Osho said that "God" became a dirty word and it's true: "in the name of God" there have been murders, wars, people burned alive, all kinds of prosecution and a lot of atrocities.
I believe strongly, that "love" is taking the same road, that the word "love" is used to justify all kinds of things, from having rights over another, to judging them, taking decisions for them, discounting their opinions and a whole lot of hypocritical behavior.
We come to think that we get to decide who the "loved one" is talking to and spending time with, what they like, whom they like, how they dress and a bunch of other things.
In a relationship, this seems normal, to some of us at least; I feel though, that the easiest way to see why this is so wrong, is to consider the difference between symbols and things (the concept is best described here):
When doing things in the name of love, the word "love" is a symbol of what we feel; it doesn't mean anything in itself, but designate "that which I feel"; Instead, we set it as a tag, as something signifying "a relationship", a "thing" in itself; then, we think that "relationship" implies certain things, like, for example, "because I care about you", of course I get to decide what you wear when we get out tonight.
If we leave the label aside, what is left is caring, and all the rights to choose for the other, to be hypocritical, and make decisions in their name, come to rely on ... nothing in particular. They are simply left as an obvious show of hypocrisy.
Leaving the notion of "love" aside, actually makes things more clear, easier to see and understand, more beautiful in their clarity, without changing in any way what we feel.
More than that, the clearer you are about who you are in your relationship with the other, about what your feelings actually are, the more spiritual* you become (to choose another generic label :)).
"Love" as a word, not only comes in the way of understanding ourselves, but brings with it a very dirty baggage of expectations, illusions and ways of abusing the person near us.
Somewhere along the way, love became a dirty word.
* - spiritual, meaning for me, "close to your true nature".
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