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2026-02-09

Pre-conditional versus post-conditional love

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I think atleast some people would endorse the following dating strategy. "Have high standards for who to marry. Have multiple criteria. But once you're married, commit to loving them unconditionally for life, even if they change a lot with time"
I ... don't actually understand this?
In my head these two things literally contradict each other. But explaining how exactly is non-trivial. Will sit and type it out later.

2026-02-13

Richard Ngo's comment at first glance seems more sophisticated but it's actually not?

My counter is something like - how do you actually know your future self won't prioritise pursuit of political/economic power over keeping your future marriage intact, when you make any promises whatsoever to your partner today? When you're actually inside the situation it's probably not going to feel like "I will use my love as a bargaining chip against my partner" but instead more like "My partner doesnt seem to care about anything I care about for a pretty long time now, and we feel disconnected to each other, and therefore breaking up is the only option left"
The net result either way is that the actual message your partner will hear in this situation is "My partner is literally incapable of loving me unless I do what they want, and therefore their love for me is in fact conditional now"

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