[dijit]

Only half?

Thats a really wide range too.

By 90 it is increasingly likely your spouse and close friends are mostly dead.

My emotional support network consists of two people, my long-term partner and my parent(s). My long term partner loves me conditionally (and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that this is abnormal).

Only your parents might love you unconditionally, and they have a pretty decent head start with their mortality.

[purple-leafy]

This is sadly true, my long term partner left me last night. I really thought it would go the distance, and I’m almost not sad - it’s just typical

[whamlastxmas]

Hope you do something kind for yourself to feel better <3

[nadermx]

[flagged]

[avtar]

> And if she leaves me, it's because I failed in some way or another

With all due respect, chances are this view won't be helpful in the long run. It's challenging enough to influence our own minds or predict with certainty what journeys they'll embark on, let alone assume we can be responsible for another person's happiness.

[nadermx]

I don't mean I failed to make her happy. I mean I failed in asserting myself or sacrificing my happiness for her. As her happiness generally feeds of mine.

[purple-leafy]

This is how I feel, I sacrificed a lot of my sanity and happiness to support them, and the spotlight was always on me as I was sad and stressed in the end.

I think going forward I will always put myself first

[em-bee]

i hear you. here is what i came up with as a good way to put it: i can't be expected to take care of my family and my kids if i am not well myself. people (especially in china) tell me (and others) that parents need to sacrifice their own well being for their children, and my response is, if i give up my own well being then my children will suffer. they say, i need to be strong for them and for my partner. but i can only be strong if i am healthy. if you like a metaphor: on an airplane they always tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others. that's what this is. i keep myself healthy, to get the energy i need to be strong for my family.

[stevenAthompson]

I've heard it phrased as "put on your own oxygen mask first."

I like that phrasing as it doesn't sound selfish in that context and most people can immediately understand why it's necessary.

[jmye]

> Vs if she's happy her mood might change on a whim due to period or other things

What a weird point of view. I assume that asking your SO if they’re upset because she’s on her period, you might start to have a good idea of why your SO isn’t happy.

I’d rather be the person I want to be in a relationship, than play weird games about whose happiness matters more, like it’s a competition. But you do you.

[nadermx]

Its not a game; It's a fact. The definition of hormonal is related to menstruation. I also didn't say I asked if she was, just something I consider when responding to her actions or words.

[thrwaway223]

Well for me, half of 0 is still 0 and I'm not even 30 yet.

> My long term partner loves me conditionally (and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that this is abnormal).

I haven't told anyone but a therapist the abuse I've been facing from a partner because it would break my parents heart. I've been back-stabbed now 3 times from different people I was closest with relationship or friendship-wise over the past decade (because you're right it's conditional).

I honestly don't see how informing friends and family around me that I've been physically attacked many times, forced to wipe all evidence, hunted down, de-escalated 20 bloodcurdling screaming panic attack episodes, stop 2 of their suicide attempts, lied to at every turn, was cheated on, and then abandoned (BPD & drug abuse). I should make the people around me share in how awful I feel? That won't resolve anything, just like the therapist that can't change it.

[swatcoder]

FWIW, much value in talking about intense and traumatic experiences is in discovering that you're not alone in general, and often not even alone among your peers. Life can indeed go pretty smoothly for some people, at least for long stretches of time, but many more people than you might realize have experienced the kinds of things you describe.

Being open about it helps each of you spot the other amidst the crowd, provide a sense of community and comraderie that it sounds like you might be lacking. Not only do you both (et al) get helped by it, the experience of helping them can often provide yet another inspiration for feeling less burdened and alone.

Maybe look up some intimate group talk opportunities. These could be informal men's groups, therapy- or church- mediated groups, or 12-step groups (like maybe CODA, in your case). These are almost always private opportunities to achieve what I mention above, where nobody outside the group is going to hear a whiff of what you share, and many of them are free or reasonably priced. And they're lurking all over the place. If you're feeling as defeated and hopeless as you sound, it could make a difference.

[zelphirkalt]

For many people telling the stories is a form of processing them, or processing their experiences in different ways than they have before.

