Eternal Disaster
IHaveDemonsInMyHead
- Aug 3, 2025
- 48
I have never seen it so I just want to know if others have experienced it.
Alexandra_
Don't Fear the Reaper
- Sep 30, 2023
- 569
I am not capable of love and have never experienced it. But I know for sure that true love exists. It is the most beautiful feeling in the world. It is the most important thing in life. There is no point in living without a soulmate - this is my opinion
Dejected 55
Elementalist
- May 7, 2025
- 859
Conceptually, I believe it can. I am sure I have felt it for others... but I've never experienced it in return, so it is all theoretical.
SilentSadness
Floating in neverland.
- Feb 28, 2023
- 1,471
Sadly no, unconditional love does not exist. Love is a contract between humans. Outside of personal gain, most people viciously hate others and want to see them suffer as much as possible. Sorry that you are in this mess.
Dejected 55
Elementalist
- May 7, 2025
- 859
Is there anyone in your life that you ever loved who is now dead, and thus incapable of loving or doing anything at all for you? Do you still love that person? That's just one example of unconditional love.
yawdrareg
Live or die. Make your choice.
- Jul 27, 2025
- 30
i receive unconditional love from my parents but i wish they didn't sometimes so it would be easier to leave them. it hurts to think about.
FoxSauce
Emotional unstable like and IKEA table
- Aug 23, 2024
- 698
Yeah especially parents. When parents say they love their children equally im a bit skeptical beacuse I've been proved to time and time again that it has to be earned.
Not all parents are like this of but for my mom and other households is the norm.
Not all parents are like this of but for my mom and other households is the norm.
Pluto
Cat Extremist
- Dec 27, 2020
- 5,454
not-2-b-the-answer
Archangel
- Mar 23, 2018
- 10,677
Maybe from pets...
I can always unconditionally love cats.
I believe so, at least like other people, animals truly feel like unconditional love.
derpyderpins
missing everybody
- Sep 19, 2023
- 2,121
I don't think you really want unconditional love, right? If one side is abusive, there shouldn't be love, right? It's not nice to picture someone beating someone else and wanting the victim to still have love for the abuser.
But I understand the sentiment. Reasonably conditioned love: can I have love that lasts even if I fail, or if things go badly. If I'm still myself, still trying and still caring about the other person, will they still love me even if I mess up or if my situation changes? If I get fired, if I become disabled, etc.
The answer is that sure it exists and can exist.
Of course, all of this love starts with something, call it a condition or whatever you'd like. No one just manifests out of thin air to devote their heart to someone else.
But I understand the sentiment. Reasonably conditioned love: can I have love that lasts even if I fail, or if things go badly. If I'm still myself, still trying and still caring about the other person, will they still love me even if I mess up or if my situation changes? If I get fired, if I become disabled, etc.
The answer is that sure it exists and can exist.
Of course, all of this love starts with something, call it a condition or whatever you'd like. No one just manifests out of thin air to devote their heart to someone else.
Dejected 55
Elementalist
- May 7, 2025
- 859
Being "required" to love an abuser isn't conditional love... it's torture. Unconditional love doesn't mean you are required to love everyone. Unconditional love just means you love without expecting or demanding something in return. It doesn't mean you have to love someone who hurts you.
gottacheckout
Arcanist
- May 20, 2025
- 439
Ever since I rescued The Lunatic from this
She has shown me unconditional love
She has shown me unconditional love
Not sure really. Our parents and family members are evolutionarily engineered to love us- surely? The best way to ensure your own genes survival is to have children and make sure they survive. You are more likely to take care of them if you feel a strong bond towards them. I suspect we've evolved to experience the sensation of love towards our partners and children. Both seem like good ways to protect the gene line- which is all that nature/ evolution is interested in. So, in a sense, I'm not sure love is even freely given in some situations- it's evolutionarily ingrained. Although, I suppose there are some parents who don't love their children.
As for friendships and other relationships- surely, we are attracted to people that fulfil a need we have and, vice versa. Otherwise, we would be equally good friends and love absolutely everyone! What makes some people special? The way they make us feel most likely- because they fit our needs and us theirs more than other people do- they meet certain conditions that other people don't.
I suppose we can feel empathy towards a being we don't even know- especially if they are in distress. That can be a sort of love I suppose but then, it's more of a sympathy response- surely? We are projecting what we think we'd feel in that situation and then, feeling empathy towards ourselves in that situation. If we got to actually know them, chances are we would either like them and continue to feel concerned about them. What if we found out something intolerable about them though? Would we continue to see them in the same light? I tend to think our relationships are conditional.
Of course, we all have different standards, different needs. Some people like a large friend group. They don't seem to care if some of those people are 'fair weather friends'. They'll even tolerate negative behaviour if they only to get a few positive things thrown in too. I think it kind of depends on how great our need is for people- even partners, as to how much shit we'll tolerate! I doubt I would tolerate any but then- I don't feel the need to have many people in my life. I'd still say love is mostly conditional though. It's just that our standards in what we'll tolerate varies.
