ADVICE
Settling for Conditional Love? Here’s Why You Deserve More
“I will love you if you buy this for me.”
“I’ll stay with you as long as you keep your job.”
“Stop seeing your friends, or I’ll break up with you.”
Does your partner say these to you?
Perhaps you think they’re funny or so lovingly protective. Sorry to break it to you, but these words put conditions on love. In other words, their feelings for you aren’t genuine.
You just haven’t realized it until now because your intense romantic feelings prevented you from hearing the alarm bells ringing.
I’m sure you long for a partner who can accept you, flaws and all, and whom you can depend on through thick and thin. But perhaps, in a rush to enter a relationship, you settled for what you had at that moment. I don’t blame you for doing so.
However, conditional love is dangerous, as it’s dependent on a set of criteria. As long as you meet that criteria, you can receive love. And as soon as you fail, love vanishes.
You deserve more than such limited love; here’s why.
1. Your needs are valid.
In a relationship, it’s not only about addressing your partner’s needs or listening to their views. Your opinion and needs are valid, too.
You don’t exist in a relationship to only please your partner.
Couples are on equal footing when it comes to love. One shouldn’t dominate or set criteria for the other. Instead, both parties should be helping each other through the ups and downs of life.
2. You’re enough as you are.
Conditional love tells you to look this way and not the other way. It demands that you lose weight or achieve a certain salary rate, leaving you pressured and depressed.
However, you don’t have to prove your worth to your partner. You deserve to be loved, no matter your figure or flaws, because you are enough.
3. You have the right to live freely.
Conditions put you in a box.
You become so focused on fulfilling your partner’s criteria that you forget your dreams and goals. Instead of helping you become a better person, they hinder your growth and keep you all to themselves.
However, you have the right to live freely.
Your partner should support your endeavors and trust your decisions. They should be happy to see you spread your wings, not for themselves but for your fulfillment.
4. You can achieve happiness for yourself.
More than anything, you shouldn’t be stuck in a conditional relationship because it will ultimately make you unhappy.
Your partner asks you to behave based on unrealistic ideals. And because you can’t achieve them, you’re set up to feel undue anxiety and discontent.
If a relationship only brings you down, it’s pointless to stay. You deserve to be happy, not to be used for the sake of another’s happiness.
You deserve unconditional love.
Conditional love is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It professes to be everything you ever wanted. However, with time, it will eventually reveal its true colors.
When you start feeling more lonely, drained, and unsatisfied, open your eyes and see if perhaps your partner’s conditions chain you.
If that’s the case, don’t settle. You deserve unconditional love.
