Selfishness in love

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It seems that it is impossible to love someone without seeking something for yourself whether it be personal satisfaction, love, companionship etc. So because of this no one can love perfectly and most of human love contains some selfishness even if the person is not conscious of it. This makes sense because we are human and are imperfect and only saints and angels and God are perfect.

But then even our coming into existence was selfish. When our parents concieved us they likely were doing it for themselves. They may have been seeking out pleasure, love, or maybe they wanted to conceive a child, but in order to fulfill their desire for children or to follow their morals etc. They did not conceive you because they loved YOU for who you were or because they wanted to give YOU life. Because it was their choice to have sex (unless it was rape), they also must take responsibility for any child that comes into existence by their act. They have the responsibility to fulfill the child’s basic physical and emotional needs and the child owes them nothing(not even gratitude) for the parents fulfilling those needs.

Does this make any sense? Or does it seem like a messed up way of thinking?
 
Be careful about conflating romantic love with relationship and friendship love.

The Greeks thought there were 8 different kinds of love

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8 Different Types of Love According to the Ancient Greeks

The ancient Greeks narrowed down eight different types of love in life. Discovering what these different types of love are helps us to bring more depth and
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Selfless love would be called Agape
 
I guess that’s why Christ’s love for us was so perfect.

He literally gained nothing. Was tortured, was aware that people will still reject him, and that he isn’t gaining anything from it at all.
 
Truthfully, it sounds very cynical. Why not get a copy of a book about the Saints and read up. What each of them suffered for their love of a God they could not see might change your mind. A couple of suggestions:

www.goodreads.com

Lives of the Saints: For Every Day in the Year

Butler's Lives of the Saints is the most revered Cathol…
www.goodreads.com www.goodreads.com

www.goodreads.com

Lives of the Saints (Boxed Set)

Two volumes.
www.goodreads.com www.goodreads.com

The two book set is a series of daily biographies of Saints, a reflection and a prayer. Small doses of day-to-day inspiration that demonstrate pure Christian love.
 
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St. Bernard spoke of degrees of love and the fourth one was when you would love yourself only for God’s sake. Selfishness is very hard to overcome completely and I’m sure in most it exists to some degree.
 
People engage in sex many times and no baby is conceived. So it is not the desire of the Flesh (selfish love) that makes a baby; it is only when God knows himself CO-OPERATING with a couple knowing each other that fertilization is successful because a Soul is present in that situation, from God’s knowing of you, such than you might animate the zygote as it develops in its humanity. (https://softvocation.org/2018/05/24/knowing/ )

As for Love that is not selfish, that is the infused virtue that you received when you were baptized, and which you were strengthened to use well when you were Confirmed.
As our LORD posed it to Peter,
“Simon son of John, do you pour your life out for me more than these?” [ἀγαπᾷς]
“Lord you know I like being with you.” [φιλῶ]
“Feed my sheep. Simon son of John, do you pour out you whole life into union with me?” [ἀγαπᾷς]
“Lord, you know I like being with you.” [φιλῶ]
“Feed my Lambs. Simon son of John, do you like being with me?” [Φιλεῖς] [Selfish]
(discouraged) “Lord, you know I like being with you.” [φιλῶ]
“Feed my sheep. you are going to die in a way you don’t like, even though you like being with me.”
 
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Usually fertilization occurs when the women is fertile. I also don’t doubt that many couples have sex out of love for each other, but they are not conceiving the baby out of love for the child
 
Yeah but you mean to tell me that raising the brat for the rest of it’s life isn’t love? That’s where the selflessness comes in—when we don’t want to do something but we do it anyway because we have the other’s best interest in mind. If people were completely selfish there would be no such thing as relationships. Why stay with a person? Why raise a child?

We aren’t completely selfish. And We aren’t completely selfless either.
 
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Most of what you say makes sense to me. I would disagree with a few points, such as “only saints and angels and G-d are perfect.” Only G-d is perfect: neither the angels nor the saints are perfect. Some may disagree. Also, children do owe gratitude and much more to their parents for caring for, raising, teaching, and loving them. It may not always work out that way, but the love for parents is an obligation and, hopefully, more than that. In line with your theme of our selfishness, I would add that our striving to be with G-d in heaven is also, at least in part, selfish, and the degree of selfishness, as in other needs and drives, varies from one person to the next.

