Conditional love is fatal to all relationships. It is especially toxic to relationships recovering from an affair.
Although its tempting for you to put conditions on your love after all that has happened, you need to know that such a practice is toxic. Sadly, many of you have put conditional love into your marriage thinking you were ‘holding the cheater accountable’.
Since you have likely associated ‘who’ a person is with ‘what’ they do for so long they become interchangeable in your mind. During recovery from the affair it’s important making a mental split between who they are (person) and what they did (performance).
Not separating the person of the cheater from what they did is a prescription for conflicts, misunderstandings and confusion. Blurring the two makes any kind of reconciliation more difficult.
The two are not interchangeable. Getting them confused makes a mess of things. It makes a mess for the recovery and also for your own guilt related issues.
When confuse the two, it’s easy condemning the whole person, lock, stock and barrel for some behavior. You may find yourself hating ‘EVERYTHING’ about them, even to the point of finding yourself repulsed by all that they say, do and are.
That kind of hatred is a strong indicator that instead of separating the two, you’re combining the two.
The cheater still needs your love, yet there are some part of what they do that are not acceptable. It’s often challenging knowing how to love them, yet not tolerate or approve what they have done.
Refusing to a tolerate or accept part of what they have done is not showing conditional love.
Conditional love is when you put conditions on your love like “I will love you only if you keep your weight in a certain range”, “I will love you only is you do certain things for me.” or “I will love you only if you do not question what I do.” These are examples of conditional love.
In each of the examples, the giving of love is dependent on conditions. Love is not given unless they meet those conditions.
When someone fails to meet the conditions, they are considered no longer loved or worthy of love. Being considered ‘unlovable’ also means they are devalued as well.
Unconditional love accepts the person without conditions. It is accepting them. It does not put limits on accepting them (in terms of their person).
It does put limits on their behavior in terms of what you can allow into your marriage. There is a major distinction between ‘who’ they are and ‘what’ they have done.
The inability to separate these two ideas has led many of you to put conditional love into your marriage rather than unconditional love with accountability.
You can say, “Robert, I love you, yet can no longer accept your cheating”. or “Sally, I love you, yet can not allow your sleeping around to be part of our lives” or “Jane, I love you and want you back, yet can not allow your sexual addiction or drug addiction behavior into our home”.
Each of these communicates the message of love while holding the cheater accountable. You can love them with all of your heart, yet make it clear that you can not accept certain behaviors.
You are not putting limits on your love for them, you are putting limits on what behaviors you are willing to tolerate.
Best Regards,
Jeff
