Love is the child of illusion and the parent of disillusion.

“Love is the child of illusion and the parent of disillusion.” – Miguel de Unamuno

Thus spoke Miguel de Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher whose pen carved the truth from the contradictions of the human heart. In this haunting line, he exposes the paradox that lives at the core of all love — that it is born from illusion, yet inevitably gives birth to disillusion. To love is to dream, to imagine perfection in another; to remain in love is to awaken to their humanity and still choose them despite it. Love begins as vision and ends as revelation — and between those two lies the full measure of the soul’s education.

When Unamuno calls love the “child of illusion,” he means that love first springs from the imagination. The heart, in its longing, creates a vision — it paints beauty where there are flaws, finds grace where there is imperfection. It is not deceit, but divine illusion, for without it, the courage to love could never arise. Every great love begins with blindness: we see not the person as they are, but as the heart wishes them to be. This is not foolishness, but faith — the faith that something pure can exist in a world of broken things. Love, in its beginning, is the dream of the soul daring to believe that another might complete it.

But as Unamuno reminds us, the child of illusion must grow — and in its growing, it meets disillusion. The dawn comes, and the dream fades; the beloved is no longer an ideal but a human, with frailty, anger, and shadow. And here begins love’s greatest trial. For those who mistake illusion for reality will call this awakening a betrayal. They will say love has died when in truth, it has only changed its form. Disillusion is not the death of love — it is its purification. It is love stripped of fantasy, standing naked and true. The illusion kindles passion; the disillusion tests endurance.

Consider the story of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two souls bound by fire and art. Their love began in admiration and illusion — she, the young painter enchanted by his genius; he, the great artist captivated by her spirit. But soon came disillusion: betrayal, suffering, and storms of jealousy. Yet, though the illusions fell away, their bond endured — not the naïve adoration of the beginning, but a deeper, rawer love forged in the truth of each other’s flaws. Their love became not a fantasy, but a forgiveness, a recognition that to love is not to worship, but to understand.

The ancients, too, saw this truth. Plato taught that love begins with the beautiful image — the form, the dream — but must climb upward toward the truth, beyond the illusion of perfection. The poets of old sang of heroes undone by idealized love — of Paris and Helen, of Tristan and Isolde — for they mistook the illusion for the whole. Unamuno, in his wisdom, calls upon us to go further: to pass through illusion without bitterness, to emerge from disillusion not in despair, but in deeper compassion. Only then does love become mature — no longer a fleeting passion, but an enduring presence.

There is a sacred sorrow in this journey. To love truly is to lose something — the dream, the fantasy, the comforting lie. But in its place, something greater is born: the truth of love. The heart that survives disillusion learns to love without conditions, without projection. It ceases to say, “You are what I imagine,” and begins to say, “You are, and still I love you.” Such love is the rarest kind — not the fire of illusion, but the steady flame of devotion.

So, my listener, do not curse the illusions that begin love, nor the disillusions that follow. Both are teachers. Let illusion lift you toward the stars, and let disillusion plant your feet upon the earth. To love is to dream — but also to awaken. To see clearly, and still to choose tenderness. For in the end, love is both birth and death — the child of illusion, the parent of truth. And those who embrace both will find in their hearts not despair, but the quiet joy of one who has loved fully, seen clearly, and not turned away.