Name: Katherine Guevara

Instructor: Daniel Teel

Date: Monday, July 24, 2017

Unconditional Love or Happy Suffering

‘Between desire and reality, there is an intersection point: love.’ (Octavio Paz). The

great majority of people that look up for help on a psychologist office for couples is due

to the unfortunate feeling of dissatisfaction with their emotional sphere and thus with their

lives. These kinds of destructive and toxic relationships are sustained on the irrational idea

of romanticism that approves and worships ´unconditional love´. Being unconditional in

love is a terrifying idea rooted in our culture that promotes happy suffering, lack of interest

in one´s own, and the renunciation of the self.

First of all, it is imperative to mention that the basis that leads to the presence of

great indicators of abuse, mistreatment and dysfunctional relationships have been sadly

justified on the idea of unconditional and limitless love. In fact, the cultural and traditional

thought about the meaning of true love has been related with the romantic perception

of love since the ´Stage of Romanticism´ during history. Moreover, true love has been

considered as an aim that justifies everything, even the extreme point where dignity must

be sacrificed. To be specific, at present, it is common that society claps attitudes of

perseverance and fight for an ordinary and troublesome relationship where abuse is the

common denominator. Furthermore, this way of thinking can reach pathologic attitudes

of dominance and submission that promotes inequity and insanity. Therefore, the

unconditional love that society and media worship promotes the idea of being fighting

against anything to preserve love, although it brings about happy suffering.

 Initially, the worship of abnegation does seem to be the only possible rule in order

to validate a couple such as a model relationship. For instance, relationships enter in a

´everything matters affective´ similar to a time bomb, where being for the other -the

boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse- is totally validated, while being for oneself would be

considered as a heresy. Additionally, true love does not have to justify everything. In

particular, if that was considered as normal, it would be even rape human rights, ethics

and justice. Furthermore, it is important to understand that the frightening idea of ´I do

not care about what you do with me, I will always love you the same´ is the most insane

way of being in a relationship. For example, many people are involved in awful

relationships with high quantities of disinterest, disqualification, violence, heartbreak, and

hoax during years. As previously stated, unconditional love promotes lack of interest in

one´s own.

It is important to realize that a person does not have to be victim of love to feel

that is experiencing the utopia of love. One of the three fundamental principles is realizing

that real and healthy love is when the other person has a reciprocal love to offer. Some

people have the idea of fighting and giving until the last breath in order to revive a love

where only one person sustains it, with a hopelessly thought that one day this sad situation

may change. Another important principle of healthy love is to know that if the relationship

that a person has limits its growth, it is not worth enough. Many times, in name of love,

many people tend to take ownership of the other, trying to direct their decisions and their

lives, truncating their dreams and eliminating their autonomy. Moreover, the most

important column of healthy love is having conscience that if the other person of the

relationship infringes the values and principles of a person, it must not be named real and

unlimited love. Many people may put up with situations of violence of their principles,
being forced to do things that they do not agree with. Hence, being unconditional in

love is a terrifying idea rooted in our culture that promotes the renunciation of the self.

To conclude, violence to human rights must never be justified as unlimited and

unconditional love. It may be difficult for a person to detach a way of thinking with which

he or she grew up with. Being warned that unconditional in love is a terrifying idea rooted

in our culture that promotes happy suffering, lack of interest in one´s own, and the

renunciation of the self is the only way of true love to one self and therefore to the other.

Consequently, it is important to reconsider all the ideas about what truly love is, and if it

does not offer more than toxicity to self-esteem, it must be reoriented to another kind of

love, a more elevated way of love: self-love.