How to Love Unconditionally in a Romantic Relationship | 20 Expert Tips

You may find yourself wondering if there is a limit to love, what true love entails, and what is unconditional love in a relationship? You may be giving your everything to someone who is making no sacrifices for you in your relationship or who does not appreciate your efforts and goes as far as to mistreat you.

Does true love mean giving your all and doing your best for someone regardless of how much they give back or is there a limit? Find out by understanding how to love unconditionally in a romantic relationship.

What Does Unconditionally Mean?

Before answering the question “what is unconditional love in a relationship?” you must first ask yourself what does unconditionally mean?

For something to be unconditional it means that it must be totally complete and not limited in any way.  Another word for unconditionally can be unquestionably, wholeheartedly, and unlimited. When it comes to love, love in its purest form is unconditional.

What Does It Mean To Love Someone Unconditionally?

After having an understanding as to what unconditionally means, you might begin to have an idea to your question, “what is unconditional love in a relationship?”

But what does it mean to love someone unconditionally? There is a clear difference between unconditional love as opposed to conditional love. When love is conditional, it has to be earned. And this earning of said love is based on conditions beneficial to the one who is offering his or her love. On the other hand, when love is unconditional it is offered to a loved one freely and without conditions.

The reward of unconditional love to the person who offers it is, simply, the pleasure of putting someone else before oneself and making their prosperity and joy be above one’s own. Many professionals have posited that before one can answer the question, “what does it mean to love someone unconditionally?”, talk less of offer this love to another person, one must first practice this unconditional love with oneself.

That is to say, if you as a person appreciate yourself and hold yourself in high esteem as a person who is worthy of love then you will not depend on another person or your significant other to find your self-esteem or self-worth. This might have you wondering if it is possible to love someone unconditionally in a relationship. It is indeed possible but also rare because there is a thin line between offering conditional love and receiving immeasurable disrespect and maltreatment.

To love unconditionally requires a whopping of maturity. You must not expect someone to love you unconditionally if you become overly clingy or heavily dependent on them to fulfill your needs.

It is toxic and a huge disservice to your peace of mind and sense of self to make life all about your partner.  You must paint your life with a lush variety of colors made up of hobbies, friendships, and other interests that go beyond your partner in order to achieve balance in your life. Excessively relying on your partner, can make your relationship overly strained and make your partner unhappy, uninterested, and burdened. This is, of course, not fair to them.

Conditional love in a relationship starts with you cherishing yourself to the point where your relationship becomes the tip of the iceberg rather than your relationship being the whole iceberg itself.  You will realize that when you have fulfilled your needs then you will have a more prospective opportunity are having a relationship that is overflowing with not just rivers of mutual respect but rivers of unconditional love as well.

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Nevertheless, you must take cognizance of this priceless piece of advice: feeling and offering unconditional love must never allow you to lay the foundation for a toxic relationship. No matter how much you love someone and accept their curves, edges, and flaws you must set healthy boundaries of respect. This will prevent you from sowing seeds of toxicity in your relationship.

That being said, you must remember that loving someone unconditionally can mean making the hard choice to let them go if they are not meant for you. Just because you love them does not make them good or deserving.

Unconditional love is founded upon selflessly loving for another person and also being loved in return. Unconditional love is not a duty we must execute out of expectation. Unconditional love deals with the ability of both you and your partner to make compromises and sacrifices. If you are the only one compromising and sacrificing, it is not unconditional love, but toxic self-sacrifice.

How To Know Conditional And Unconditional Love In A Relationship

After answering your question, “What is unconditional love in a relationship?” you may begin to wonder how to know conditional and unconditional love in a relationship.

What is conditional love in a relationship? Well, it focuses more on the happiness a person or thing provides for the one who is offering conditional love. For example, you may say “I love my new phone because it has an excellent battery life and a crisp display!”. Your love for your phone here is dependent on it having an excellent battery life and a crisp display.

What happens when the battery begins to drain rapidly or the screen cracks and ink seeps into the display accompanied by jagged lines? You stop loving the phone. It begins to bring you frustration, disappointment and you start wishing you never bought it and begin to look for a new phone to provide you happiness. This is conditional love.

When it comes to people, conditional love deals with our love for a certain person when this person acts according to set desires and expectations that we have for them. These desires and expectations encompass our ideology. That is, how we want and believe the object of our affection should behave, dress, think, and talk like.