[heresie-dabord]

> My long term partner loves me conditionally

Sounds right, relationships require effort to stay healthy. It's not always an easy dance, as veterans of marriage will attest.

No healthy relationship should be a cage containing 2 or more martyrs. If people are accumulating resentment, it's time to seek help or dialogue or renegotiation.

That said, it's a mark of mature introspection and humility to be able to ask for help and support. It's also a mark of maturity and kindness to give help and support.

[passwordoops]

> My long term partner loves me conditionally

I've come to learn the only unconditional love is that between parent-child

[layer8]

Some people come to learn that it can be quite conditional between parent and child as well.

[exe34]

And only some at that. Mine only "loved" me if it made them look good.

[hobs]

The number of parents I have seen disinherit their children for something that literally is equivalent (and actually once was) "when they moved out when they were 18 they didn't clean up their room enough" is in the dozens, there's no such thing as unconditional anything in this world.

[zie]

Even that can be conditional. Parents deliberately remove themselves from their children's lives sometimes for various reasons. Child is gay/trans or othered in some other way. Child commits some serious crime, etc.

It could also be the parent is too much of a mess(drug addict, etc) that they can't love their child.

[weddpros]

Maybe only parent-child can be unconditional, but it doesn't imply ALL parent-child love is unconditional though

[Rhapso]

Loving is the easiest part of having a healthy relationship. Love can be unconditional where a relationship shouldn't be.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I think parents love you conditionally true. In the end if you turn into a really bad person, they might not love you anymore.

That's not bad though. If I stop talking to my partner, I suspect at some point they wouldn't want to stay with me anymore. If I attacked my parents repeatedly, same goes for them

[treecrypto]

>My long term partner loves me conditionally (and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that this is abnormal)

>Only your parents might love you unconditionally

I may be nitpicking here, but I find all love is conditional. The difference lies in how easy or difficult it is to meet those conditions.

[LiKao]

Being loved conditionally by your partner is OK, as long at the conditions are those that you are willing to fulfill out of free choice.

Being loved conditional has a very thin line to coercive control, though, and this gets easily into abusive territory.

[horrible-hilde]

Why would you even want unconditional love? Are you planning on abusing and taking advantage of your spouse? People who want this are not ready for marriage.

[dijit]

Maybe I want to be vulnerable sometimes, or weak sometimes, or to have unfinished opinions on things and be listened to in good faith without risking an entire relationship because I would like to talk about it.

Like privacy, people can come up with nice catch-alls like “nothing to hide”, but the default is not abuse.

[em-bee]

this. unconditional love is not blind love. but it means that i am not being needlessly criticized for my faults but receive care and encouragement to work on them. it means that i am treated with compassion, even if i am a criminal. it doesn't mean that i get a free pass to do whatever i want. if i hurt someone, i need to fix that, especially if it is my partner.

and the same goes in reverse. i love my wife and only wish the best for her. but that does not mean i need to be blind to her problems, or not expect her to stop doing things that hurt me or others. but it does mean that my love for her does not stop even if we should separate.

however, this assumes a different kind of love than the love that most people think they have for their partner. a kind of love that is exclusive and can only ever go to one person. unconditional love is the kind of love that accepts everyone for what they are. the kind of love that all the major religions out there are talking about.

(edit: expanded further)

[thfuran]

This goes way beyond merely conditional love. If you can't reasonably expect to be listened to in good faith, you have an outright toxic relationship.

[lazide]

Depending on the topic, almost no relationships meet your definition of ‘non-toxic’ in my experience. And I’ve had a lot of experience.

[thfuran]

>Depending on the topic

In the sense that there might be something you could say to tank a relationship? Sure. But that's a far cry not generally being able to express "unfinished opinions" or any vulnerability, as the original commenter said.

[bowsamic]

You can have that with conditional love. It sounds like your marriage is just bad

[LiKao]

Unconditional love is not the same as unconditional trust or unconditional relationship.

You can leave someone you still love, if they did not meet what you desire out of the relationship. That would still be unconditional love.

But with unconditional love, leaving someone is to heal yourself, not to punish the other person.