Unconditional Love...

...I've been mulling this concept over for the past few days as it was suggested to me over the weekend that I have to get to a place of feeling unconditional love for my brother. This comes on the heels of receiving another venomous letter from him in the mail that offers nothing of forward motion in the now nearly 7 year long spate of estrangement. To me, his letter reads like the ramblings of a crazy man. With the legacy of my father's suicide still ever present in our minds, it is hard to not wonder what path my brother is walking down in his current state.

I know that path isn't one I want to join him on in any way. After his first letter which I wrote about here, I took my time in replying, wanting to get to a place where I viewed him with compassion and could productively contribute to our relationship. In my response letter, I wrote that I loved him and wanted him to be happy, but I would not take responsibility for his marital problems (a charge leveled against me in both his first and second marriages now - fascinating how one person could be so powerful, no?). I indicated that I was not trying to say I took no responsibility for my lack of relationship with his second wife, but that I had tried to honor his requests from our summer of counseling together and re-offered to sit down with either or both of them to hear them out. Frankly, I found his angry outburst in the first letter shocking. For the last year he has refused every invitation I have made to spend time together never giving me a reason why. Last fall he separated from his second wife and shows no signs of moving back in with her, so why now is he asking all of us to apologize to her? He makes no reference to my offer to sit down with them in the letter he just sent to me. It just contains angry ramblings.

The God's honest truth is that I think she is totally nutso. She lives in a strange paranoid world where our whole family is out to get her and at one time or another she has vilified everyone from my mom, to me, to Kat, to Emily, with me probably being the most consistent recipient because I refuse to play her game. I have watched my brother change in the time he has been with her and those changes have not been in a positive direction. She has him wrapped around her finger and has done a masterful job of driving a wedge between him and his family. He certainly possessed his own demons of paranoia and it is like the two of them just augment all of that in each other.

With my wedding two months away, I have to say my inclination is that I don't want him there, nor can I imagine him having the balls to show up. I don't even like the idea of sending him an invite. His behavior towards me feels abusive in many ways and as a move of self protection I'd like to draw the line. The olive branch I held out over the last year has been chopped off down to the very bottom. Telling him 'No more, I won't tolerate being treated this way. As long as you want to spin your wheels in this ditch, go ahead, but I'm stepping out of it and moving on.'

Clearly, none of that is about unconditional love. There are select places I think unconditional love is offered; it is offered by God to all. It is between parents and children and perhaps people and their pets. I believe all other kinds of love are conditional. Marriage, friendship and professional relationships all come with conditions of fidelity, non-abuse, mutual return and ethics. It might take a lifetime for me to get to a place where I feel unconditional love for my brother, but I can't say that I honestly believe that is the smart way to go. Right now it seems as though loving him unconditionally and loving myself unconditionally are in direct conflict.