As for friendships and other relationships- surely, we are attracted to people that fulfil a need we have and, vice versa. Otherwise, we would be equally good friends and love absolutely everyone! What makes some people special? The way they make us feel most likely- because they fit our needs and us theirs more than other people do- they meet certain conditions that other people don't.
I suppose we can feel empathy towards a being we don't even know- especially if they are in distress. That can be a sort of love I suppose but then, it's more of a sympathy response- surely? We are projecting what we think we'd feel in that situation and then, feeling empathy towards ourselves in that situation. If we got to actually know them, chances are we would either like them and continue to feel concerned about them. What if we found out something intolerable about them though? Would we continue to see them in the same light? I tend to think our relationships are conditional.
Of course, we all have different standards, different needs. Some people like a large friend group. They don't seem to care if some of those people are 'fair weather friends'. They'll even tolerate negative behaviour if they only to get a few positive things thrown in too. I think it kind of depends on how great our need is for people- even partners, as to how much shit we'll tolerate! I doubt I would tolerate any but then- I don't feel the need to have many people in my life. I'd still say love is mostly conditional though. It's just that our standards in what we'll tolerate varies.
Eternal Disaster
IHaveDemonsInMyHead
- Aug 3, 2025
- 48
Good luck. I created this thread after I realised my dad's love is conditional.
I'm so sorry.
This place is a fucking horror show, I never knew life could be this bad
FadingSnowFake
Enlightened
- Nov 25, 2024
- 1,042
Yes, love without any conditions attached. Just simple love. Hard to find, or to allow to happen for some, like me. To let go, completely trusting someone to love you. To accept and believe that nothing is stronger than the mutual love, which needs no contract. Aka cursed love, cause once found, it's just about impossible to live without the person.
Love exists. But unconditional love does not, we are all human and have our own needs and fears that we protect.
I have experienced great romantic love. That is a thrilling, all-encompassing feeling. It feels like it makes worth while when it's going on, but it doesn't last more than weeks-months-a year.
Sustained love isn't thrilling. It makes life richer, but it's not perfect. You have disagreements and disappointments. You impose your weaknesses on each other. At the best you are support for each other, at the worst you make each other miserable.
So is love a good thing in life? Yes! Does it transform depression, mental health, other challenges? Not really.
Dejected 55
Elementalist
- May 7, 2025
- 859
I have to say... unconditional love is hard. Not because you want something in return... but if you aren't loved, even conditionally in return... it is hard to endure one-sided unconditional love.
I feel like I have experienced it. Feeling unconditional love, that is. I have never received it. I really haven't even felt conditional love from others to me... no love at all. Conditional like, maybe? If that is a thing... people that used me for things and pretended to like me as long as I supplied the things... but never loved.
Unconditional love isn't hard to maintain even without reciprocation... it is unconditional after all. I just mean it is hard because if you aren't receiving love, you feel alone.
I feel like I have experienced it. Feeling unconditional love, that is. I have never received it. I really haven't even felt conditional love from others to me... no love at all. Conditional like, maybe? If that is a thing... people that used me for things and pretended to like me as long as I supplied the things... but never loved.
Unconditional love isn't hard to maintain even without reciprocation... it is unconditional after all. I just mean it is hard because if you aren't receiving love, you feel alone.
derpyderpins
missing everybody
- Sep 19, 2023
- 2,121
Well, I guess that's the distinction.
"without expecting or demanding something in return," I'm saying that you are always expecting/demanding at least a baseline level of respect and treatment. Hurting people happens in a lot of ways.
I use abuse as an extreme example: if A and B are in love and doing fine, then A has a change and starts abusing B (could be for any reason), if B "unconditionally" loved A then they'd keep loving A. If B stops loving A once A starts abusing B, then not being abused was always a condition.
But what's abuse? What about emotional abuse? What about neglect? Where is the line? I don't expect answers, my point is just that we probably condition love on something more than "don't literally abuse me," and that's good, but it does mean love is conditional. What those conditions are is what matters. (e.g., "provide me money" = bad condition; "consider my feelings" = good condition).
A great point. Unconditional love, in theory, is a bit of the "if everyone is super, no one will be" conundrum. "Why do you love me?" "Well I love unconditionally so it doesn't really matter who you are or what's good about you."
Dejected 55
Elementalist
- May 7, 2025
- 859
I think you are tying things together that don't need to be tied together, though.
Not being abused is a condition of life in general. I don't know you, I certainly don't love you, for example, but I wouldn't want to be abused by you nor should I tolerate it if you did, right? No one should be abused by anyone ever, whether you love or like or even know them at all. We all have the right to not experience abuse by others.
