A question regarding unconditional love

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I've come to realize a see love in a very different light than most people.I was watching a short documentary on a mother of two kids with ASD who had AS herself and she mentioned something that resonated with me.She said that she never really had an emotional bond with her kids.Thats when I realized that I never really had an emotional connection to my family either.I say "I Iove you but I don't think I really mean it in the way my mother means it I think I was just something that I was taught to say.
This isn't to say I don't care about them but people talk about how they have these unconditional feelings of love for their parents and kids but I don't have them. I don't seem to respect the social hierarchy either.I talk to my parents like I do my friends.I swear, drink and discuss other things that most of my friends don't even talk about with anyone sober.
Anyway, I would assume this is somewhat common with ASDs as emotional reciprocity isn't our strong suite but I was wondering if anyone had a differnt experiance or could explain what unconditional love actually is because in my mind it's like The Sims where you have a bar that you fill up by interacting with people with similar interests and personalities.

I can certainly relate to this. Personally, I'm not even sure what exactly it means to "love" your family in relation to the "love" one feels for other people. I care deeply about all members of my family, but I can't help but feel that this is just due to familiarity more than anything. For example, If I were to hypothetically find out about some long lost sibling that I had never met, I don't think I'd love them like the rest of my family. It would certainly be an interesting experience, and I'd love a chance to meet them, but I'm not sure we'd share any special feelings simply because we are related by blood, at least not initially.

As for unconditional love, I don't think that it is even a thing. We love people because of qualities that they possess, whether it be personality or a link of identity like with a mother and child. A mother may say she loves her child unconditionally, but that love is based entirely on the condition that this particular child is her child. Being a child to this particular woman is not a condition that one can change or escape from, but it is a condition nonetheless.

Humans are psychologically predisposed to care more for those they perceive to be a part of their "family". Whether you call that love or anything else is up to you. Personally, so long as you manage to care for your immediate family to a reasonable extent, I don't see it as a problem.

Nothing is unconditional. Restrictions may apply. Void where prohibited. "Love" is an exchange of services.

Yes.

The more materialistically you view the world (and thereby equal the worth of humans to the quality of their performance), the more you consider this restricted, conditional "Love", true love.

Some Asperger individuals (me included) don't view the world fully materialistically, so we cannot consider what others think of true love as true love.

When I say I truly love someone, I really mean it. But since it's not based on materialism, this rarely happens. Oppositely when you view the world materialistically you almost have unconditional love for everyone who are successful (and dislike those who aren't).

Firstly, romantic love is very different than the love you have for your children.

I love my children desperately. From the moment they were born I would do anything to protect them. Unconditional love is that, when no matter how ungrateful they are, how mad they drive you, how much stress they give you, how many unreasonable demands they put on you, how much you sometimes feel you could run away and escape from it all, you just couldn't do it because you love them to the core of their being, every little particle of them (and I do think mother's love is greater than father's love as a rule, because we carried them inside our bodies and gave birth and unless you have been through that you can never understand it). You are able to separate out all the awful stuff, because no matter what, you would do anything to protect them and save them if you could. That is unconditional love. Love despite the negatives.

Romantic love, can be overwhelming, special, incomparable (but not greater than maternal love) and intoxicating. It can change how you behave, and even whether you can eat or sleep. It can be obsessive. But it never lasts that way. Real life brings things down to earth with a bump, as no-one can sustain that honeymoon period for too long. Your partner's annoying habits and things that you feel are let-downs can make you see them through different eyes after a while.

Loving your parents and siblings, that's a bit harder. For me, I need to click with someone - relative or not. It's not to say I wouldn't be sad, regretful or entirely unaffected if something happened to one of them. But I really don't think I have the same level of emotion towards them as NTs do. My family has been a source of much stress to me and I have had no contact with most of them for years.

For me, in a relationship or with family other than my children, I have this ability to switch off. It sounds a bit sociopathic, perhaps it's me being an Aspie or me having had not the greatest experience with my family growing up, but it can feel as if there is no feeling there sometimes. I even had this with an ex-boyfriend who I thought I really loved, something just goes cold at some point and I think that I don't really love the person. My brother once said to me "I know you don't see sibling X or sibling Y, but I know you'd be the first one to go to see them if something happened". I realised how little my brother knew me. I felt very dispassionate imagining that scenario. The connection just isn't there and I can't make it be there if it's not. I have always cut people out of my life that cause me stress or are difficult for me to be around.

To a degree, perceptions and ability to feel love will depend on your background, but also being an Aspie inevitably plays a part. I score low on empathy (although I am kind and sympathetic) so it's not me being selfish if I choose not to be around relatives I'm meant to love, it's me being practical and trying to make my already difficult existence as an Aspie, the easiest I can.

I don't think it's anything to do with materialism and it's certainly not an exchange of services. If you have never felt unconditional love you cannot know what it is or what you will accept because of it. One way to know if you love someone is to imagine your life without them and how devastated you'd be (or not) if something happened to them, also how much you miss them when they are not around. You can't really explain love, it just is. Without it, the world would be a much worse place.

