Selfish love is akin to toxic love in that it can damage the violated partner and destroy the relationship.
Selfish love is common. It exists when one or both partners’ dominant concern is what they “get” from their partner and the relationship. All their interactions, negotiations, and activities center on this.
Setting boundaries and communicating your wants and needs in a relationship is good. But when a person’s behavior to “get what they want” becomes manipulative, demanding, or coercive, they are selfish, immature, and unfair.
It’s not just young people who engage in selfish love. People of any age can behave this way. It does start and become ingrained during a person’s childhood, though.
A selfish person says I love you to hear I love you back. A selfish person gives love to “get” love. A selfish person says I love you at strategic moments to “get” what they want. A selfish person uses love to manipulate and control. Children may do the same thing with their parents. But there’s a big difference.
Children do it unknowingly, and adults do it unconsciously. Adults do it unconsciously because that’s where they put it, using rationalization. Rationalization in this context is a process of making excuses, blaming others, and self-deception (an unwillingness to face the truth).
How do I know this? Over many years, I observed an extreme case in a close relative, leading me to study this behavior in other people and my relationships.
Selfish love can occur in any relationship, not just romantic ones. It can also occur in family and friend relationships.
True love, or love without selfishness, occurs when a person’s utmost concern in the relationship is the other person’s happiness. This does not mean they are self-sacrificing or subservient. They have just developed maturity, confidence, and self-awareness, allowing them to give love without measure or expected return. They know from experience that if the love is real, it will be returned to them in equal or greater measure. It usually feels greater from their point of view.
I had been in many romantic relationships that I believed were based on true love until I noticed a radical shift in my behavior during a special relationship years later. In prior relationships, one or both of us often behaved selfishly to varying degrees. I didn’t recognize it as being selfish at the time. I was too immature.
After advancing into adulthood, I fell deeply in love with a woman in a way I had never experienced before. The most significant difference was that my pleasure and joy came from seeing her satisfied and happy. Before this relationship, my main concern was often my interests, enjoyment, and happiness, which is selfishness. That relationship was one of the most exciting and fulfilling in my life.
It’s easy for me to recognize selfish people now. If I see these traits in a woman I’m interested in, I’m immediately turned off. Selfishness is ugly when you’re not being selfish. When selfishness is deeply ingrained, selfish behavior by others seems normal.
If you’re involved in a selfish love relationship, there are only two ways to deal with it: fix or end it. Living with it would only lead to frustration and heartache.
Since selfishness is an immature behavior with powerful rewards, you must take a firm stand to change it. Here’s what you might do. Call them out on the selfish “behavior” when it happens. Describe why the behavior is unacceptable without calling them selfish – if you can. Ask them if they will stop it. If their selfish behavior continues, tell them it’s a deal breaker if it doesn’t end. And mean it.
If you observe serious selfish behavior like them running up huge credit card balances on unneeded stuff for themselves, you might cut your losses and end the relationship. This would be especially true if you had joint credit card accounts and the behavior continued after you had discussed it.
If they were opening credit cards and running them up without your knowledge, moving on would probably be best. But before you do, secretly close or take your name off the credit card accounts.
Selfishness causes more problems in relationships than anything else. Safeguard yourself from selfishness. The rewards of being unselfish greatly outweigh the rewards of being selfish.
This article is my unselfish gift to you. 🙂