Could you ever imagine hating the person you love now?

When I think of my wife, the years I just wanted to be in the same room as her, the years we were friends, the years we were lovers, the years we were spouses, the years we've been parents, I cannot imagine anything she could say or do that would make despise her, ever.

I remember the first time I saw her, the first time I spoke to her, the first time we got together for reasons other than happenstance, our first touch, our first kiss, the first time we made love, our sickness our health, our struggles and our rewards.

All of these things are with me continuously, they fill me.

I suppose one's lover can do terrible things, hurtful things, selfish things, but I could never imagine ever thinking of my wife in anything but the most positive terms until the day I die.

It is inconceivable.

Still you see externally people who once were lovers, husbands and wives, treating each other with hostility and contempt. I guess I'm fortunate in that I don't understand it.

Does anybody know something I don't?

And only dislike if something really bad was done to me.

yeah, but not hate. Been married for over 2yrs, never hated her...disliked, or disagreed with something she did, sure...:)

Married 40 years...and the stuff my mother says about my father would burn your ears off. Hatred? I don't know if it's an elaborate cover for rejection and pain... or true hatred.

My in-laws have a very contemptuous relationship. At least my MIL holds my father-in-law in contempt. She says horrible things regularly. But I can't say that she ever really loved him in the first place. She was in love with the idea of being in love I think, but I don't think she ever really loved my father-in-law. They have nothing in common.

They had four children, including the woman I love so much, but I know instinctively that they never had what we have.

They're both intense, all-consuming emotions. When someone you love with that sort of intensity does something that you can see as an ultimate betrayal - perhaps infidelity, or abuse or you find they've been living a lie - the hurt and heartbreak can hit with the same intensity that you felt with your love. It's deep and visceral and primitive.

Yes, I can see it. I hope it never happens and I don't see it doing so. But I can understand where that occurs.

i have remained friends with my ex S.O.

lead me to say no....and I doubt I ever could hate such a person. Dislike, sure. Be hurt by or contemptuous of their actions, sure. Hate? No.

I'm not above hating people, for real, but I have never yet hated anyone I once loved, no matter what they did to me (or, of course, what I might have done to them, though if I was the bad guy it'd hardly give me cause for disliking them, so is irrelevant to the question). I am glad of that. In fact, thinking on this, I realize I still love each, in various ways, even if I would never or could never go back to the love that was there before.

the new girl i have been seeing is too new for me to say that i can ever passionately hate her

i just think at this stage i might just be indifferent to her..if she did something awful

I can imagine it, but I think it is very unlikely.

I can see anger, though.......but hatred? Nah......

I believe that once you love someone, you never really stop loving them.

The are always a part of you.

Because I do hate my ex husband. Passionately. As passionately as I once loved him. And, yes, it was love. Deep and committed love.

He was a man who brought me flowers for no reason. Who accepted my children as his own. Who made me feel cared for and wanted.

People think you can see an abuser on the first date. It was 2 years before I saw even a flash of anything suspicious and believe me, I've looked back at it over and over and over looking for those clues. Not many there and what may have been there was quite subtle, too subtle for me.

It came slowly and insidiously. First occasional insults and belittling remarks. Then a shove. Shock on my part - what did I do to provoke that? First mistake - thinking it was something I did. But that's what you do because for 2 years, he's seemed like this prince.

Except I found out he wasn't. He was dealing drugs behind my back. He was doing things I could only imagine and I'd had no idea. He became a nightmare - by the time I left him, after 8 years together, I had to wait until he was jailed on another charge because I was so afraid that he'd kill me and take my kids far away.

Yes, I loved him. No doubt about it. But the idea that I might still "really love him" or that he will "always be a part of me" nauseates me.

Yes, you can hate someone you loved. Yes, indeedy.

I don't think it is, by the way, a judgement on anyone who feels what you feel to ask the question I have asked. I meant it only as a question. Your hatred, from the sounds of it, sounds appropriate.

Some of us have been fortunate to have avoided circumstances such as you describe though. I have never had a lover who I felt was abusive.

For the record, I've been with my wife for over 20 years. We've had some rough edges, but I can tell you definitively that nothing is hidden between us. Your love, it seems, was predicated on lies.

The thing is, you don't ever imagine until you discover such a thing. And it's not so unusual a thing, sadly enough. My case may be pretty extreme but betrayal is a horrible, horrible thing to endure and it surely can turn one intense emotion into its opposite.

So yes, I can imagine. I'm glad you can't and I'm glad for anyone who can't. And I hope you never have to feel such a thing. ;)

I do know that having one's illusions shattered is very unsettling indeed.

Please forgive my ineptness........Blanket statements like the one I made are almost always wrong for someone...

And I am truly sorry upon hearing your story. I agree, it is possible to hate someone after you have loved them. But it is exceedingly rare.

What I stated is true for most people.

I trust that you are now safe from him.......


Thank you for telling me this obviously painful story.

People know what they've lived and experienced. I wouldn't wish those experiences on anyone and I'm glad most people can't see themselves feeling such feelings. I just needed to point out that there are other sides to every story.

Please don't feel bad. All my life has made me who I am - even that part of it. And I'm a damn fine person.

So are you. :hug:

Maybe I should have chosen another word. I'm sure I should have. My mother, gone 30 years now, always taught me never to say I hated anyone, only that I "disliked someone intensely." My mother, of course, could not anticipated me feeling what I feel for George W. Bush, I guess, but I never loved any Bush. I never even liked one of them.

