Hi. Charlotte. Unconditional Love is what it says. Love is a word full of connotations about all sorts of emotions. ” I love my car” to ” I love you as a person”. It’s sexual connotations are obvious and that’s the way it is usually put over. But, of course, there can be parental love or love for siblings, and even love for our fellow man, but NONE of that is Unconditional Love because it is dependant upon something else. It’s usually “I will love you if…..you look after me, feed me, wash my clothes, give me sex, look after my kids etc. etc.” Unconditional Love has no expectations whatsoever! Is not bound by race, religion, creed, gender; anything. It is pure giving without any desire for reward. If I place ANY condition on it then it’s not unconditional, is it?
If your partner wants to leave you and go elsewhere then your reply is OK, do that. “Although I love you you have to do what you feel is best for you”. Now you will appreciate how difficult it is and I am in no way minimising the difficulty. It really is a total abandonment of desire. A complete giving of yourself to any situation. If your love is rejected then that is how it is. No regrets or ‘what might have beens’. Difficult? Yes indeed, because the habit of so called love has become so tainted with need it has lost all meaning.

Sorry to hear about your situation. In reading your post I had a couple of questions:

Did this “friends with benefits” arrangement just sort of naturally happen? At any point did either of you quantify what it was and it was not?

Regardless of whether others tell you your feelings are justified…there you’re feelings…so to me that justifies them enough.

As for the unconditional love aspect I’m afraid I can’t help you there. If it were me I would find it very difficult to maintain any sort of relationship (even if platonic) with this person just based on what happened. I’m not saying you should hold onto any anger or resentment…but if having that person in your life and seeing them periodically has the prospect of dredging up those feelings I’d say you’re probably better off without them.

Yes Hablu Exactly! There’s a little poem that has always intrigued me because it is so full of meaning. But before I quote it let me say I am NOT religious in the generally accepted sense of the word, and am not trying to push religion. On the contrary religion can muddy the waters of true spirituality. It’s so often used as a power base to influence others.

“The Shell”
If thou could empty self of self like unto a shell dishabited,
then would He come and find thee on some ocean shelf and say, ‘this is not dead” and fill thee with himself instead.
But thou art so very full of thou and have such shrewd activity
that when he comes he’ll say, ‘Tis so very small and full and has such shrewd activity,
best let it be, it is so full and has no need of me’ ”

How many of us have shrewd activity? How many ‘full of ourselves’? How often do we put the other person first or try and understand how they feel?
You are so right. It matters not a jot how many possessions you have or who loves you and who doesn’t; it’s all about how you feel in yourself. St. Augustine said, “Love, and do what thou wilt”. This was not a license for abandoned living, because if whatever you do you do from unconditional Love you can do not wrong, to yourself or any other.

Unconditional love is an odd thing. It can leave you open to all sorts of abuse and other issues. IMO, it is mostly a construct of society and blind idealism.