In our adult lives, love often becomes complicated.

We fall in love, build relationships, get married, become parents, or lead teams. And somewhere along the way, whether consciously or unconsciously, we start keeping a “list” of reasons why we love someone.

“I love her because she supports me.”
“I love him because he understands me.”
“I love my child because they make me proud.”

These reasons may feel beautiful at first. But what happens when those reasons don’t hold? When someone you love is unable to support you because they’re struggling? When understanding fades due to stress or miscommunication? When your child is going through a tough phase, not meeting your expectations?

Do we stop loving them? Do we feel hurt, distant, or disconnected?

This reflection hit me hard recently. It made me realize that we often love with expectations, even though we may not admit it. We place conditions on love. We say it’s unconditional—but is it, really?

A Child’s Love: The Turning Point

One evening, this thought consumed me so deeply that I decided to speak to someone who might give me a pure answer—my 13-year-old son.

I asked him, “Do you love me?”

He replied instantly, “Yes.”

Then I asked, “Why do you love me?”

He paused for a moment, smiled, and said, “I don’t know… I just love you.”

His innocent response took my breath away.

That moment reminded me of something profound: Children love without lists. They don’t love us because we earn a paycheck, or because we’re perfect parents, or because we meet their needs. They love simply. Freely. Unconditionally. That’s what love looked like when we first entered this world.

So what changed?

Growing Older, Growing Conditions

As we grow, we become more intelligent, more strategic, more analytical. We start building expectations in our relationships. We begin measuring value. We associate love with performance, sacrifice, behavior, and return on investment.

And as we do, we often forget the one truth that children know instinctively:

Love is not earned. It is offered.

We start placing conditions not only on others—but also on ourselves.
We say, “I will love myself when I’m successful.”
“I’ll feel worthy once I meet my goals.”
“I’m not lovable right now because I’m not where I should be.”

And in doing so, we withhold love from the one person who needs it most—ourselves.

Unconditional Love Begins Within

As I sat with this realization, I asked myself:
Have I truly loved myself without a list?

Because when we begin to love ourselves unconditionally, something powerful happens: we stop needing people to meet our expectations to feel loved.
Instead, we overflow with love, and that overflow becomes our gift to others.

Love becomes less about control and more about connection.
Less about fixing and more about accepting.
Less about “what’s in it for me?” and more about “how can I show up fully?”

A New Kind of Awareness

This experience left me with a question I now carry into every relationship:

Am I loving this person for who they are, or for what they do for me?

If the love vanishes when the reasons fade, maybe we weren’t loving them at all—we were loving the idea of them.

But when we learn to love without reason, we rediscover the purity of our original design—God’s creation within us. That kind of love doesn’t vanish. It doesn’t panic. It doesn’t bargain. It stays, it heals, it transforms.

Final Thoughts

Let’s return to love without the list.

Let’s remind ourselves that the truest love isn’t something we have to qualify or measure—it’s something we remember, something we are, something we share.

Like my son, may we all one day say, “I don’t know why. I just love you.”