others with all shortcomings, limitations and weaknesses. We all know it very well and expect the same love from others too.

Here, I am focusing on the love that needs not to be unconditional or there will not be any love at all. Have you experienced any kind of abuse in your life? If yes, then do you love your abuser? If yes, then you need not to love him anymore. Any kind of torture, abuse, discrimination and violation of human rights must not be appreciated, encouraged, or beloved in any scenario. Of course the abuser, criminal, or discriminator should not be hated as their actions need to be condemned. But what about love?

Would we be able to love such personalities? Is it in our hand to love someone who is giving pain to us? Is it in our hand to separate the two things: crime and criminal? Linguistically or theoretically, it is possible to separate the two things but practically and physically it is hard to distinguish between the two.

We cannot love someone who is giving torture, who is an abuser, or who is the violator of basic human rights. Yes, we can forgive him/her and wish him/her a prosperous life and happiness with the awareness of his/her criminality. We can teach him/her on how to leave bad habits and facilitate him/her in the recovery process. We can donate something to him/her and his family for the sake of goodness and humbleness but we cannot be able to love him/her. Should we?

Till the time, someone is in the zone of criminality and not guilty on his/her deeds, he or she must not be loved. God himself loves those who care for humanity, who are gentle in nature, and express their gratitude all the time. God is not with abusers, cheaters, thieves, liars, killers, rapists and seducers.

Similarly we cannot separate a good deed from a person's personality. We are impressed by nice behavior, cool conduct, polite attitude, and empathetic minds. We love the people who care for us, who help us out, who share with us and who support us in one way or the other. We just cannot see them without their personality aspects. or can we?

People, who simply want others to love them unconditionally, are at fault. Even mothers need to take care of their children's feelings in everyday life. When they ignore them largely (punish them, shout at them, and panic them) for a long time, love bond between the two will be at risk too. Such as in the cases of abuse (between parents and children) children will not keep on loving their parents unconditionally – the time will come when there will not be any love between the two.

Although we all need the love that is basically unconditional from others but at the same time we do not accept others unconditionally. When someone dear to us, go against our nature, does something that annoys us, shows enmity to us, curses us, yells at us, shows disrespect to us, humiliates us, degrades us, makes us vulnerable, or does anything against us that we severely condemn, we all become sick and our love is no more there. At the end, we will not be in love- conditional or unconditional.

To give punishment for crimes, to stop someone from being rude, to correct someone by force, or not to help someone in doing fraud, are all kinds of love for humanity. If we understand that to love someone unconditionally does not mean to accept him/her being abusive or torturous, then we can promote unconditional love and claim to have one. Otherwise we will put ourselves in a vicious circle of disappointment, depression, anxiety and frustration.

Likewise, we need to understand that someone’s unconditional love for us does not mean he/she accepts our irrational and intolerable behavior. He/she has a right to save his/her life whenever it is in danger irrespective of the love he/she keeps for us. Only by this way, we can maintain a healthy unconditional love for someone.

To conclude, love is always there but its quality is likely to improve if someone we love fulfills our expectations and shares many things with us in one way or the other. Love need not to be conditional in any case, but it is likely to fade with time, if we ignore basic human rights, relationship needs and do not concern to others in the time of need. We do not define conditions on our love intentionally as they are in our unconscious mind and we associate our love with them indirectly. When we do not get what we need for a long time from the person we love, we stop loving him/her and the love (unconditional) is simply not there. The same is true for any kind of relationship except God and His Creation.
Thanks

Author's Bio: 

Mona Aeysha, PhD, is an Educational and Developmental Psychologist, have been working as a Teacher, Counselor and Researcher in several institutes of China, Pakistan and Cambodia. Her major areas of interest are: self –esteem, self-concept, conceptual psychology, belief psychology, self psychology, preferential psychology, cultural psychology and women psychology.
You are always welcome to contact her via email if you have any query in this regard.
Thanks
Dr Mona