So ultimately, how you feel for your children is worlds apart from how you feel about others. Only your babies will get your unconditional love.

Unconditional love seems silly to me. I mean, what if one of your children killed another in cold blood? You might eventually be able to forgive the murdering child, but I can't understand a parent who still loved in that situation.

I agree with most of whirlingmind's post, except the part about mother's loving children more than fathers but that's a debate for another day. I will say though that I think that potential unconditional love isn't restricted to your own children and can entail other children who you live with and care for. I have a sister who is over 11 years younger than myself and I feel an insane amount of love for her, much more than my two brothers who are close to my age. From the moment I first saw her after she was born I thought she was the cutest thing I'd ever seen and the idea of her getting hurt feels like getting my soul ripped out of my chest. I wouldn't describe unconditional love as a bar filling up OP, perhaps more like a magnetic force irreversibly attracting your love towards that person. My little sister could commit 9/11 v2 and I would still love her (while hating the act she committed).

Well it's not. You are only 18 so still growing into adulthood and forming your views. Views which will be moulded by your life experiences, including parenthood if you choose it.

As for if one of my children committed an awful act, as Jojopa says, you would hate the act but you would never stop loving the person.

You can't undo what you feel about your child. Only a parent would understand that.

@Jojopa - where I said



That doesn't mean that I don't think that fathers can love their children desperately too, but a father can never know how it feels to have made that baby in your own body, grown that baby for 9 months and given birth to it, that gives mothers something extra. Also, as mothers generally do the bulk of the child-rearing in a high percentage of cases, they have a special bond that the dad never has. It's usually the mum who the child wants when they are ill, it's usually the mum that a child will tell their secrets and fears to. There is just something more between a mother and child than there is a father and child. Of course, there will be instances where this differs through circumstances, such as a bad mother who doesn't connect with her child or a mother who is the breadwinner leaving the dad in sole charge all the time etc. but those are not how nature intended it.

Yes.

No.
Love does not respect laws.

Love is not an exchange of services. It is a complex set of feelings and associated thoughts based on the idea of another person. No exchange is required. No services are involved. Mutual love is a condition in which both parties share the same kind of complex feeling/concept set. For each person it takes place internally, though it is reinforced by communication with the other. This communication is NOT an exchange of services.

No. Please see my posts above. Unless you count a restriction as "just by being the child I gave birth to".

You don't need to get all mushy about it. Love comes in many forms.

For me, love is knowing I can trust the person, wanting the best things for them, knowing that they will be there for me.

As a child, I loved my mother dearly. Our relationship now is a little cooler, because now I know I cannot truly trust her. The rest of it is still there, though. She still cares for me, and I still want her to be happy. And somehow I can't really be angry at her for her untrustworthiness, coming as it does from ignorance and fear rather than any sort of malice.

But all that emotional stuff... you don't need that to say you love somebody. Love is a fact.

Last edited by Callista on 13 Jun 2013, 11:10 am, edited 2 times in total.

Oh, I don't deny that the mother is the primary caregiver in the majority of families, however 'as a rule' implies to me that you believe it is so in every case. If I have misunderstood you there, my apologies. While on average mothers have a closer bond than a father, there are numerous cases where the father is particularly dedicated to his child, and also numerous cases where the mother is a terrible mother, whether they are abusive to their child or simply don't care enough. These sorts of generalisations may seem harmless but I've heard of custody cases where negligent, drug-taking mothers have had custody granted to them over a stable, law-abiding father because of the assumption that a mother is always better.

Yeah. It's scary. Fathers lose a lot of rights when it comes to their kids, just because the mother's the one who was pregnant, and because she's female. It's one of the few places where sexism benefits women at the expense of men.

Hopefully things will get better. I know I would much rather be with a stable father than with a mother who couldn't take care of me. Maybe now with the increasing acceptance of same-sex couples and singles as parents, things will get a little better for fathers, too.

I think women do have the hormonal edge on men. They bond more quickly and more instinctively; they've had their bodies preparing them for that all through pregnancy. But by the time you've had a few weeks or months of diaper changes and midnight cuddles and general baby-related mayhem, any father who has been caring for that child will be bonded just as closely as the mother who has had the 9 months of pregnancy as a head start. And fathers do have instincts that say "Protect this baby." Maternal instinct is almost a misnomer--it's really parental instinct more than anything else. If adoptive parents can bond closely with a child, so can fathers.

...which is why I stated the part in bold. As a rule doesn't mean unequivocally in every case.

I'm not talking about the bonding process though, or the protective instincts. This is why I said:



When you couple that with the fact that the mother generally does most of the child-caring, in those cases where there have been no adverse effects from the mother having issues preventing her being a good mother or being the one taking care of the baby, the mother will always have the edge over the father. (I would never advocate courts give a child to an unfit mother just because she gave birth, or that a good father should lose his rights but that's a whole other subject).

Only another mother will know what I mean about making the baby inside you and growing it for the best part of a year, with your body having sole responsibility for nourishing and protecting it and then going through the whole trauma of childbirth and in many cases also feeding the baby from your own body.

IMHO, "conditional" love is a counterfeit coin of dubious currency.