HOWEVER, I see nothing terribly wrong with being selfish so long as it is not our sole or main focus in life. I believe that G-d made us with a certain degree of selfishness for the purpose of our earthly survival. On this point, I am backed up by both psychological research and Jewish teaching. According to the latter, when we choose to take on the day by getting out of bed in the morning, taking a shower, brushing our teeth, eating, getting dressed, we are being selfish. This should not be taken as a bad thing for it is essential so that we survive and flourish, while, at the same time, accomplishing something in our lives. Nonetheless, if we do these things ONLY for our own benefit, that is not good. We should also direct our energy toward helping others as well as ourselves: Love thy neighbor as thyself. Loving ourselves by being selfish is fine so long as it is not an end in itself but rather a means to an end. If, on the other hand, we choose to focus only on ourselves, we are not fulfilling our G-d-given capacity and potential to do for others and thus make the world a better place, referred to as “tikkun olam” in Judaism. Instead, we would be behaving just like a plant, which is completely selfish, and worse than an animal, which is not entirely selfish. We were given more to our nature than that; but what we were given by G-d must be cultivated so that it thrives.
 
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Spirituality is the work of a lifetime.

We strive for selflessness, we keep working at it, but we’ll prolly have some mix of selfishness in our actions to the end of our days.

But that means we have to keep moving in the right direction.
 
We should honor our parents, but our parents also owe us food, shelter, education etc because it is the responsibility that comes with children and they chose to do the act that brings about children
 
Regardless of why our parents brought us into the world and what they owe us, we owe them abundantly.
 
I find it interesting reading from an Author named Thomas Moore that the soul can be in love and it takes off into an entirely different perspective at that point for the duration of the Book called, Soul Mates.

Not enough information has ever been focused on the soul, this soul that animates us. The soul moves in mysterious ways, it will run and seek to be free but it also is a seeker in it’s own right, and it is never grounded because it wanders freely. We make a mistake in wanting to capture this, in questioning it’s “moving” and sometimes we question too much into another’s peaks and valleys and never learn that the soul requires time alone as well as with another, and sometimes simultaneously…it pulls us.

Hard to describe but I believe in love we’re ruled by the soul, and what might seem like selfishness is the inability to allow the soul to soar without bonds, and when you truly love another you want them to, you even grow from it yourself.
 
rosejmj said:
It seems that it is impossible to love someone without seeking something for yourself whether it be personal satisfaction, love, companionship etc. So because of this no one can love perfectly and most of human love contains some selfishness even if the person is not conscious of it. …
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Seeking something for yourself is not necessarily selfish.

selfish, adj., 1. concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others.
– Merriam-Webster
 
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rosejmj said:
It seems that it is impossible to love someone without seeking something for yourself whether it be personal satisfaction, love, companionship etc. So because of this no one can love perfectly and most of human love contains some selfishness even if the person is not conscious of it. This makes sense because we are human and are imperfect and only saints and angels and God are perfect.
…
Does this make any sense? Or does it seem like a messed up way of thinking?
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You describe a thoughtful observant human way of thinking. You describe natural human love, which always has the self in it - but we are made for more, for selfless love which is (for us) supernatural and divine. The ecclesial term for such supernatural and selfless love is charity - holy divine charity. All baptized persons have received such love, infused into the soul, at Baptism, along with many other infused gifts of the Spirit - and the infused, supernatural theological virtues Faith, Hope, and yes Charity.

The normal human Catholic Christian vocation after Baptism is to GROW in all His supernatural gifts and virtues - especially holy charity. Our vocation in Christ is actually, literally, really to become perfect in love, in other words, fully mature in holy charity. This is what Jesus meant when He taught,
Mt 5:43 "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
Mt 5:44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Mt 5:45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
Mt 5:46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
Mt 5:47 And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Mt 5:48 You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
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At Baptism we were given - infused with - perfect divine supernatural love, holy charity in potency, in “seed form” so to speak, not fully developed or mature or “perfect.” That potency is in the baptized, but also present in us all is natural, human, to-some-extent-self-seeking love.. Our calling after Baptism is to more and more diminish our self-centered love, and live more and more in that selfless gift of supernatural love, holy charity.

Those (few they may be) who strive whole-hearted to live in the “new birth”, the “new life” the “holy GIFT of Baptism” - these can and will live in the new, and die to the old, and ascend the mountain of holy salvation to God.

HOW this happens (or better, CAN happen) is not well-taught in the Church today, I’m sorry to say. It is there in our Catholic Tradition, most clearly and precisely taught by St. John of the Cross, in The Ascent of Mt Carmel / the Dark Night of the Soul.
 
I’m ‘Selfishly’ in love with Jesus Christ. And yes, I’m not perfect but God’s love for us is. May God bless you.
 
It’s ok to be human and have human desires-we were created that way-with normal needs. Selfishness presents itself when we want more than we really need; that’s where lack of love reveals itself. And no doubt we need to grow in love; we’re here, in fact, to learn how to value it; to learn, if we will, how to love God and neighbor. And nearly every action we perform in our relationships with others can be weighed against the standard of love, to see whether or not love is prevailing in the midst of our normal desires or whether selfishness is entering the scene.

So it’s not so black and white, as if everything we do is inherently selfish as compared to a totally selfless ideal. We’re to love as best we can in every little desire and action we undertake. There’s always a matter of choice; we can choose to love better, or worse.
 
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