Loving boundaries: Conditional love applied to parenting and therapy

I used to think that you could love someone unconditionally or conditionally, and I never really thought that you could do both at the same time, but it just occurred to me today that this is indeed not only possible but advisable! Unconditional love needs no introduction: it’s welcoming someone as they are, fully and deeply. A common attitude is that this is the love of parents for their babies and that’s very much as far as we can find it, but it is perfectly possible to love anyone unconditionally. It is in fact the active ingredient in the most potent forms of therapy! (it is also how coach Joe Hudson makes people cry in a few minutes). A cynic may say that adult love is not and cannot be like this: you love your friends and spouse for specific traits and if they don’t have or lose those traits, the relationship loses one of its grounds for being. Over time the relationship stabilizes via crystallization but it never becomes unconditional, they may say. I was first introduced to…