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Love is Not Enough (Patreon)

Published:
2016-01-07 19:11:00
Imported:
2023-04

Content

Last week I spent the morning with a friend who had just ended a relationship. Both people love each other and the relationship was not bad, but they were just not quite compatible to sufficiently fulfill the other's emotional needs. Nobody was a Bad Guy in this situation and it is sad for everyone. My friend and I talked for hours about relationships and love, from romantic to platonic to familial. My brain is still buzzing with everything we explored and a day or so after that morning, I sent them this text. With their permission, now I'm sharing it with you! (And the picture attached is completely unrelated, it's just the panel I'm working on right now for next week's comic)

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I was thinking about our talk and how you were expressing guilt about how "love is supposed to be unconditional" and I said love is conditional, it's not sustainable to keep giving your love to someone who doesn't give it back (or gives it back insufficiently for what your soul and heart needs).

But it's not love that is conditional, it's relationships that are conditional.

You can be madly in love with someone that you cannot remain in a relationship with-- I definitely was! I loved my girlfriend with my whole heart, but I was a terrible partner to her because I didn't have the emotional tools and maturity to do better. Beyond romance, I know that underneath (intertwined with) my mom's mental illness, she absolutely loves me unconditionally. I still had to cut off all contact with her to save myself. In spite of everything toxic between them, I know my parents loved each other (and probably still do).

But love is not enough.

Love is not enough to sustain a relationship.

Love can actually keep you in relationships loooong past their healthy point. Unconditional love can actively cause people to remain in harmful, toxic situations.

So yes, LOVE can be unconditional. Healthy, reciprocal, fulfilling RELATIONSHIPS are conditional as fuck.

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Comments

Laura (Eliza)

I needed to read this so badly. Thank you <3

Anonymous

*big hug* it's scary to see how important it is to be true to yourself and also open to listening when the people you care about have something to say to you. I think sometimes, movies love to show friends giving you the wrong advice (I blame Persuasion for that). In the end, if you make friends who truly care about your wellbeing, it stands to reason that they would try to help you when they see you making the wrong choices. That's why it's so important to see what kinds of friends you associate with and see on a regular basis. Toxic friends will give you toxic advice. It sounds cruel but it's true, especially if you look back on a time when you may have been toxic yourself. It's embarrassing to think of yourself that way but it's also brutally honest. In the end, knowing yourself that way is the only way to move forward and begin to improve your life, your choices, and your ideas about friendship. If this friend wakes up to the trouble they are creating, one day maybe you can be friends again. If not...you can't help them. They might not need to hear your voice to change but may, one day, hear something that will. I had a friend once who, also seemingly out of the blue, told me we couldn't be friends because she thought I had been saying awful, cutting things for the past ten years of our friendship. TEN YEARS. I was stunned because I had never thought I was being cruel to her. At first, I tried to defend myself...but then I stopped and asked her, What do you expect of me? What is it you think we can do? Can we fix this? Should we fix this? She tried to play it off as something that could be fixed but, because I did consider her a good friend, I knew there was nothing to fix. She didn't trust me and she never would. I would always have that fear that I was being cruel to her without knowing it, so I ended the friendship. She reached out to me later but I didn't connect with her again. We are good people but we are not good together. Sometimes, that is the hardest part of friendships. Remember the good times, remember the lessons and the love, but know that you cannot live in nostalgia and memory. The only way to move forward, to be your best self, is to always live in the present.