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.
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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.
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Love feels amazing.
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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.
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Love feels amazing (this one is important!)
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We often find excuses to not feel love (he is in a bad mood, he said something hurtful, he doesn’t support me).
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Love feels amazing (getting the message?)