//Mature people base a marriage on unconditional love.
I don't mean to quibble with this sentiment.^^^. But I'm not sure what it means. People use it differently.//
For me, it means viewing "Love" as a verb, and not an adjective. I choose to Love vs I feel Love. Once you view love as a verb that you choose, then you must decide when to choose it. Conditional love says that I will choose to love in reciprocation for being loved by you. Unconditional love syas that I will choose to love regardless of how I am being treated by you.
I think AD is giving us an excellent example of unconditional love. Her husband is emotionally abusing her. He is insulting her by shopping at a sex shop. He is rejecting her by leaving the marriage. And yet AD is choosing to continue to love her husband. This is how mature people who understand love behave. The decision to love was made the day she took her vows.
Immature Love = I feel love for you Conditional Love = I love you because you love me Unconditional Love = I Love you because I am a person who Loves.
I wrote this sentiment to my W last year in a letter (back when I was chasing) after the 3rd BD (the discovery that W & OM were communicating again, news to OM's W and me):
Originally Posted By: me
...Yes, this past week has been extremely difficult for me. I have been scraping the bottom of the emotional barrel. But it reinforced some things for me as well. I LOVE YOU, [W]. Completely. Unconditionally. And that means, by definition, I love you without condition. In this case that means you don't have to love me back. If I loved you only if you loved me too...well, that's easy. Anybody can do that. You loved me for a very long time when I wasn't loving you like I should and treating you like I should and respecting you and us like I should have and I refuse to do that anymore...look, I'm not going to go over what I'm going to do for the rest of my life again. We did that on Friday. You know where I stand and what I promise to you and our family. You loved me for longer than anyone else would have ever put up with. And this isn't me feeling like I owe you something and I'm trying to pay you back for that, it's me just loving you. That's it...
I'm sure a lot of us have said very similar things.
Wow, that was 10 months ago...things haven't changed much in that department.
Keep at it adinva! I can't say what you are doing will give you the result you desire, but doing what is "right" will always allow to live with yourself. Living a life to your own moral standards, even if they aren't shared by the people most important to who those morals apply to, is honorable and faithful. Good job.
M:12y - BD:12/11 - D:6/13 - 4Ds
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." -MLK Jr.
