I think that real love is easy and should not be earned nor worked for.
I disagree with this to some extent. It's a pipe dream to think that love is always easy and doesn't need to be worked at. I think this is the reason a lot of people get divorced... "It no longer feels as good as it did in the beginning, therefore we are out of love, therefore I am checking out, see ya." Love is easiest to handle when it comes easy and just flows. Love is not so easy when you are in a major argument with someone you love, or when you have been deeply hurt by someone.
It comes to you from kindness and never from a fair weathered person.
Tough love is just an excuse to project anger and frustration on your child or
someone who is on drugs because you refuse to show unconditional love,
because you are impatient and you give up because nothing seems to work..
I am very sorry that you have had a bad experience growing up. The lessons you have learned aren't true, though, and that is what you should look at changing.
Tough love is not just some excuse to project anger onto a child. My friends have an adorable 2 year old daughter. The mother is an ENFJ and she has been adamant about not coddling her daughter. Whenever Tawny falls down, Mindy says, "Ok, shake it off!" and they both do this little shaking dance. I know it kills her inside to not just run over and cuddle her daughter every time she falls, but she knows that down the road this will pay off. And it's paying off even now. When Tawny is out playing with her cousins, most of whom are much older, she gets pushed around a lot because she's small. But she doesn't sit down and start screaming/whining, she picks herself up and continues onward. In contrast, Mindy's SIL coddles her youngest child. Everytime that kid so much as sits down hard, she runs over yelling "Thomas are you ok?!?!?!?" It's absolutely obnoxious to observe.
Ultimately, what most very sensitive people need is the love they need that works for them, and not what works for everyone else.
I can agree on this to some extent. (And I agree on a later sentiment expressed at the end of the thread about dreading an INFP child, for I dread this as well.) Growing up I got picked on a lot and teased for a variety of factors. I was sobbing in my room one day and my INTP dad came in to see what was going on. I told him what had happened in school and how much I hated school and other people, etc. I was perhaps 8 or so. My dad listened patiently to me and then started explaining to me how life isn't fair. Now as an adult, and especially now after knowing far more about how INTPs tick, I can see that what he was doing was very loving. However, as an 8 year old it was like having an extra burden placed on me because I was even more alone in my sadness. I know that my dad had the best of intentions at heart and he was really trying to help me. And honestly I don't even know what would have been the happy medium for that moment.
Why would the word tough even have a connection with love when love has such a kind meaning with no harm in it's intent?
Tough love, as far as I understand, is love that is done out of the best intentions for someone... which isn't necessarily what the recipient wants. When I have someone I love that is crying and upset about something, I have to gauge what I think is best for them. Sometimes it IS best that I just listen, cry with them, hold them, whatever. And other times it's like "ok, this is the 5th guy you have dated who has left you after having sex one time because you keep sleeping with them on the first date.... So here is my advice: stop doing that." I don't love my friend any less but the last thing she needs to hear is me saying "Oh, it's not you!!! MEN SUCK!!!" because A: that isn't true on either count and B: it just says, keep doing what you're doing!
I hear "Don't enable your child for his bad behavior"
How would a parent enable their daughter if she got pregnant at 16?
Why can't they sit their daughter down and explain to her that they love her
and she can choose what she wants. I think abortion exists for parents who decide not to take responsibility to support their children emotionally.
This is kind of a hot potato topic so I am not sure I even really want to go here. Yeah, if I do I will stir up a hornet's nest and I am not in the mood.
Children need support when they're growing up, because some of them grow up feeling unloved and bitter. When I would cry about something, my mother would slap my hand or my mouth or my face, or my dad would put his hand over my mouth and he would tell me to shut the fuck up because my crying was annoying.
This isn't tough love. This is abuse. This is "hi I should never have had a kid because I don't get the fact that once I have a kid, I need to hang out my selfish outfit in the closet."
I was crying, for whatever reason it was happening for, I was still hurting and getting me to shut up just meant that it was "tough love" in his eyes, when it was abuse. I was a kid but I was still a human and deserved to express my emotions. Since, I've felt as though I've had to quiet my cries because they annoy people.
This isn't tough love at all. This may be someone's messed up version of "tough love" but there is no love involved.
When I hear someone crying, I have this need and instinct to rush to them and hold them, their sobbing is felt through me like lightning striking. I can't ignore it. It's painful for me and they need someone, they don't need to be turned away.
Agreed. You can still do this and be reasonable about it though. It's a balance that everyone should attempt to strike on occasion.
Neglecting your child because they stress you out with their ''problems" or tears and stress is not tough love- That is neglect and failing to be there for them. I don't care if you're in a wheel chair. If you can talk, if you can listen, then you can love. You don't have to hug or touch them.
Yeah, that isn't tough love either. Selfish people aren't really the best ones to gauge what love is.
Words can impact a person who is in pain, so be careful and it's never as easy as; "Get over it" or "It's not the end of the world" For some, it is the end of the world. People die because their feelings are invalidated and they're given tough love. Love is never tough.
I get what you are saying at the heart of the matter. For me, love has been one of the toughest things I have ever had to learn. It starts out sounding so damn easy to do. (Disney movies have corrupted my INFP soul with too much idealism.) Love is easy when things are easy. But loving someone when it's the worst time of your life, or when it's the worst time of their life, or when the world is falling apart around you... is not always easy. Love is patient and kind and beautiful. Love is also cleaning up vomit, and washing someone who can't walk anymore, and letting your child stumble around. Love is letting go of anger (no matter how right you may be), love is letting go of past wrongs (no matter how much you may not want to), and love is just plain letting go someone who can't be caged. But most of all love is tough. It has the strength to endure past even death, but it is also fragile and you can't take it for granted.
Time to end my ramble. Please know Meek I am not trying to attack you in any way - just offer a different perspective to you. I hope you can learn a different kind of love with other people in your life. I was fortunate enough to have two parents who loved me, even if they didn't always understand me.
I find it sad that not everyone was so lucky as I was.