What unconditional love IS and what it’s NOT.
Love is a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, many narcissistic and abusive people have been using the phrase “unconditional love” to gaslight their partners into accepting their abusive and harmful behavior. What unconditional love IS and what it’s NOT.
Full Video Transcript
Peace family. This is Christina, and I'm out here walking little Buff Buff she's being super super cute.
I wanted to talk about unconditional love. I've been seeing a lot of people talk about unconditional love out here and interestingly I feel like it's the people who are literally the walking red flag who are like, "You should have unconditional love for me, we should have unconditional love for each other."
I totally believe in unconditional love. I feel like unconditional love has definitely been demonstrated to me by my parents, and I'm really grateful for that, so I have a really good sense of what unconditional love really is, where it's giving and you can mess up and the person is still there for you right, and you can make a mistake and you're not rejected. You're not kicked out of the house. These people will still continue to love you and help you. That is unconditional love.
But unconditional love I feel like is a phrase that is being used right now by highly abusive people. I just keep seeing this, which is why I had to make this video. I keep seeing them say, "We're supposed to have unconditional love for each other. You're supposed to love me," but it it's these people who are saying that who are like cheaters, they're cheating on you, they might be putting you down emotionally, trying to make you feel bad about yourself.
Let's say you're trying to start a business, they'll sit out here and poo poo your little business like it's stupid. "Why are you doing that? It so silly. You think that's going to make any money? You think that's going to do something?" putting down your efforts.
You you go above and beyond to help them, and they're like, "You thought you did something for me? You didn't even do that much."
And you're sitting here trying to do more and more and more, and these people are like, "You should have unconditional love for me."
And then this person's out here cheating on you, they're talking about they want to be polyamorous. They want to bring other people into the relationship and you're supposed to keep having unconditional love for them even as they cheat on you and bring other people into the relationship and abuse you. They might physically abuse you, they might emotionally abuse you in your mind, and these are the people who are talking about you should have unconditional love for them.
I'm not arguing for conditional love. My argument is that is not love in the first place. That's abuse. That's narcissism,, and anyone who is abusing you and manipulating your mind and cheating on you and putting you down and calling it unconditional love doesn't love you in the first place.
Here's the part that I think a lot of narcissistic and abusive people are really missing about unconditional love. Unconditional love does not mean that we expect people to put up with our crap forever. That's not what unconditional love is supposed to mean.
Yes, if you're in a relationship and you make a mistake, a true mistake that was not intentional, of course, of course you want the person to forgive you, and you would want to forgive them. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about people who are in cycles of abuse and repetitively treating their partner badly and then asking for unconditional love. Well, to me that's not love in the first place. And to me unconditional love means that I love you so much that I'm willing to make a change in myself because I see that you're hurting.
So if I'm doing something, let's say want to be polyamorous, but you don't, and we're in a relationship, and I'm continuing to date other men and sleep with other people while we're in a relationship, and I want to tell you, "Well you're supposed to have unconditional love for me because we love each other. I have unconditional love for you so you should have unconditional love for me while I'm out here cheating on you and being poly."
If it's hurting you, and you are telling me that it hurts you, then unconditional love would not mean that you just have to put up with it. Unconditional love would mean that I should be willing to change because I see that I'm hurting you, and that's where I feel like a lot of these narcissists and a lot of these abusers out here, when they use unconditional love, they they use it almost like a weapon on you. They use the weapon on their mark, on their partner to say, "You should just put up with all the things I'm doing to you because because you have to unconditional love for me."
But where is the unconditional love on their part? Where is their unconditional love that says "I love love you so much that I see that I'm deeply hurting you. I see that you're crying. I see that your mood has changed, you're disturbed and that my actions are hurting you."
Where is their responsibility in this where it says, "I love you so much that I'm going to stop cheating or I'm going to stop hurting you or I'm going to stop whatever it is. That to me is true unconditional love. it's not expecting someone else to do something, but it's actually changing yourself.
That to me is the hardest part and that's the biggest form of love, I think to say that I'm willing to let go of something that I might really want. So let's say that person really wants to be poly and really likes to have sex with other women all over the place. To me the biggest act of love would be to say, "You know what? I really want to do that but I'm not just because I love you that much.
Something to think about.
Love you guys. Peace.
Christina V. Mills is the creator of Liveology® Yoga Studios & Magazine and our products. She is a lifelong spiritual seeker, writer, and yoga teacher. Follow her on Instagram @morelifemoreyoga.
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Peace & Pineapples!
