A love–hate relationship is an

interpersonal relationship In social psychology, an interpersonal relation (or interpersonal relationship) describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more people. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which a ...

involving simultaneous or alternating emotions of

love Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...

and

hate Hatred or hate is an intense negative emotional response towards certain people, things or ideas, usually related to opposition or revulsion toward something. Hatred is often associated with intense feelings of anger, contempt, and disgust. Ha ...

—something particularly common when emotions are intense. The term is used frequently in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

, popular writing and

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

. It can be applied to relationships with inanimate objects, or even concepts, as well as those of a romantic nature or between

siblings A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the other person. A male sibling is a brother, and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child. While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised ...

or parents/children.

Psychological roots

A love–hate relationship has been linked to the occurrence of emotional ambivalence in early childhood; to conflicting responses by different ego states within the same person; or to the inevitable co-existence of egoistic conflicts with the object of love. Individuals with

Narcissistic personality disorder Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of grandiosity, exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a diminished ability to empathy, empathize w ...

Borderline personality disorder Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive, long-term pattern of significant interpersonal relationship instability, an acute fear of Abandonment (emotional), abandonment, and intense emotiona ...

have been seen as particularly prone to aggressive reactions towards love objects, not least when issues of self-identity are involved: in extreme instances, hate at the very existence of the other may be the only emotion felt, until love breaks through behind it. Research from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

suggests love–hate relationships may be the result of poor

self-esteem Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth, abilities, or morals. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself (for example, "I am loved", "I am worthy") as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Macki ...

Family and development

Love–hate relationships also develop within a familial context, especially between an adult and one or both of their parents. Love–hate relationships and sometimes complete estrangement between adults and one or both of their parents often indicates poor bonding with either parent in infancy, depressive symptoms of parents, borderline or narcissistic pathology in the adult child, and/or parental alienation in childhood. Parents who alienate their children from the other parent frequently suffer from

borderline personality disorder Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive, long-term pattern of significant interpersonal relationship instability, an acute fear of Abandonment (emotional), abandonment, and intense emotiona ...

(BPD) or

narcissistic personality disorder Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of grandiosity, exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a diminished ability to empathy, empathize w ...

(NPD). Children who experience parental alienation techniques by a borderline parent report a higher prevalence of low self-esteem, low self-sufficiency, insecure attachment styles, and higher levels of depression in adulthood. One of the development tasks for humans is to balance the primary love and hate drives as to tolerate ambivalence toward a loved object. When this task is unsuccessfully accomplished, severe psychopathology can ensue. Individuals with BPD and NPD often fail to accomplish the task of ambivalence. They are unable to be simultaneously angry at someone they love, without destroying the love (Corradi, 2013). Children are unable to tolerate the ambivalence, and are indoctrinated to choose. Despite feeling love for their alienated parent, they let go entirely of the loved object. This creates an occasion for the development of ego defenses in the child referred to as “splitting.” As a way of understanding

splitting Splitting may refer to: * Splitting (psychology) * Lumpers and splitters, in classification or taxonomy * Wood splitting * Tongue splitting * Splitting (raylway), Splitting, railway operation Mathematics * Heegaard splitting * Splitting field * S ...

, a common feature of BPD and NPD, is described as “a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 663). A love–hate relationship may develop when people have completely lost the

intimacy An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves emotional or physical closeness between people and may include sexual intimacy and feelings of romance or love. Intimate relationships are interdependent, and the member ...

within a loving relationship, yet still retain some passion for, or perhaps some commitment to, each other, before degenerating into a hate–love relationship leading to divorce.

Culture

*The Japanese word “

tsundere is a Culture of Japan, Japanese term for a character development process that depicts a character with an initially harsh personality who gradually reveals a warmer, friendlier side over time. The word is derived from the terms (adverb, 'mo ...

” is derived from two Japanese terms: (adverb, 'morosely, aloofly, offputtingly') and (adverb, 'in a lovey-dovey or infatuated manner'). A tsundere character is one who frequently switches between insulting their love interest and acting lovestruck or kind toward them. Tsundere characters usually belittle their love interest at first but eventually become kinder to them over time. **A more abstract term for love–hate exists, . *

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; ), known as Catullus (), was a Latin neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic. His surviving works remain widely read due to their popularity as teaching tools and because of their personal or sexual themes. Life ...

introduced the love–hate theme into Western culture with his famous lines: " I hate and yet love. You may wonder how I manage it. I don't know, but feel it happen, and am in torment". *The concept of a love–hate relationship is frequently used in teen

romance novels A romance or romantic novel is a genre fiction novel that primarily focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people, typically with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Authors who have contributed to the developme ...

where two characters are shown to "hate" each other, but show some sort of affection or attraction towards each other at certain points of the story. *The

screwball comedy Screwball comedy is a film subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1950s, that satirizes the traditional love story. It has secondary charact ...

film genre features couples feeling intense attraction and intense conflict.

Psychological roots

Family and development

Culture

See also

References

Further reading