What is Unconditional Love and What Happens When We Don’t Receive It Early On?

What is Unconditional Love?

Unconditional love in its simplest form is love with no strings attached, love that is freely given and in no way has to be earned or even acknowledged or reciprocated. Typically this refers to the love between a mother, father, or other primary caregiver and an infant. An infant is unable (and ideally not expected) to provide any reciprocity in order to receive love. This caregiver to infant love flows without expectations and begins providing a person with a sense of relational stability and worthiness from the very start of life. 

A Lack of Unconditional Love in Early Childhood

Into childhood where we are unable to fully reciprocate the love our parents provide for us and should not be expected to, we are developing our understanding of relationships, our self-worth, and the world around us based largely upon the unconditional love or lack thereof that we receive. Although all parents or other primary caregivers become frustrated and no-one responds well every time (or even close to that at certain stages for many of us), when we get the message that we are inherently good and lovable, this sets us up for a stronger sense of self-worth and more success in other relationships. By understanding that our caregivers love us at our very core and that we are separate from our actions, we develop a healthy sense of self. 

Unfortunately for many people, a parent or other primary caregiver may have been unable to provide unconditional love during infancy or childhood. Due to mental illness, substance use, their own trauma, or a variety of other concerns, the caregiver may have been unable to connect with their infant or child in this way. Many caregivers who themselves do not have a sense of self-worth, struggle with jealousy and resentment of their children and demonstrate an obvious dislike or disengagement that the infant or child quickly picks up on and determines is a fault of their own. This can lead to struggles with shame and a sense of unworthiness or being ‘unloveable’ into adulthood, despite there never having been anything the infant or child could have done differently to change the caregiver’s capacity to provide unconditional love in the first place. These situations are sometimes glossed over altogether in therapy as there is not always obvious or remembered ‘trauma’. All other ‘necessities’ may have been readily provided, however what we know is that the impacts of emotional neglect can be incredibly detrimental.

Unconditional Love in Other Relationships

If we never had a parent or other primary caregiver who provided true unconditional love during our infancy or childhood, we may spend our lives seeking this out in other relationships. The problem is, searching for this in friends and partners in adolescence and into adulthood sets us up for a lifetime of disappointment and resentment as no one else will ever be able to fulfill this role in the exact way we missed out on, especially as a friendship or partnership is in its early stages. Even when a person appears to be able to provide what looks like unconditional love right from the start, what feels like a big green flag may actually be an indicator that they themselves are struggling with their own difficulties with starting and maintaining healthy relationships. When this happens with a friendship or romantic relationship, the relationship often ultimately deteriorates whether over time or explosively all at once and the belief of being unloveable is further reinforced. 

Healing from a Lack of Unconditional Love

In contrast to the caregiver and infant/child relationship, healthy relationships in adulthood are not wholly unconditional, they contain boundaries that must be understood and respected for the relationship to progress. When we were raised in a household that lacked unconditional love in our early years, in order to now have healthy adult relationships, we have to do the work to acknowledge and heal our internal wounds from childhood, learn to connect to our wisest adult self, understand and implement appropriate boundaries, and fully accept realistic expectations of others.

Doing this work is not quick and does not happen overnight, it can be a very difficult process, and I recommend being wary of any professional who says otherwise. That being said, it is absolutely possible to do. There are many components to healing from early childhood emotional neglect and the lack of unconditional love during these early phases of life. A skilled EMDR therapist can help guide you through this process using EMDR and other techniques including those of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. You can find an EMDR therapist near you at https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/.

For more information on scheduling individual counseling with me, an EMDR certified counselor in Greenville, South Carolina, please message me below. I look forward to speaking with you soon!

*This website (healingvalleyscounseling.com) and the information it contains are not a substitute for therapy. This site is not meant to provide treatment advice, only to share general psychoeducational information. Please see the disclaimer section for more information.