My husband and I have an ongoing discussion about unconditional love and respect. Suffice it to say we would like more of both in our relationship. Recently we had a friend over and were taking to her about our mixed faith marriage and was filling her in on our perspectives (picture the presidential debates with me representing love on one side and my husband representing respect on the other with our  friend as the moderator.) As you can well imagine debating didn’t lead to any great resolutions but it got me thinking about the two ideas.

I wanted to dive into these two concepts, as I think there are misconceptions about both.

Unconditional Love: Feeling love for someone, on purpose, regardless of what they do.

• Feeling love is always an option. You do not need to agree with them, spend time with them, or talk to them to feel love for someone.

• Love feels amazing.

• Others do not feel your emotions. Your emotions are caused by your thoughts. When you love someone they do not feel it – you do. You benefit from feeling love, you suffer from not feeling love.

• Love feels amazing (this one is important!)

• We often find excuses to not feel love (he is in a bad mood, he said something hurtful, he doesn’t support me).

• Love feels amazing (getting the message?)

Respect:     1. A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

2. Due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others.

I teach my clients that their thoughts cause their emotions then others cannot hurt them because they do not cause their emotions their thoughts do.

Some ask me – Does this mean that I can do and say what ever I want  and that is their problem if they feel hurt?

Isn’t that disregarding their feelings/wishes/traditions?

My response is that not taking responsibility for others thoughts and feelings is very different than deliberately attacking or disregarding someones feeling, wish or traditions.

When we allow others to take responsibility for their own thoughts and emotions we are allowing them to be themselves.

When we take responsibility for others emotions this leads to control and manipulation and co-dependence.

When they are responsible for our happiness we are disempowered and need then to act in certain ways in order to be happy.

Respect flourishes when you decide to be emotionally responsible and love on purpose, that is powerful!

Love and respect make a good couple.

Would you like to have more love and respect in your mixed faith marriage and not sure where to begin?

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Talk to you soon,

Brooke Booth
Life Coach
mormoncouples.com
mormoncouples.com@gmail.com