Love someone, but can’t stand it

You may love your parents very much, but every time you visit them, after a while, you can’t wait to leave. You may also have a friend whom you have known since childhood. He is adorable and a good person, however, his company becomes increasingly difficult for you. If these experiences are familiar to you, know that you are not alone.

We all have ambivalent relationships with more than one person in our environment. There are figures that we appreciate, love and respect and, despite this, in many moments they make us uncomfortable and we even hate them in some fleeting moment. That emotional experience, that of feeling “hate,” is so paradoxical, confusing and uncomfortable that it is common to feel bad about ourselves because of it.

We could say that we are made of flesh, cells and blood, not of chips and plastic connectors. Unlike machines, we are subject to emotional contradiction. We can also remind ourselves that there are no pure emotions, not everything is seamless love. Feeling discomfort, contempt and anger in our relationships is completely normal.

Now, there is a factor that perhaps we do not always take into account. When we say we can’t stand someone, what we don’t like is not the person, it’s their behavior. Relationships are not perfect and it is difficult to like every facet, nuance and characteristic of that someone we love, but who often exhausts us…

We can love someone, but always be arguing with that someone.

Loving someone, but not putting up with it: why does it happen?

Not supporting the people we love does not make us bad people, but rather ordinary humans. This is something that many teachers and professors often feel: they love their students with all their hearts, but there are days when they hate them. However, they don’t really hate these children, what bothers them is their intrusive behavior or their unresponsiveness to their demands.

The same thing happens in many families. One can love one’s parents, grandparents or siblings in a sincere, pure and authentic way. However, we are aware that, due to certain attitudes, reactions or values, we cannot spend much time with them. In the end, the only way to maintain a bond with certain people is to see them as little as possible.

However, The issue becomes much more complicated when this sensation appears in a relationship.. Loving someone, but not putting up with it and having them be the loved one you live with, complicates this reality much more. Why happens? What can we do?

Loving and hating at the same time, a very common brain phenomenon

Loving someone and having days when we can’t stand it. Has it ever happened to you? The truth is that neuroscience has an answer for this. From romantic love to hate there is a very thin line. So much so that a study from University College London indicates that this is because these emotions share the same neural correlates.

We experience love, affection and affection, as well as hate and contempt in the same areas, such as the cerebral subcortex, the putamen and the cerebral insula. It is very common to feel appreciation and contempt for someone you love on the same day. It is completely understandable to love someone and not put up with it from time to time.

Feeling complicity, well-being and happiness next to a person 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is little more than a chimera. People define ourselves by ambivalent feelings and that emotional contradiction will underpin our entire lives. and each of our relationships.

It is an experience that we experience early on. As children, we already discovered that it is very easy to love and despise at the same time. We discover it with our parents, on whom we depend and love, but whom, at a given moment, we can hate because they set limits for us and correct our behaviors.

Sometimes relationships change and, even if love exists, coexistence is no longer possible.

When there is love, but we can’t stand it anymore

We cannot deny a reality. Sometimes, you can love someone, but not be able to live with them. This is more or less manageable when we talk about certain family figures and even friends. We can always manage the time we share with them so as not to reach the limit. So that our depletion quota does not overflow excessively.

However… What happens if the person we can’t stand is our partner? Beyond the emotional ambivalence defined above, there are coexistence problems that can make the situation unsustainable. Let’s reflect on what strategies we could follow in these cases.

1. Clarify what you can’t stand in your partner

Often, when we say that we can’t stand the loved one, what wears us down is not the person themselves, it is their behavior. Therefore, the ideal is clarify which behaviors are stressful or uncomfortable for us and ask ourselves the following questions:

What triggers these behaviors? Are these actions that have always accompanied my partner or are they new now?

2. Communicate what bothers you to find solutions

If love still exists, let’s look for solutions between the two of us. Therefore, If there are negative dynamics that we find unbearable, let’s talk about it with the other person and let’s look for common strategies to improve coexistence.

3. When the relationship no longer makes sense: loving someone, but being better off without them

Human beings change and sometimes, relationships stop being sustained even though affection exists. It’s like the last thread holding up an already worn rope. Not everything that the other does can be changed, because by demanding changes we are also asking that they stop being themselves. Maybe the problem is with us and not with the other party.

Wanting, but not supporting has many interpretations. We know that love is complex, that sometimes and for a few moments we can hate the one we love. But after a while, harmony and complicity emerge again. However, if everything we see in that person generates rejection in us, the affection will end up being completely diluted to give way to contempt.

Let’s not reach this limit, let’s try to be consistent with what we feel and let’s put an end to what no longer makes sense.

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