Is love unconditional?

When I was a little girl, I learned the greatness of being loved. However, now that I am a more experienced adult, I have learned that it is not as simple as that. Love, and more specifically 'romantic love' comes with conditions. I asked my boyfriend Joseph recently if he'd still love me the same way if I were 200 pounds over my current weight. With hesitance he said, "If you were the same person, I would love you no matter what". What a delightful beauty contestant answer. As idealistic as this is and as optimistic as I'd like to believe this to be, it is a very flawed statement. Firstly, it is impossible. Such a dramatic change in appearance will change a person's personality. Whether I'd be the 'same person' is out of the question. I am changed with only a few pounds of weight gain. Call me vain, my confidence levels increase and decrease depending largely on my looks, and my feelings about myself follow. I asked myself the same question about him- "would I still love him the same way if he were 200 pounds heavier than he is now?" Probably not. The attraction would be gone.

If I see him, like I have tonight, and the night does not end as hoped... I come home and crawl into my bed with an empty feeling inside. No feelings for him at all. Feelings were dependent on his treating me a certain way and responding in a specific way. When those things are gone, when they are replaced with doubt, fear, and loneliness, loathing begins to seep in. Does this mean I do not love him at all? Or do I love him only conditionally?

Marriages may fail because of this. How a person is before a marriage changes who they are after the marriage. People become comfortable, they stop trying. No more need to go out and look good in order to attract a mate results in not attracting one's spouse. The marriage is secretly dependent on the stability and consistence of the maintenance of the person one marries. The marriage would in fact be stronger if it focused more on the adaptation of each individual to the other throughout the marriage. People are ever changing, ever evolving. The problem is change is not often expected or welcomed.

If my boyfriend loves me for who I am, it is thus impossible for there to be unconditional love. I am ever changing. Who I am in the present is not who I will be in the future. I will have grown, matured, and assumedly have made mistakes. The conditions for love in this case are to maintain certain personality traits, a certain appearance, etc,. etc. We are only lending ourselves to each other. When our time is up, we move ourselves and place ourselves in the hands of a new one. We never truly give ourselves away.