Unconditional Love Does Not Mean This...
Narcissists have a knack for twisting perfectly reasonable statements into accusations and blame. Here’s an example: A wife, in a fruitless attempt to give her husband insight, shared with him that his love felt conditional to her, and explained to him that she really needs unconditional love, not the kind of love where it’s given only if he gets something in return. Reasonable, right? Even biblical (Matthew 5:44-46, Luke 6:32-34).
But the husband’s response was: “I agree: unconditional love is the virtue we should be pursuing, and it’s something that I need, too. You should be loving me regardless of what I’m like.”
See how he turned that on her? It went from the wife expressing a perfectly reasonable concern… to the husband essentially saying that his wife should love him regardless of whether her concern is valid, because “unconditional love” is loving someone without asking them to love you unconditionally.
If you’ve found yourself in a position like this - being accused of doing the very thing you tried to correct in your spouse - you may have fallen for it. In your attempt to be the “bigger person” and take responsibility and make sure you are “taking the log out of your own eye” first, you may have thought about your spouse’s statement and thought “maybe he/she is right. I shouldn’t be asking him/her to do things that I, myself, am not doing.”
So you back down, vow to yourself to be a good example, and work more on your imperfections before pointing out your spouse’s. And this wouldn’t be a bad thing to do except for that you’ve believed a lie. The husband’s narrative in the scenario described above was that his wife wasn’t loving him unconditionally because she was asking him to love her without conditions. And she accepted his interpretation. But it was a twisting of the truth in order to get her to back down. The truth is that there was nothing about the wife’s statement that indicated that she wasn’t going to love him unless he changed, yet that’s how he took it so that he could accuse her of doing the very thing she was trying to bring to his attention.
It’s a sinister game. [Learn all the tactics of narcissists by downloading my free 40+ tactics resource] But let’s take this opportunity to delve into what unconditional love really is.
What is unconditional love?
Unconditional love is one of the concepts in Christian circles that is often misunderstood to mean that, if you love someone unconditionally, it doesn’t matter what they do to you, you still show them love, affection, forgiveness, and closeness. But that’s unconditional relationship, and that’s not what we are called to do.
Unconditional love does not equate to unconditional relationship. A person can love someone even though they’ve been mistreated by them and, even while loving them, they can still set boundaries and keep their distance from them. They can have unconditional love without unconditional relationship.
In fact, unconditional love is caring about someone so much that you want what is in their best interest more than you want them to love you back. And sometimes that which is in their best interest is for them to experience the reality that relationships are not unconditional. So even if you want a relationship with them, it might be in their best interest for the relationship to end.
God and unconditional love vs. unconditional relationship
While some people may view boundaries and distance as unloving, it’s exactly the kind of love that God has for us. God loves everyone and desires a relationship with us all, but when people mistreat him, profane his name, reject his kindness, and mock his sacrifice, he doesn’t shower them with affection or run after them, trying harder to earn their love.
In Mark 10:17-22 we see a rich young man come to Jesus to ask him what he must do to get into heaven. Jesus identifies the outward signs of a love for God (obeying his commands) and the young man declares that he has done all of those things. But, knowing his heart and loving him enough to tell him the truth, Jesus “looked at him and loved him” and tells him that one thing he lacks: the man’s love for his money holds him back from fully loving God, so he must be willing to give up all he has to follow Jesus. The man walks away. And Jesus quickly runs up to him and says “no, I didn’t mean it. It’s not that hard. Just give up a little at a time. Give God a chance to prove that he loves you, and you’ll see that following him isn’t that hard.”
Um…. no. Jesus doesn’t do that. He just lets him walk away.
When people reject God, he doesn’t reduce his standards, beg for love, or chase after people who are walking away. He loves us well by giving us the freedom to choose against him if that’s what we want.
Your spouse and conditional relationship
If your spouse is rejecting your concerns about your relationship and running from the responsibility they have to do their part to make the relationship what they promised at the altar that it would be (one of unconditional love), then it is not Christlike to run after them, to try to make it easier on them, or to allow them to shift responsibility or blame onto you. Jesus maintains his standards and allows people to leave if they don’t like it. In a marriage, this can look like allowing your spouse’s lack of connection and effort in the marriage to create distance emotionally, physically, and sexually.
But what if your spouse says that’s not what they want - that they don’t want distance, they want more closeness? What if they say that they want to stay in relationship with you? What is God’s example for that? Does God rush back in, thankful that someone has voiced a desire to be with him?
We see an example of how God approves of us handling situations like this when we read about what happened after Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt in Genesis 42-25. Although Joseph’s brothers wanted to be trusted and insisted that they could be, Joseph tested their sincerity, giving them time to prove themselves before rushing back into relationship with them.
We should do the same. When someone has been disrespectful, dishonoring, or unloving toward us, we should not just take their word for it that they’ve changed. With wisdom we should test their sincerity as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 8:8 when he says “I want to test the sincerity of your love.”
So even though there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38,39), our rejection of him does separate us from relationship with him. John 3:18 says that “whoever does not believe in the Son stands condemned because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
We are to love, but let us not put on ourselves or others a yoke that even God does not carry - that of maintaining a relationship with someone who is not doing their part. And when we get that, we understand that… Hope isn’t found in our situation changing; it’s found in our situation…….
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