You cannot feel obligation toward someone and love them at the same time. The feeling of obligation literally constricts the emotional experience of love. This doesn’t mean you stop loving the person — it means the felt, embodied experience of love has to shut down for obligation to operate. Every time we act out of obligation, we are trading love for duty.
This is demonstrated viscerally in a coaching clip where a man feels love for his wife, then is asked to feel responsible for her happiness — and the love immediately disappears. He’d been cutting off his love for her for years through the mechanism of obligation without realizing it.
The distinction is between the momentary experience and the long-term pattern. In any given moment, obligation and love cannot coexist. Over time, obligation can be a strategy to eventually feel love — but in the long haul, the love erodes because the emotional system is being chronically constricted.
“Every time you took responsibility, acted out of obligation, it stopped the love that you felt for her.”
“Obligation is in its essence a form of management. Things don’t want to be managed.”
Related Concepts
- Obligation kills love
- Caretaking kills desire
- Replace obligation with wanting
- Caretaking is a strategy to feel love through managing others’ happiness
- Using obligation as a strategy to get love always backfires