INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS

While we don’t generally voice these statements aloud, many of us approach our intimate relationships in the following ways: “I will love you if you behave in a certain way. I will love you if you love me back. I will love you if you do what I ask and make me feel good about myself. And, of course, I will shun you if you don’t.”

When we bring this attitude into any relationship, what we are really attempting to do is to use conditional love to control the other person, to domesticate them to our own point of view. The eventual result of this is our own suffering, as feeling good at the expense of another is never genuine or sustainable.

Here is an example of unconditional love: I have a friend whose wife left him for another man. He loved her dearly and was very saddened. When I asked him how he was holding up, he explained to me that while he was upset, if being with another man made his wife happier than being with him, then that is what he wanted for her. As for himself, he wanted to move on with his life and enjoy a relationship with somebody who loved him as he loved himself. He was no longer living in an illusion, and he grateful for that.

Practice

With awareness today, look for examples in the world of how unconditional love is not determined by another’s behavior. In which of your relationships are you loving yourself and others unconditionally? In which relationships are you living in an illusion?

Living a Life of Awareness

~ Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.