Unconditional love is one of those things that is deeply valued within human society. It is held up as the epitome of love. And because so many of us have felt the pain of only being loved if we are a certain way or if we do certain things (essentially if we meet certain conditions), so many of us are looking for someone to unconditionally love us. And so many of us are expecting ourselves to be unconditionally loving. Unconditional love seems like such a great thing, it is hard to fathom how it could ever be bad. But it can. Let me explain how. 

The first problem with unconditional love arises with the messiness around the concept of love in general. In the English language, we have this one word, love, to represent all kinds of different things. This means when we talk about love, we might be thinking that we are talking about the same thing when we are actually talking about different things.

To love something, in the truest sense of the word, is to take something as a part of yourself. To understand this more in depth, you can watch my video titled: What is Love. When you do this, you expand so that yourself and another person are like two parts within you. You don’t abandon the part that is yourself for the sake of the part of you that is the other person. It is simply that now, the best interests of both parts within you (yourself and them) are your concern. You have an intrinsic motive to want to meet both of their needs and resolve both of their pain. But this means that compatibility and incompatibility now matters to you immensely.  You cannot feel good meeting one’s needs at the expense of the other. And therefore, to truly love, you must recognize conditions for wellbeing that exist for both parts within the relationship instead of deny them.

When most people use the word love however, they don’t mean that they take someone as a part of themself. They mean to be held in a positive light. Essentially, they mean to value, like, appreciate, care about and feel deep affection for the other person. Most people are looking to be valued, liked, appreciated, felt affection for and cared about to the degree that they can have some kind of security in their relationship with that person. Most especially, security that the person who loves them will stay committed in a relationship with them. And usually committed to a specific kind of relationship. What all this boils down to is that when people say that they want unconditional love, what they really mean is that they want an unconditional relationship.

The desire to be held in a positive light unconditionally. And the desire for an unconditional relationship (what we are calling unconditional love) is where this idea of unconditional love can very easily turn into anything but love. And here is how:

1. It can cause us to slip into narcissistic, zero-sum game behavior in relationships. Rather than trying to find win-win scenarios, we may do things that are solely for our own best interests and against theirs. This automatically puts them in a lose-lose where they either give up their best interests (lose) or play a zero-sum game in return (go for a win). This makes a relationship a template for abuse or a war zone. 
2. It can completely destroy the energy exchange element of a relationship, making the relationship a one-way relationship. When we want unconditional love, we can end up wanting to get things from the other person without any expectation of giving things. This can lead to parasitic and vampiristic relationship dynamics. Relationships that are only beneficial for us, not them. We can put the other person in a desert in the relationship metaphorically speaking and drain them completely.     
3. It can cause us to flip on people in relationships and on top of this, expect there to be no consequences for doing so. Wanting unconditional love can lead us to enter into a relationship with a person where the conditions for them being happy in the relationship, positive towards us and committed to the relationship are clear and we have agreed to them, only to change our mind and with it, the agreement. When we do this, we end up changing the agreement to something that is not actually in alignment with the other person’s best interests. But we will expect them to be happy, positive towards us and stay committed in the relationship anyway. By doing this, we flip on them. But we expect no negative consequences for doing so.
4. It can lead to us subconsciously expecting the other person to have no boundaries. If we are looking for unconditional love, another person having boundaries for what is right vs. wrong for themselves and for what they want and need and for how they are treated, can make us feel like the other person has conditions for staying with us. We may only feel loved and only feel secure in a relationship when the other person doesn’t have boundaries or when we can cross any boundary without consequences in a relationship. This is very unhealthy. This can progress all the way to full blown abuse. Expecting the other person to value, like, appreciate, feel affection for and stay committed to a relationship with us, even if we treat them horribly. 
5. It can very easily get us into the “no matter what” pattern in relationships. Essentially, we may want to be accepted, included, wanted, valued, appreciated, have our needs met and have security in the relationship no matter what we do or don’t do. No matter who we are or aren’t. No matter what happens or doesn’t happen. And no matter how we stay the same or change. To learn more about this pattern, you can watch my video titled: The No Matter What Pattern in Relationships. Unfortunately, humanity is still at a point where “no matter what” is seen as a good thing in relationships. In fact, this is how a lot of people accomplish longevity in their relationships. Which is something they should not be celebrating if longevity is reached through dysfunctional means. To learn more about this, you can watch my video titled: Longevity is Not Necessarily a Measure of Success or Health in a Relationship.     
6. We can easily abuse our relationships with others by not caretaking them or the relationship at all. By neglecting them. Basically, we look to create a relationship where there is no pressure on us at all and there are no expectations imposed on us by the other person and we do not need to consider and caretake the other person’s wellbeing or best interests or feelings at all. We get into a relationship, but make them fully responsible for their own wellbeing. This is like signing up to be half of a tango team, but asserting that you will do your own dance and they must do their own dance. But expecting the other person to be fine with that. This is to want the benefits of having a relationship and to be able to keep it, without actually needing to put any energy into it. 
7. We can make the relationship 100% the other person’s responsibility, essentially giving them 100 percent of a job built for two. When we want unconditional love, we often want to be able to let go of all responsibility in the relationship. We want to be able to do or not do, be or not be. So, for the relationship to work, it is all on the other person to make it work, despite us.   
8. We can start to hold serious double standards. There will always be double standards in relationships. What is important, is that both people in a relationship agree to them. But when it comes to wanting unconditional love, we tend to have double standards that are super dysfunctional and that the other person is not actually ok with, but we expect them to be ok with. 
9. We can get into relationships with people who are incompatible to us, only to dupe them. We sell them on one thing and then try to get the other person who (due to their incompatibility) is guaranteed to not want something about us, to change their mind and want it instead. And if they don’t, we make them the bad guy for it.
10. We can fall into a pattern of no growth. When we want unconditional love, we often want to change nothing about ourselves, even if changing something is really in our best interests as well as in the best interests of others as well as in the best interests of the relationship… Even if something about us is hurting us or hurting others. So, we make everything and everyone stuck in dysfunction.      
11. We may even fall into the pattern of expecting other people to suffer so that we can feel loved. When we have a deep need to feel loved unconditionally, we may actually feel better about our relationship and feel more loved, the more pain someone is willing to go through in the relationship with us. To understand this in a more in-depth way, you can watch my video titled: The ‘Suffer So I Can Feel Loved’ Relationship Dynamic.  

