Love is not unconditional, nor should it be. Love should never be a compromise. Love should be shared. Love shouldn’t be a series of mistakes, fights, arguments, or negotiating. Love should be easy. But it seldom if ever is. Fair or not, love needs to be a partnership. Love needs to be more than two people caring for one another and more than people trying to make each other happy. I find it frequently true that love is hard. Duh, right? It’s difficult. It’s impossible. And it needs to be. Because if love were easy, it wouldn’t be worth having. For me, in order for a relationship to work, love has to be and should be conditional.

I find this pretty evident. I mean, who wants to put themselves out there and love unconditionally? To be honest with you, I’ve loved and I’ve lost more in my life than I would ever like to feel again. For me, it’s not about loss, it’s about the regrets of mistakes I made, not what someone else has done. I own who I am. I own my actions, I own my feelings, and I own my love. I don’t give it freely and expect very little in return when I do. And because of that I expect to have it returned. But unfortunately that’s not always the case.

Please allow me to contradict myself for a moment. Love should be and will always be unconditional. That is to say that you should be able and willing to love someone without expecting anything in return. Selflessly. That’s what makes love incredibly unique as well as difficult to find. The selflessness of being able to open yourself up for the ultimate crush. The ultimate pain. Not being loved. When I say that love is meant to be conditional it is that I don’t want to ever feel the sting of loving unconditionally and not being loved in return.

Things happen in life. Some are good, some bad. But one thing you shouldn’t be afraid to do is place a condition on your love. And why shouldn’t you? If your need to provide love is conditional upon being loved in return, treated fairly, respected, and adored, why shouldn’t you place conditions on your love? Love is the ultimate sacrifice. You provide someone the ammunition to foster a pain inside of you that few experiences can heal. So In my personal opinion it shouldn’t be unconditional.