Love and Justice

Psychotherapy: Couples Counseling: Pre-Marital Counseling: Relationships: Boundaries

“If you loved me, you would put up with my drinking.”
“If you loved me, you would put up with my sarcasm.”
“If you loved me, you would put up with my chronic unemployment.”
“If you loved me, you would…”

There are quite a number of clients who come into my office confused about how much unconditional love they should bestow upon their partner. Often, they are not aware of a subtle form of emotional blackmail that is being perpetrated upon them. Their partner usually implies or says explicitly that the problem in the relationship would go away if the partner loved them enough to tolerate some toxic behavior.

On the Kaballah’s Tree of Life, the qualities of Love and Justice are paired together. This pairing is intentional. It says to us that there is no love without justice and no justice without love.

We live in limited bodies. We live in a limited world. We live a limited time on earth. We need boundaries to keep us safe and happy. While love may be eternal, we are not. We are limited. That’s why wedding vows usually say something like: “Until death do us part”.

Unconditional love is a wonderful trait – for beings that do not have bodies. Unconditional love implies a lack of boundaries. So long as we live in an envelope of skin, we will have boundaries. As much as I love my wife, I have never allowed her to touch the iris in my eyes. That’s off boundaries. Would it be reasonable for her to say: “If you loved me, you would allow me to touch the iris in your left eye.”? If I never let her touch the iris of my eye, would my love for her be any less powerful or eternal? Sometimes, the highest demonstration of love is a respect for the beloved’s boundaries and needs.

Life is often not fair. Life’s stressors will often demand that one of the partners give more to their partner at times than the other. This is where the polarity between love and justice gets confusing. When it appropriate for one partner to sacrifice themselves more than the other?

In strong, healthy marriages, one partner can sacrifice themselves for another in sometimes amazing ways, enduring long periods of deprivation and even death. However under these extreme conditions, the partner who is the beneficiary of the sacrifice is willing to acknowledge and respond to the needs of the partner who is making the sacrifice.

If one partner’s “unconditional love” becomes the only glue that binds the relationship together because the remaining partner refuses to also make sacrifices, or refuses to acknowledge the needs of their partner, the relationship will fall apart once that “glue” is removed. Here is where the emotional blackmail operates. The partner with the toxic behavior will usually hold themselves hostage to the relationship. The sacrificing partner usually knows that if they set appropriate limits, their partner will probably leave. Often, the person making the sacrifice feels a large emotional investment in the relationship. Their hope was that their sacrifices would be acknowledged and rewarded in the future. The fear of abandonment often “locks” the sacrificing partner into the dilemma of continuing their sacrifice or watching their relationship disintegrate.

Quite reasonably, one might ask, where is the demanding partner’s unconditional love? Shouldn’t unconditional love operate both ways in a relationship? And, if the partner demanding unconditional love were truly serious about this, wouldn’t they eliminate their toxic behavior and act respectfully, courteously, and kindly too?

Where there is no justice, there is no love. Where there is no love, there is no justice.