Unconditional love is generally associated with birth parents' innate love for their child. Conditional love is acquired, under the best of circumstances, when affection, friendship, kindness, respect and trust are at the forefront of an evolving relationship.
While all adults should commit to working on important relationships, step-families could benefit greatly by embracing a heartfelt and continuous campaign to develop conditional love.
Conditional love begins with the understanding all good things must be earned. Acceptable behaviors and personality traits indigenous to a biological family may not be acceptable or appropriate parameters within the step-family for any number of reasons.
Adult step-children can regress to behaviors that will be tolerated by parents, but may be considered somewhat off-putting to a step-parent. Remember, unconditional love has no bounds. All the unattractive behaviors the bio-parents taught or tolerate in the adult child are just part of the package. A step-parent, however, may conscientiously be working to love that adult child, even 25 years into the game.
Step-relationships tend to be somewhat fragile, with comfort levels constantly evolving. A heightened awareness of how certain behaviors will impact the step-relationship, and an exaggerated sense of diplomacy can work wonders in the pursuit for conditional love among step-adults.
