#363 - Is your love unconditional or contractual?
Is your love unconditional or contractual? Since were just past Valentine’s Day, I thought this would be a good time to seriously discuss love styles. In the past I’ve usually talked about love from the Greek definitions of love.
- Storge – Affectionate love
- Philos – Friendship love
- Eros – Emotional love
- Agape – Unselfish love
While I still consider these accurate, I find there might be a simpler way to look at love from a relationship or marriage standpoint.
Today, simpler seems to be better, at least from being able to understand the concepts of love. Thus, my question, “is your love unconditional or contractual?” Let’s look at a couple of new definitions.
Look at your relationship, if you’re not in one now, look at past relationships. Are you or were you loving unconditionally or contractually?
Unconditional love is love without strings attached. It's love you offer freely. You don't base it on what someone does or doesn’t do for you.
Contractual love is just as it sounds. Each partner agrees to provide the other partner with something they want. For example, a woman may want a man that earns a good living and can be a good provider. She may provide him with her good looks or be a home maker for him and their children.
If he loses his job, or she loses her looks with age, the other may no longer want to stay in the relationship. In this situation, the contract is broken. This is probably the more common of the two types of love.
Most of us don’t want to admit it but it’s true. Now, the two examples are just that, examples. Contractual relationships can be for any number of reasons or shared benefits. They’re not all as shallow as my illustration.
I remember having a conversation with my dad many years ago. We were talking about relationships long after his divorce from my mother. He said he got married because he felt sorry for my mom. That’s not a really great reason to get married and played a big reason for their divorce because she wasn’t first in his life.
When you’re dating, it’s important to find someone that you can share unconditional love with. Unconditional love is not always going to be easy. Your love will ebb and flow just like the tides of the sea.
One day you’ll have more to offer your partner and another day, they’ll pick up the slack for you. There will also be times when you’re both running on empty in your relationship. This is one reason it’s good to check in with each other regularly to see how each of you is doing.
Love is an emotion and it is a choice. In the early stages your love is likely fueled by hormones like oxytocin and dopamine. As the influence of these hormones wains, it’s your choice to continue to love your partner.
As I look back on my romantic relationships, I can see most of them were contractual in nature. There are less than a handful that were actually unconditional love. How do I know? Because I still love them and even though our relationship didn’t work out.
That’s my food for thought this week.
Happy dating!