For example, you may believe you love a certain politician or celebrity to the ends of the earth but when you find that this is an controller you unfollow them and cut all fandom ties with them quicker than one can say “life.” This is because this celebrity fell short of your expectations of them. Expectations here mean your conditions.

The genesis of conditional love is control. You fall in love with someone or something because you are deluded that you are in control of its or their actions. So, when that thing or person can no longer be controlled nor can yield the results that you desire, you no longer love it.

This is why conditional love may not make provide the grounds for a stable and desirable relationship at all. If your partner tries to control the way you dress, the way you act, and more importantly, the way you feel, this person wants you to live up to their ideal of you. That is, they love the you in their imagination and not the real you. Accepting you truly is what unconditional love means.

That being said, this is no excuse to exhibit negative behaviors and attitudes or hurt and disrespect your partner whilst expecting them to still accept and love you unconditionally.

Conditional love is a fabric that is threaded with passion. Thus, when this passion is exhausted, ashes of hatred often take its place. Passion and hatred are like fire and ice. This is why when someone whom we hold such passion does something that changes our ideology of them, such passion can flip into hatred. Hence, why you see that a lot of people go from being in happy, bubbly relationships to hating the sight of their exes.

To conclude how to know conditional and unconditional love in a relationship take note of these two summarizing statements:

1. You see that the genesis of conditional love is control and toxic passion. This leads to an immature, short-termed relationship whose conclusion is usually hatred.

2. The genesis of unconditional love in a relationship is selflessness and acceptance. Both of which lead to a mature, long-lasting, and healthy relationship.

Signs Of Unconditional Love In A Relationship

After having an insightful answer to the life-changing question, “how to love unconditionally in a romantic relationship?” you may begin to wonder if you are offering or receiving healthy unconditional love in your relationship or not.

In order to understand this, you must be able to identify signs of unconditional love in a relationship. But is unconditional love possible? Indeed, it is. Here are the strong signs of unconditional love in a relationship.

1. Without expectations of gratitude or the return of a favor, your partner puts your needs before their own.

2. Your significant other not only encourages but also inspires you to become a better version of yourself. That is, your significant other does not encourage you to exhibit or participate in toxic and unhealthy activities but becomes a more mature yet fun-loving person.

3. You have mutual respect, particularly on the days and in the moments where you disagree with each other or disappoint each other.

4. Both of you do not play toxic games. That is, neither of you holds back from offering love and affection to each other in order to get something you want, be it changed behavior or a material object.

5. You can take off your mask and let down your hair with your partner.  That is, you can be your true self and do away with all your inhibitions when you are around your significant other and vice versa.

6. When you admit where you went wrong or how you have somehow failed your partner, you are not rewarded with judgment, taunting, and mockery. But rather offered understanding, compassion, and patience.

7. You open each other’s hearts towards offering forgiveness easily.

8. The selflessness of your partner inspires and encourages you to reciprocate with selflessness as well.

9. You both value open and honest communication with each other and prioritize the healthy sailing of your relationship to be sacrosanct.

10. You both make sacrifices without having to compromise on your beliefs and values to make the other person happy.

11. You don’t feel like you constantly have to prove yourself or your love to your partner.

12. You are proud of each other and speak nothing but kind words about each other when the other person is absent.

13. You do not hide your pain and discomfort from your partner, rather they share them with you and offer a steady shoulder to rely on and vice versa.

14. Even when you are under the weather or having a bad day, you are pleasured by the thought of expressing your love to your significant other.

15. You bring out the best and healthiest side of each other.

16. You do not depend on your partner for providing your self-esteem and self-worth nor engage in degrading thought patterns because of how they make you feel. And vice versa.

17. They are not only proud of your success but also celebrate your wins. Even in the face of their losses or when your achievements surpass their own, they put aside their feelings and are honestly happy for you.

18. They have your back and you can always count on them to support you and uplift you through thick and thin. And vice versa.

What Is Unconditional Love In A Marriage?

You have delved deep into the sea of a question, “how to love unconditionally in a romantic relationship?” and emerged with answers. Yet, there are levels to relationships and marriage is a whole other ball game.

If you are preparing to or considering walking down the aisle with a special someone, already hitched to your significant other and wondering if what exists between you to transcends beyond conditional love and into something deeper and more honest then you have one pressing question on your mind and that question is none other than, “what is unconditional love in a marriage?

Love at its purest form is unconditional but in a marriage is it achievable? Is it practicable? is it advisable? Let us investigate these questions below.

