(that helps me with your question, anyway.)
Re: Is there really such a thing as unconditional love?
Mame wrote:I know people, parents in particular, who swear that they love their children unconditionally, but I don't think I'm capable of that. I wonder if I'm alone in this but if one of my children were a home-invader or rapist or child molester (esp. a repeat offender), or a hired assassin, I feel very certain that even though I might still, deep down, love that child, I would no longer help him or communicate with him at all.
I would love and help him through other things, but violence against others, esp the weak(er), would make my stomach curdle. I would just lose all respect and liking for them.
How would you feel? Would you love and support them anyway, try to understand, etc., or would you feel as I do?
Or do you perhaps define unconditional love another way?
I recently watched a rebroadcast of Stone Phillip's interview with Jeffrey Dahmer with Dahmer's father sitting next to him. From everything the father said, it was evident that the father still loved his son even though he was devastated by his son's heinous crimes. Love isn't a switch that a human being can turn on or off.
Each person can only speak for themselves and that's what this post is about. And I think love can end, it happens every day. As for it being a switch that can been turned on and off, that's debatable. Just because Jeffrey's dad still loves him doesn't mean everyone would feel that way.
I think it's very complicated and what I've learned (through experience) is that a lot of reactions in the face of disappointing behavior from a loved one that don't look like love or even resemble anything that would stem from love-are precisely an indication of how very much one does love that person who has either hurt or disappointed them by their behavior.
Often sadness and disappointment mask as rage.
For me, I find it much easier to forgive negative behaviors in people toward whom I have no emotional expectations. I can continue to work with students-some of whom have been involved in any illegal activity you can think of- without thinking even for one moment about what they might have done in their past lives. And I find that I like most of them a lot, and certainly care about them and wish the best for them in the future- regardless of their behaviors outside the classroom. Sometimes I don't even know what they did- and it's not important to me.
It'd be totally different with my own children though. If one of them were to behave cruelly toward another- even just taunting someone- I'd have a totally different reaction that would look much less understanding and loving, but which would actually be more indicative of how much I loved them and wanted for them in life, and expected from and for them.
I don't think there's anything either of my children could do that would make me stop loving them in my heart. But there are things they could do that would make me regret that I loved them. And instead of that love bringing me happiness and fulfillment, it'd be a love tainted by sadness and regret.
Deborah- I saw that interview with Jeffrey Dahmer's father. I was amazed by that guy. I think he was grieving for the son he thought he had had and thought he had known. I would hope that I could be as understanding and loyal to my child in the face of such obvious sickness, but knowing myself, I think I'd find it too hard to see the person I know I would feel had taken the place of my child.
I would still care about him and still want the best for him, and even want him to have emotional support from someone, but I might have to ask someone else a little more objective than me to visit him, etc. I don't think I'd have the emotional strength to be with someone who looked like my child, but was a stranger to me.