But I agree with you. I don't think you can stop the love once you've realized it.

Before I met my wife married I had a fair number of lovers - although none obviously comparable to my wife - but I cannot say that I remember any of them with anything but fondness. They were all fine people from what I can recall. We went in different directions, and pain was involved, but I can't say that I wish any of them anything but good. In the end I'm glad I knew each of them.

Still one does see this bitterness sometimes between former lovers, intractable, hostile, unrelenting. It's disturbing.

so yes.

Lots of men that I once loved I now hate.

I cannot, however, imagine what she would have done to me to merit me hating her. It would have to be something truly awful.

But yeah, of course I can imagine hating her. Anyone who says different is a liar, not very in touch with their feelings, or dishonest with themselves.

and two of the most closely linked. I think that what turns one into the other is pain. Hurt, whether it's deliberate or not, can damage love. It damages the trust that's required to love. Hurt that's considered and inflicted knowingly...that's the kind that turns love completely south.

But...at least there's passion involved with hate. There's emotion. You have to still care on some level in order to hate. What's worse than hate is apathy.

I've been with my husband since 1971..I can't see my life without him in it. I could never hate him.

on the other hand, my parents were horrible to each other. I always thought they should have divorced. When my mother died, to hear my father talk, you would have thought they had the greatest love ever told. Amnesia is a comfortable thing.
My mother once told me she didn't like my father very much, and at times she hated him, but that she loved him with every fiber in her being. I still don't understand it. How do you love someone that much if you don't really like them?

Not in a million years could I ever imagine hating my guy.

Not in a million years. It's simply unthinkable.

but they were overcome by compassion and acceptance.

even if he did something awful. because there has been so much good in even the short time (2 1/2 yrs) we've been together... and i think we will be together for a long time... this man has helped me to cope with some really awful things and thanks to him and the happiness I have had with him I have grown so much as a person. I can dislike some of his deicisions but I don't think I could ever hate him, despise him. no. no way.

strong emotional bond to someone. Indifference is the true opposite of love.

I am indifferent to former lovers. I can't say I know anything about who they turned out to be.

I think it's sometimes self-hatred. I have it with regards to this most recent (hardly, though) ex... I think it comes out at memories or instances where she decides to swoop in and contact me when things aren't going well with whatever current mrs. there happens to be. She just wants comfort. And I give it to her. Every. Single. Time. And then I hate myself. And speak ill of her.

So, darlin, I just wanna say.
Just in case I dont come through.
I was on to every play.
I just wanted you.

But, oh, its so evil, my love,
The way you've no reverence to my concern.
So, Ill be sure to stay wary of you, love,
To save the pain of once my flame and twice my burn.

You made me a shadowboxer, baby.
I wanna be ready for what you do.
I been swinging all around me.
cause I dont know when youre gonna make your move.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktlJv_DXqJ0&mode=related&search=

kinda like that...

were in love. If I were mentally or physically abused, told daily I'm ugly, constantly berated, insulted and debased, I imagine my feelings for my ex would be something akin to hate. On the other hand I'm in the middle of a divorce now and I don't hate my husband, especially because he is allowing me to do what I must do because he respects me as a person.

But then again I think "fierce anger" and "hatred" are two different things.

Before I met my wife I'd had a horrible relationship that ended very, very badly. I'd been used and abused, and there was never any resolution to it. The anger lingers on, and I'm certain it goes both ways. It's not a fierce anger anymore, but still, even now, more than two decades later, almost every time I hit "Post Message" I feel this little twinge, like uh-oh, I wonder if this is the time the shark comes crashing through the floor of my little boat because she recognizes me here. (Cue Jaws music...)

Nah, no real worries, leave it rest. We both ended up better. I can also remember moments of great fondness (if not love) for her, and I can sort of explain to myself what happened. I just couldn't do that for a long, long time.

Now my wife and I, that's True Love. We've built a wonderful life together. I simply couldn't hate her.

if he was on fire.

:rofl:

was with them. "Hate" takes too much emotion and I don't spend that amount of energy on them. There are some ex's that I don't want in my life or my child's life ever again.

In contrast, the most recent 'ex' I wish the best for and we fell apart due to distance and my desire to be 100% committed to raising my son.

33 years a ago my wife cheated on me, she is now my ex-wife because of it,
Do I hate her, no..Do I still love her-no..
I never really despised her, over the years I have learned to pity her and at
times I even thank her because my present wife and I have been happy for 30years

We've had a lot of ups and downs (a lot of downs in the past couple of years) in the very long time we've known each other, and I've come very close to leaving him four different times. But I love him and I could never hate him. :) I tried hating my ex-bf for a long time after we broke up, but that was wasted energy. I don't hate him and never have.

of the girls I've ever dated were good for me. I don't even know if I liked the ones I said "I love you" to.

But now, with my girlfriend (whom I live with, which is almost incoceviable considering that I've always said I would never get married or live with a girl)...no. She is perfect...I mean..perfect. We never fight, shes opiniated but not obnoxious, she has no family baggage (her family is so not disfunctional like mine lol), and shes the only girl I've ever gone out with thats not an attention-whore that delights in testing me (I hate that in a partner). She gives me peace, not drama, which is important to me.

I could never hate her. Lol..unless she cheated on me...(in which case, I would dump her ass, but stay friendly...shes really a great person :shrug: )