English Version | Love & Hope Issue | To be Continued: L'amour absolu

05 Dec 2023
By Vogue Portugal

“I believe in absolute love, the one that lasts a lifetime, I know it exists because I've lived it, but perhaps it requires a quality that I don't have, a [kind of] selflessness that I lack.” Fanny Ardant, one of France's most respected actresses, recently spoke about the idea of “absolute love”, the one that lasts a lifetime, that never ends. But what characterizes this kind of unconditional love? More importantly, do we still believe in it?

“It's a matter of extending our non-judgmental attention, acceptance, and caring toward a person without any expectation or hope of receiving anything back, or wanting them to change in order to meet our needs”, says John Amodeo, PhD, author of Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships and a licensed marriage and family therapist. “When the happiness and security of another is as real and meaningful to us as our own, we love that person unconditionally”, adds Stephen G. Post, PhD, president of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love. The American experts' explanations, given to the Oprah Daily website in August 2022, serve to add to the confusion: is the (romantic) idea we have of unconditional love, that (romantic) idea of total, simple and eternal love, really such a simple thing? If it has always been difficult to find a form of love that is as imperfect as possible - one that encompasses, at the same time, concepts such as commitment, seduction, magic, respect, affection and butterflies in the stomach, today it is even more difficult to say that someone is willing to bow down to anyone in favor of a feeling (an ideal?) that seems to be on the verge of extinction. In a world that lives on the run, where each of us is desperately fighting not to lose our self-love, the most important kind of love you'll ever find, is it even possible to be selfless enough to love without expecting anything in return - not even a hug, a message, a like, a meme? It's impossible to know. Love is never the same, and every time a relationship begins, a two-voice symphony begins that sets the rhythm and tempo of that love. If the two people involved are emotionally stable and happy, the end is likely to be happy. Not eternally happy, not unconditionally happy, just happy. However, if at least one of them is stuck in negative feelings, which can range from serious things like bitterness and hostility, to less serious ones like dissatisfaction and jealousy, the future will be toxic - for both of them. In fact, eight times out of ten there will probably be someone less happy and positive, because human beings are not, by nature, one hundred per cent noble-minded. We have flaws, we have faults, we learn from our mistakes. Instead of unconditional love, we should dream of another kind of love: love without conditions. Here's something to manifest even before 2023 is over.