19. Myth of Unconditional Love

The Myth of Unconditional Love

A relationship based upon the ERCP is based upon the principle, that the relationship should be made as beneficial as possible for both partners, and that any imbalance, where one suffers because of the other, should be avoided.

This is not unconditional love.   It is love on the one fundamental condition of being treated with decency, consideration, care.  

Love cannot be bought or earned by money and services, it has to grow out of the combination of intellectual, emotional and physical intimacy.   It grows the best, when it is kindled.

But love can be forfeited and destroyed by hurtful treatment.   Then it either dies or it converts into an addiction.    If a woman falls or grows into loving someone, who first appears to be a nice man, but later on reveals himself as a sadistic jerk, then her continued attachment is an addiction to a toxic relationship, and should not be called love anymore.  

In the case of one doing wrong to the other, any forgiveness of suffering without consequences upsets the balance.   Instead, there needs to be a restitution of the emotional state before the wrong has happened, by the combination of amends of the damage to the partner and the connected damage to the relationship.    The later requires a full insight of the transgressor, what he had done, that he should not have done, and why it had been detrimental.    That insight in cooperation of both partners can then be used to agree, how to avoid the recurrence of the same incident.    After that process, it can be forgiven and forgotten.   

The two partners in a relationship based upon the ERCP are a dyad, that has the task to kindle the love by keeping a balance of making the relationship beneficial for both.  

For people with the deity delusion, there is no dyad, but there is always a triad, the two partners and their deity.   Both believe, that if they personally suffer on this earth, they will be rewarded in the afterlife.  Both also believe, that whatever pain they cause the other, will be compensated for the other in the afterlife and is therefore somehow excusable.    Both believe that they are accountable for their behavior to the deity more than to the partner.   

When the guidebook of their specific religion commands men to dominate, then men feel justified to dominate, even if the woman suffers.    If the man does wrong to the woman, he feels compelled to gain the forgiveness of the deity, not of the woman, and when he has done all the rituals and maybe made some financial sacrifices, he feels to have earned the deity's forgiveness.   But thus, he has not made amends to the woman as the target of his wrongs, and in the case of financial sacrifices, he even deprives her of spending the money with her.

The woman believes, that it is the deity to decide to forgive or not and on what condition, while she as the victim is obliged to forgive without expecting any amends, else she risks the loss of rewards in the afterlife.    Therefore the transgressor reliefs himself of any guilt, while the victim suffers powerlessly.  

With a deity as a third party, there is no balance, there is no kindling of love, there are no amends or avoiding future transgressions.   Would decent treatment be the condition for love and for staying together, women would recoil from entering triads with a deity.   The myth of unconditional love is the manipulation of the deity to lure people to accept such a triad.      

______________________________________________

Someone has posted a comment, that is completely enigmatic and has nothing to do with the topic of this entry.
A little reminder to the author of the comment and to everybody else:   

 

This is the blog of an atheistic and skeptical woman in search of a mindmate, who is also a skeptical atheist.    
If you are not an atheist and a skeptic, you are welcome to read as much as you want.  But I am not wasting my time with any person, who believes in anything irrational.   Anybody, who wants to discuss magic or any doubts in the validity of science can do this elsewhere.