Chapter 90
Practice Unconditional Love

Many spiritual philosophies advocate the practice of unconditional love. And why not? Unconditional love is, perhaps, the ultimate expression of love. It says, “I love you because you are you. You don’t have to be any different from who you are to receive and secure my love.” There are no conditions attached to the love. You don’t have to lose weight, make a certain amount of money, agree with everything I say, behave according to my plans, share all of my goals, or smile at me when you don’t want to. It’s even okay when you’re insecure or depressed, or when you make mistakes—I love you anyway. You don’t have to be perfect, or even close to it.

Other than our own children (and only then when they are very tiny), it’s probable that few of us (if any) will ever love someone entirely unconditionally. Whether we know it or not, we usually place certain conditions on our love and we have a number of expectations (e.g., you must behave in certain ways to secure my love—you must put me first, you must be faithful, you must not have friends, or express fondness toward members of the opposite sex, you must think like me, prioritize my goals, and so forth).

Yet, as with other worthwhile endeavors where perfection is nearly impossible—health, fitness, financial security, being really organized, to name just a few—it’s still an excellent idea to point yourself in that direction, to have really high ideals, realizing that there are certain limitations on how well you are going to be able to do. For example, even though you probably will never be perfectly healthy (whatever that means), it’s nevertheless important to make good diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices if you want to be as healthy as possible. Likewise, although you may never be completely organized, you’ll be far more so if you implement some proven strategies such as using files, simplifying, and regularly getting rid of things you no longer need or use. The more committed you are to being totally organized, the more organized you will end up being. I once had the goal of running a three-hour marathon. While, unfortunately, I fell nine seconds short of my goal, there’s no question that I came far closer to reaching that goal than I would have had my goal been to run a four-hour marathon.

So it is with unconditional love. Despite the fact that we’re probably doomed to never reach perfection, we can certainly come much closer to reaching our goal of unconditional love if we set lofty goals. For example, we can “catch ourselves” when we become judgmental or behave in unkind ways. We can strive to become less jealous and demanding and replace those tendencies with gratitude and softness. Or we can become better listeners and more forgiving. We can commit to being the first person to act loving—even when our partner can’t or won’t do so. We can also begin to make allowances for the fact that our partner will, at times, fall into low moods and will say and do things that aren’t to our liking—and we can choose to love them in those moments just the same as when they are feeling loving and acting kindly toward us.

There are literally hundreds of other things we can do to become more unconditionally loving—everything from taking a class on effective communication or listening skills; to asking your partner what changes he or she would like to see in you, if they could wave a magic wand; to reading spiritual and inspiring material designed to help you become more unconditionally loving. In fact, you can almost turn it into a game—making it a personal challenge to see how well you can do.

While there are no specific ground rules to follow, there is a consistent result that you can count on, and that is this: You can be sure that whatever efforts you make in order to become a more unconditionally loving partner, you will see results in the quality of your relationship. This is one of those strategies where you have absolutely nothing to lose—and everything to gain.