Love ... and Hate
Deep Inner Conflict © Martyn Carruthers

Online Coaching for Better Relationships

Were you taught that falling in love was an essential step to a happy life? Were you taught that partnership is easy ... if you love each other enough? Do you still believe this?

Few topics are more fascinating than love. And the opposite of love is probably not hate - it's apathy. Yet many people have described loving a person and disliking or even hating that same person simultaneously - in the same moment.

Most of us know how it feels to love someone ... and how it feels to dislike someone. But we may not understand how or why we fall in love ... or fall into hate ... or experience both together.

Close Encounters

When you meet someone, probably you will quickly assess their age, figure, weight, clothes, posture, grooming and perhaps speech. Your assessment may motivate you to move towards or away from that person. It is normal to feel attracted to people who appear physically and emotionally healthy; and perhaps repelled by people who are physically or mentally ill.

Also, depending on your history, you may feel attracted to or repelled by ...

• people with authority
• people who appear rich
• people who resemble a media figure
• people similar to a parent, sibling or past love

Probably you select potential partners both consciously and unconsciously. Can you change your unconscious attractions or compulsions? It may help if you understand a little psychobiology.

Psychobiology of Love

Your brain chemistry changes when you are in love, in similar ways to some mental illnesses or drugs. Falling in love can be addictive, and falling out of love is often associated with withdrawal symptoms! Falling in love seems to have three main phases, associated with hormones and neurotransmitters.

1. Lust is driven by estrogen and testosterone (affecting both men and women).
2. Attraction is associated with dopamine and serotonin. People in love may feel obsessed. They may eat less, sleep less and day-dream about their partners.
3. Attachment supports lasting commitments and helps bond lovers together. Feelings of connectedness are associated with vasopressin and oxytocin.

Most people experience a surge of oxytocin bonding during extended touch, for example during sex or massage, and a surge of dopamine during arousing activities. Although both can trigger feelings of love and romance - who exactly are you in love with? With another person - or with your own good feelings?

As love can be addictive, people in love can show symptoms similar to substance abuse, and people falling out of love can suffer serious mental health repercussions, similar to symptoms associated with withdrawal from addictive drugs.

Love-Hate Relationships

Falling in love is usually a wonderful feeling; and falling out of love often brings profound suffering. But have you ever loved and disliked a person simultaneously? Such love–hate relationships can occur if:

• part of you is in love - and some other part of you is not

• the person you love behaves totally differently at different moments

• you cannot fulfill a loving relationship, yet you feel bonded to the other person

• you assumed your partner was like someone else - and later found that was not true

Both love and hate can be accompanied by strong emotions, and both can lead you to obsessive thoughts or irrational actions. One minute you love someone and the next minute you cannot stand them. Why is this? Have you lost that passion that you once had for each other?

Love-hate relationships are common relationship styles. One minute you love the person and the next you simply cannot stand them. Why is this? Have you both lost the passion that you once had for each other? How can your beautiful feelings of love transform so quickly into hostility and withdrawal?

Solutions for Love-Hate Relationships

You may have believed your first infatuation was true love because you had not experienced such emotional intensity before. You will probably remember this experience for the rest of your life ... and compare future experiences to it.

If you love someone else, you may compare your feelings to your first-love experience. If your feelings are similar, you may decide that you are again in love.  If your feelings are not similar - you may decide that there is no hope for this potential new relationship, and dislike this person.

Intimate love-hate relationships may feel like roller coaster rides, but they rarely support lasting happiness. Some simple steps to improve a partnership are:

1. Clarify your relationship roles and responsibilities

2. Avoid criticizing each other - and give clear feedback

3. Forgive each other for irrelevant behaviors and minor details

4. Strive to understand your own and partner's words and behavior

5. Accept that you both have qualities and issues - and work to improve yourself

6. Share life experiences and pleasures together - create memories that you can enjoy

We coach people to learn from disappointments ... and step towards healthy partnership.

Love and Happiness

I often define happiness as a profound and lasting experience of well-being and fulfillment that can survive and even grow during difficult times. Many people have told me that they feel emotionally whole when they care about the happiness of important people; and when they feel cared for by these other people. When they feel supportive and supported in their happiness and life purpose, they may feel connected to that person and included in that person's life.

Yet love is sometimes a cover or excuse for unhealthy behavior. When I coach people who describe unhappy partnerships, I often ask, "Why do you want to stay together?" Often the first answer I hear is "because we love each other".

To enjoy a healthier intimate partnership, you can first examine your beliefs about romantic love. If you do not have healthy beliefs, then you have little chance of having healthy relationships. If your beliefs about romance are based on fairy tales, popular songs and movies from your childhood, then you are likely to be disappointed in your intimate relationships - again and again.

Conditional Love

Children notice that if they are obedient and cooperative, their parents smile and touch them gently and speak kindly. With their words and behavior, parents communicate their love for their children.

Real children sometimes fight, make noise, get bad grades and make a mess. Do parents still smile and speak gentle, kind words? Just as people communicate that we are loved, the absence of those behaviors can communicate a lack of love. Children learn: “I am only loved if I do certain things.”

Substitutes for Love

People who feel unloved often try to fill their emptiness with distractions and substitutes - money, sex, alcohol, drugs, violence, video games and chocolate are common. Like addictive drugs, the pleasure of praise, power, fun, money and sex become increasingly brief. People work harder to get the desired effect, and eventually become exhausted and frustrated. No matter how well they get substitutes, they don't get the feeling of connection that comes with mature love. They still feel disconnected.

Often, falling in love is jus an exchange of substitutes. Many people start relationships based on what they hope to receive and expect to give. This marketplace attitude may be great for affairs, but seems to be a poor foundation for partnership.

Rebuilding Failed Relationships

So many relationships end in separation, and many people who stay together often settle for less than they had hoped for. When troubled couples ask for crisis coaching, they often ask, “What happened?” They are confused, wondering how they changed from soul mates to combatants.

Relationships based on substitutes will likely fail - no matter how wonderfully the couple felt in the beginning. Later, when the effects of substitutes wear off, as they must, being lies, such people are often left clinging to broken dreams and damaging beliefs.

Relationships can be rebuilt if they were built - not on substitutes for love -
rather on a foundation of emotional maturity and partnership skills.

Online Coaching for Loving Relationships

Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2010-2012 All rights reserved.

Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1996-2012 All rights reserved. Soulwork Systemic Coaching was primarily developed by Martyn Carruthers
to help people dissolve emotional blocks and improve relationships to achieve their goals. These concepts and strategies are for general knowledge only. Consult a physician about medical conditions and before changing medical treatment. Don't steal intellectual property ... get permission to post, publish or teach Martyn's work.