Love-hate relationships are emotionally intense, above all else. Romantic or platonic, you’re pulled to be with this individual — and yet half the time you end up in some kind of fight. You love being with them, but you hate the way they act. Whatever the specific details of your own personal love-hate situation is, the hallmarks are always the same: intense love paired with a lot of anger and an undertone intense desire for something to change.
You feel powerless against your love and helpless under your hate. Can you love someone and hate them at the same time?
Yes! Stormy relationships are all about that push-me, pull-you element. Your entire relationship consists of nothing but burning highs and freezing lows. There’s no even keel when it comes to this kind of relationship, and the potential for toxicity is high. On some occasions, they cannot stand each other and might want to end the relationship but do not end it.
SEVEN SIGNS YOU ARE IN LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP.
1. YOU MAKEUP-YOU BREAK UP AGAIN AND AGAIN
In a love-hate relationship, you love and hate each other with passion. When you both argue, it would be intense and can lead to name-calling and threats of breaking up. During such heated moments, you may find each other highly repulsive. Even as you are thinking about calling it quits, you may have a change of heart and makeup, shower each other with love and forget that you were at each other’s throats just a while ago. But this love is also short-lived, as the cycle of breaking up and making up goes on. Some couples enjoy bickering, arguing and even all-out fighting. But you and you’re significant other are in a constant state of either breaking up or making up, it’s time to take a serious look at what this relationship is even doing for you — not to mention what it might be doing to you.
2. EVEN WHEN YOU’RE “UP,” YOU’RE ALWAYS WATCHING FOR THE NEXT “DOWN.”
Your relationship is tempestuous. You love them so much and yet hate something about them with equal intensity. Even when you experience a period where things are going well, you know deep down that you’re going to hit a wall again. You love but can’t accept your partner and who they are. You always wish something was different. So the relationship is unstable, and you feel insecure, unable to relax into the good times. That’s part of why you’re either clinging and in “love” or pushing them away with the “hate.”
3. YOU’RE ALMOST ALWAYS COMPLAINING ABOUT YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER TO FRIENDS.
No relationship is perfect, and we all need to bend a friend’s ear and vent every once and a while. But if you carry so much anger or toward your S\O that you’re almost always complaining, this is a sign that you know something isn’t working and also that you can’t bring yourself to either figure out how to fix it or just leave. You’re caught in the love-hate cycle, unable to break free. All you can do is complaining.
4. YOU BOTH HAVE EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE
Lack of an emotional connection could lead to constant fights and conflicts. At one point, you would no longer discuss the issues and may start to sweep them under the rug. Say, you are angry at your spouse for not doing the dishes. Instead of addressing that single issue, you use that to bring out all the previously unresolved issues. Such built-up anger will lead to hatred and resentment, which is like a ticking time bomb ready to explode at the slightest disturbance. And when it does, the lack of an appropriate emotional connection will make matters worse.
5. YOU CAN’T STAND THEM. YOU CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM.
There’s a high degree of obsession inherent in most love-hate relationships. When you’re in a love phase, all you can think about it how much you adore your SO. When you’re in a hate phase, you’re constantly thinking about how much they drive you crazy. Either way, they’re on your mind almost all of the time, and that kind of preoccupation makes getting a healthy dose of perspective on what your relationship really is all the more difficult.
6. YOU TRY TO PLAY SAFE
A healthy relationship is one where you can be yourself, love without boundaries, and accept each other without any reservations. But in a love-hate relationship, you are sometimes in and sometimes out. Such half-hearted emotions will make you protective of yourself. Fearing rejection and hurt, you try to play safe. You start building scenarios in your head as to how you can come out clean from the relationship. You try to focus more on the qualities which you hate and push your partner aside.
WAYS TO DEAL WITH A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP
1. Clear out your thoughts
2. IDENTIFY THE NEGATIVE FEELINGS: The next step is to identify the negative emotions that are causing friction.
3. EMPHASIZE THE POSITIVES: Everybody has flaws, and it is completely okay. The sooner you accept this, the better it is because once you accept the person for who they are, you will find yourself liberated from the negative thoughts and nagging questions.
4. SPEND MORE TIME WITH EACH OTHER: Spend as much time together as possible, go on dates, do things that both of you can enjoy. This will help build the friendship between you two. Also, when you find that you’re facing an impasse, discuss like mature adults instead of brushing it off. You will be surprised to see how easily an issue could be solved.
AASA PRESS UI 