And with each one of these things, if we are on the receiving end of them, expecting ourself to be unconditionally loving can lead us to being in a dysfunctional and even abusive relationship. We have fallen into serious dysfunction when we expect ourselves to put up with any of these behaviors; and worse than that, to stay positive, appreciative, valuing, affectionate and committed towards the other person and towards the relationship despite these behaviors. It is all too common when we hold ourselves to the standard of unconditional love, that even though it is the other person who is being deeply unloving in the relationship, it is us who will be called unloving for not putting up with the behavior and for having conditions for being positive and for being in the relationship. And the tragedy is, we may actually fall into believing this.

When it comes to relationships, unconditionality is a myth. If you would like to dive deeper into this subject, you can watch my video titled: The Truth and The Myth of Unconditional Love. There are conditions in every relationship. When we point to the relationship that a parent has with a child as an example of unconditional love, all we are doing is pointing to the relationship that often has the least conditions placed upon it. Meaning a parent often has the least number of conditions for a child in order to hold them in positive regard and be committed to a relationship with them.

Seeing the danger of what we are calling “unconditional love” (which is really just unconditional positive regard and unconditional commitment to a relationship) can cause you to stop looking for it and instead to set your sights on what conditions actually feel good to you and which ones don’t in a relationship. It may be beneficial to ask yourself: Do I really expect the other person to hold me in unconditional positive regard and be unconditionally committed in the relationship if I do (fill in the blank). Could I hold them in unconditional positive regard and be unconditionally committed in the relationship if they did the same thing?         

The reality is that everyone has different conditions for their relationships and most people have different conditions for each one of the different types of relationships in their life.  

What you want is the person whose conditions, you actually feel good about and who actually feels good about your conditions… A relationship where you can feel safe with the conditions.

This means, if you want unconditional love, there are certain conditions which you are not ok with in a relationship. You need to clearly define what conditions you are not ok with so that you can find someone who does not have those specific conditions.  

Just remember that the expectation of unconditionality can lead you down a very, very dark road in relationships.