We have investigated how to love unconditionally in a relationship? but you can answer the question of what is unconditional love in a marriage? by identifying if you practice conditional or unconditional love in your marriage.

Take a gander and the following questions on marital communication below:

1. Do you fully support your spouse for who they are instead of seeing your spouses’ shortcomings and weak spots as areas that need to be fixed?

2. Are you afraid to air out your thoughts and feelings honestly and openly out of fear that your spouse might not accept the real you?

If you answered no the first question then your love is conditional. If you answered yes to the second then your spouse’s love is conditional as well.

Take a gander at the following question on marital love below to further understand what is unconditional love in a marriage.

1. You consider your spouse to be imperfect and see yourself as the one who recognizes all your spouse’s shortcomings and fears?

2. Do you withhold your love and refrain from performing your marital responsibilities towards your spouse until they change their behavior to one that pleases you?

3. Are you fond of teasing your spouse with hurtful, insulting, and inconsiderate comments?

4. Do you put your spouse down at home and in front of others?

If your response is affirmative to one or more of these questions then your love is conditional and is digging a hole of pain that is liable to single-handedly sink your relationship. Conditional love builds an unstable and unhealthy marriage where each partner concerns themselves more with controlling and having their will be done in a relationship than showing their partner compassion and love.

When you begin to practice unconditional love with your spouse, your marriage will cease to suffer and be bright and beautiful as a sunrise. Otherwise, you will both be living like toddlers, trying to one-up each other, and have your way whilst festering resentment for your partner when you do not. You will be in prison and miss out on the wonderful gifts of marriage. Spouses who do not receive unconditional love are also liable to look for it elsewhere.

The way you treat your spouse, especially as a husband, is crucial to the stability and healthiness of your marriage. Especially when you wish to welcome children into your home. Ask yourself would your children be proud of the way you treated your spouse when they are no longer young and naive? and would you like your daughter or son to marry a spouse like you?

Best Tips on How to Love Unconditionally in a Romantic Relationship

Now that you have thoroughly investigated the question, what is unconditional love in a marriage? it becomes important to also understand how to love your partner unconditionally.

In order to preserve and ensure the stability of your relationship and get the best out of your time with your partner then you must know how to love your partner unconditionally.

Below are some healthy and surefire ways on how to love unconditionally in a romantic relationship.

1. Learn to love yourself unconditionally. Indeed, the first step to loving someone else unconditionally is to be able to forgive and love yourself for and in spite of your imperfections. How can you love someone unconditionally or receive unconditional love from them if you do not believe you are worthy of it yourself?

2. Understand that both you and your partner deserve to be happy. You must be willing to understand that marriage is a partnership between you and your spouse and their needs are as important as your own. Although, this in no way means that you should tolerate or accept abuse, degradation, and infidelity from your spouse.

3. Settle into a balanced setting based on mutual respect. Whilst finding your footing as a married couple also remember that relationships are characterized by both give and take.

If you do not want to encourage nor fester feelings of resentment and anger in yourself and your spouse, you must make sure you not only make compromises for your spouse but ensure that your spouse is also making compromises for you as well. Seal this off with mutual respect and your relationship will come up steady, no matter how strong the seas you face may be.

4. Embrace both the good and bad times as a team. Unconditional love in a relationship requires you to walk through the sunshine as well as the storms hand in hand. There is no perfect individual none is there a perfect marriage. But there is a peaceful, healthy love and a stable, fulfilling marriage that you and your spouse can both achieve if both sides are willing to be open to it.

5. Always communicate with them openly and honestly. Never try to hide the ugly, the pain, and the discomforting aspects and situations of your life from them by building a wall or creating a bubble of perfection and ceaseless tranquility. Let them into your life and always be open to airing out whatever problems as peacefully as possible.

Whether living together or apart, strive to never go to bed angry. Never belittle your partner’s worries and frustrations and always listen to understand and not merely to reply. Trust and communication are key to a stable relationship and a true sign that you love your partner unconditionally.

6. Forgive your loved one who has hurt you even if they do not apologize. Nevertheless, do not let this willingness to forgive transgress into allowing your partner to walk all over you. If they repeatedly mistreat you and take advantage of your love, it is best to remove yourself from such a toxic relationship.

Here lies the end of your enlightening journey that began with the question, how to love unconditionally in a romantic relationship?

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Here’s wishing you a successful, loving relationship ahead. Cheers!