Love and Hate

Wrote this years ago. It's still relevant:

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Actually, anyone scorned can be a dangerous element. Why? I’ve been pondering this for a while and I think I’ve found a thread to pull. Love and hate are not opposites. They are two sides, yes, but of the same coin. The opposite of love is indifference – you really don’t care about that person, place or thing.

Love is a constant. Once you have put that energy, that thought in your life it will not die. It can however, shift. Think about someone you have loved dearly and now dislike intensely. Before you knew this person, say when you first met them, you were indifferent toward them. Love at first sight is even preceded by a period of indifference when the object of your affection was just one of the mass of humanity, but once you have loved, the whole game changes.

We are loath to admit this when things go sour. We still have strong feelings, but we do not want to love someone or something that hurts us, so we turn that emotion to hate. Some people have relationships that swing between love and hate with ease - it is part of the dynamic of the relationship. This can be, because love and hate are not opposites. They are harmonics. When any relationship goes sour – that which we loved is not as worthy or compatible as we had thought – it is easy and convenient to turn that love to hate. When someone who loved us changes their opinion, particularly if they show indifference, which really is the denial of love and the complete end of any relationship, we can be driven to fury. We take the love that we have felt, and not having the opportunity to alter that love the way the other party has, our own emotion comes out as hate – hence: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”.

The sane and unfortunately difficult solution would be to acknowledge our love and live with the feelings that a change in circumstances or awareness bring about. I have loved many people through the years who have proven over time to have aspects to their character that were incompatible with my own. I am not talking here on a sexual level. One can love a friend or an associate as easily as one can love a mate. When those aspects become apparent I am faced with a dilemma, because to some degree I do love this person. In some cases, it is possible to continue to love the person, warts and all. That is what all mature love consists of. We all have our weaknesses and we live and love with each other despite them.

Sometimes things crop up in another or in ourselves where a continued connection is no longer possible. I think that we stay with people not so much because of common interests and values as we do because of compatible faults. When faults become incompatible it is so easy to bury the disappointment and hurt that comes with loving that person by turning that emotion of love to hate, but when we do that we continue the cycle that hurts us. Hate is not far from love and can live on for years, poisoning our system and even our future relationships.

So, what is the solution? I think I have discovered some of it in one of my own children’s former partner. We all learned to love this individual, looked forward to his addition to our family, but there were hidden problems that were destructive. While we all pray that those destructive tendencies are something this person will conquer, we are also aware that the process will be a long one and there will be a lot of ‘bodies’ along this person’s path to healing. I know this acutely because of my own toxic background, born of years of abuse by my mother as a child. I know how many suffered being connected to me till I found some balance of my own. Fortunately these things balance out – only toxic people stick around for toxic results.

So for our family, this one person who we all learned to love so much can not be the addition we had looked forward to. The temptation exists to turn our love to hate. Then, all future disappointments in that area will be avoided. To continue to love and support the individual while protecting ourselves is difficult, but it is more truthful. We do in fact have love for this person. We are disappointed in the loss of a hoped for future. We will not waste and soil the value in that humanity through hate. This would seem the harder course, but in truth it is the easier. Hate is toxic in and of itself, and as we are all members of that great web of humanity, of life and of energy, to hate another is to lessen ourselves. Hate devours all that it touches.