If A and B are in love, and B otherwise unconditionally loves A BUT A starts to abuse B... then B may very well stay with A because of that unconditional love. This does happen, sadly. People will remain in abusive relationships because it wasn't always that way. But, B could decide that even though unconditional love is still in play, B cannot continue to be abused.
You can unconditionally love someone and at the same time know that they are not good for you to be around. Sometimes you have to let go of someone you love because they hurt you. Not because they owed you something in exchange for your love, but because they were giving something you did not want.
Unconditional love doesn't mean you have to do any particular thing with someone. You unconditionally love a parent or a child or a pet but you don't have sex (hopefully) with any of them. There are different kinds of unconditional love. You unconditionally love in many different ways and it manifests differently in different relationships.
You can love someone but also recognize you can't be in a relationship with that person. You don't just stop loving someone even after a breakup in all cases. Some people amicably divorce when they realize they can't be partners anymore but they still love each other and wish the best for each other, and if they have a child together can co-parent that child without issue. This happens in life if you look around.
I don't think it has to be complex really. Unconditional love means you don't expect anything in return for the love you give. If you get something, perhaps even unconditional love in return then that's awesome! But unconditional love means you keep loving without regard to what you get in return. But... you can also fall out of love. Unconditional love doesn't have to last forever. It just means while you love you expect nothing in return.
Thats my problem. I've felt it for many of the important people in my life but haven't found anyone who feels it about me. I worry that there is something about me that prevents people from truly loving me.
Every relationship with a woman I've had started off with devotion from them and I've turned that into well, anything but. It is hard to see it in a romantic sense. I have seen many many families destroyed and that love die there too.
I really think it depends on the person loving.
I really think it depends on the person loving.
derpyderpins
missing everybody
- Sep 19, 2023
- 2,121
Well, I think you always get something in return when you give love. (you enjoy the person's company, you enjoy their reaction to being loved, they inspire you in some way, you feel better about yourself for giving love, you feel it is good for your community or god or whatever cause to love and advancing that concern makes you feel good, etc.) Falling out of love is that thing you get in return no longer cutting it.
I don't say any of this to be negative. I think love is more beautiful knowing this, because it is special between each person I share it with.
_Gollum_
Formerly Alexei_Kirillov
- Mar 9, 2024
- 1,413
I think unconditional love can only come from a metaphysical God. Since I don't believe in the existence of such a thing, I don't believe in unconditional love; humans are fickle, and in every case there is something the object of love could do/say/be that would lead to you "falling out of love" with them, even if that disqualifying action is so extreme that it would never happen.
The thing is, to me anyway, there is not just unconditional love and "falling out of love", There's also just plain love. I love you, but I won't do your laundry. I'll help you when your mother makes you sad, but if it gets too much for me I'll suggest a counselor. To me, that is all good and worthwhile love, it's just not unconditional. Just me!
Dejected 55
Elementalist
- May 7, 2025
- 859
Getting something in return is not the same as requiring or expecting it, though.
If I pass a homeless man on the street and give him $20, that's unconditional because I'm not expecting anything in return. I saw someone in need of help, and gave what I could in that moment. If that man comes up to me a couple of days later because he wants to thank me and give me something back, that doesn't retroactively make my help conditional.
Probably a bad example. But the point is... you can have unconditional love for someone and get something in return too. The key is that you love without the expectation or requirement of anything in return. If you expect or solicit or demand something in return, then it is no longer unconditional. But if you love unconditionally and someone in turn loves you unconditionally... you both get something but you both are still loving unconditionally.
In fairness a lot of this is purely theoretical, and I agree it is very rare to find unconditional love between people for a long term. I mean, theoretically parents love their newborn unconditionally... but as that kid grows up and can communicate and do things on its own, many parents who did love unconditionally at first start imposing conditions... like if their son comes to them as a teenager and says he is gay and the parents disown him. Then obviously their love is no longer unconditional because they are demanding their son be what they want him to be and not who he is.
The problem with God, at least as humanity has depicted in virtually all religions... is that God does in fact have conditions. God had rules in the Garden of Eden, conditions, and kicked out Adam and Eve for disobeying. You might get punished or go to hell or at least not get into Heaven if you don't obey the rules of the religion. I can't think off the top of my head of an organized religion that doesn't feature a God that has requirements to have his/her love.
derpyderpins
missing everybody
- Sep 19, 2023
- 2,121
Well, it's not a "requirement," but it's what is prompting the action.
I guess I just don't think that people give $20 to the homeless guy for no reason. It doesn't mean their reason is bad, it's just not a completely spontaneous act.
An object at rest will stay at rest, right? The return I perceive, even if it's a simple good feeling in exchange for $20, is the force to get me to move, which I would say qualifies as a "condition" for the act to occur.
I agree it's very theoretical, and I understand that I'm being pedantic. Your point being that the homeless person, himself, did not necessarily have to do anything to fulfill the condition, so from his perspective the isolated transaction required nothing from him and he received pure generosity with no strings.
