March 26, 2025 • 28 mins
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What happens in a marriage when one spouse says those three devastating words: "I hate you"? This powerful exploration takes us deep into the psychology of hatred in intimate relationships, revealing surprising truths about how love and hate function as parallels rather than opposites.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hate.
Isn't that such a harsh word?
Even if you hear a little girlsay it to her sister or her
brother, I hate you.
And we know they don't reallyhate them, they're just upset or
angry at the moment, it stillsounds so harsh.
Yet we know that one of themost looked-for things on the
Internet when people go tosearch engines would have to do
(00:20):
with the word hate.
Like my spouse said, I hate you, or why does my spouse hate me?
And so we know it's a big dealin relationships.
Now, just as it might be with alittle girl saying it to her
brother or sister, it could bethat sometimes a spouse, wife,
husband might say it to theother spouse when they don't
(00:41):
really mean that.
They're just really angry atthe moment.
And typically if they say Ihate you in that context, it's
not long before they're tellingyou I am so sorry, I didn't mean
to use that word, I didn't meanto say that I was just angry, I
was acting out, I don't meanthat at all, I don't hate you.
And yet at other times thereare people who will tell their
(01:02):
spouses that I hate you and theyactually mean it.
Well, in that context, whatdoes the word hate mean.
Before we define it, let's talkabout it in the sense of hate
really has to do with some ofthe similar things that love has
to do with.
Now, sometimes people say, well, aren't love and hate opposites
?
No, they are not opposites, asa matter of fact, they're
(01:31):
parallels, and so hate is not alack of love and love is not a
lack of hate.
It has to do with the fact thatthey're very similar, they're
parallels, and that one can turnto the other.
Yes, love can turn into hatewith the right circumstances,
and believe it or not, into hatewith the right circumstances,
and believe it or not, hate canturn into love with the right
circumstances, and we're goingto be teaching you about some of
those circumstances.
(01:52):
What leads to a person feelinghate toward another?
Or what leads to a person whosaid and felt genuinely, I hate
you, evolving to a point ofbeing able to say I love you, I
want to be with you?
Well, we can look at hate inall kinds of ways.
We can look into the dictionary, we can look into how Sigmund
(02:12):
Freud defined it, we can evenlook into how the neurologists
defined it.
But basically, I think that youand I would agree that hate has
at least three components.
We'll be talking about those ina minute.
They come from Dr Well, theydon't come from Dr Robert
Sternberg, but Dr RobertSternberg has written about them
and explained them and, like Isaid, they're a parallel to love
(02:34):
, but they're very negative.
While some of the same thingsoccur in love, they occur in a
positive context, but when theyoccur with hate, they occur in a
negative context, but when theyoccur with hate, they occur in
a negative context.
Now, that may sound confusingright now, but give me a few
minutes to define that, if I may.
But before we go even furtherinto that, let's go back again
(02:54):
and say if your spouse has saidI hate you, make sure that
that's really what they mean andit wasn't just something said
in spite or in anger that theylater were very sorry about and
apologetic about and asking youto forgive them.
If that's the case, please do,please forgive them, please be
able to move on from that anddon't overreact to it.
(03:17):
And sometimes people, when wetalk to a person well, my spouse
didn't actually say I hate you,but I know he does or she does
Well, how do you know?
Well, you should hear the toneof voice they use when they
speak to me.
You should hear the names theycall me when they talk to me.
You should see the anger theymanifest toward me and many
(03:38):
other negative things like that,or even the fact that they tend
to avoid me.
They hate me because they won'teven talk to me at all and they
don't even sleep in the samebed with me anymore.
And when you're defining hatewell, define might be the wrong
word here when you're decidingif your spouse hates you and
you're doing it based on thosekinds of things I just said, the
(04:00):
way they're acting towards you,it is possible that you are
diagnosing it correctly, butit's also possible you may not
pay.
Well, let's go ahead and talkabout it in terms of what
Sternberg said.
Now, hate, of course, is anemotion.
It's not just a logical thing.
There is at least some emotioninvolved to it.
And Dr Sternberg says in hisstudies and Dr Sternberg is an
(04:23):
amazing researcher.
In his studies he says youcan't hate another person if
you're using hate in the senseof I really do have these very
strong negative feelings towardyou that you can't hate another
person unless you've already hadsome kind of an intense
relationship, even if thatintense relationship was only
momentary.
In other words, you don't gofrom indifference to hate.
(04:46):
There's going to be some kind ofrelationship between the two of
you to begin with, and in thatrelationship there is a story.
There's a story that led you tofall in love with each other,
and if one of you is now hatingquote, unquote the other, then
there's a story involved in thattoo.
It's how we perceive the otherperson.
That too, it's how we perceivethe other person's character.
(05:07):
It's how we perceive andinterpret their behaviors, their
actions.
It's how we interpretparticularly the way they treat
us and whether what they'redoing is for our benefit or
basically only for their benefit, even when it harms us.
And so we're telling ourselvesa story about that other person
all the time.
If you don't believe that,listen to somebody talk about
(05:29):
their spouse, because when theydo, they'll be telling you
stories about let me tell youwhat she did the other day.
Or if, in a positive sense, letme tell you about what she did
for me the other day.
And it's in that story that wetell other people.
That's really giving us insightinto what we really think and
feel about the other person.
And so if we are telling thosestories to other people.
(05:53):
So let's say, let's say Istarted talking about Alice that
way which, by the way, manyyears ago I did because I did
wind up hating Alice and I didwind up divorcing Alice to be
with another woman and I wasgoing to live with her forever
and ever, happily all thatfantasy, fairy tale crap.
(06:13):
That's just not true.
And it started with me becauseI wanted to be with the other
woman.
I started telling other peoplestories about Alice because they
would say, well, your wife isso sweet and she's so wonderful
which, by the way, she really isbut back then I would say you
(06:33):
shouldn't live with her.
You'll discover that she's notlike what you think at all.
And as I told those stories toother people about her and the
reason I did that, of course,was because I was already
getting deeply emotionallyinvolved with this other woman
but as I told those negativestories about Alice to other
people, they became the story Ibelieved about Alice.
(06:55):
And you say so, you actuallydid come to hate her.
I did.
Now, in that sense, let's talkabout the three elements of hate
as described by Dr Sternberg.
You see, when he talks aboutlove, he talks about three
things.
He said, if you're going tomeasure love between one human
being and another, like a mantoward a woman, for example, or
(07:16):
her toward him, the first thingyou're going to measure has to
do with intimacy.
Now, if you say that, sloweryou understand what he's talking
about there.
Into me, see intimacy.
Now, if you say that slower youunderstand what he's talking
about there.
Intimacy it has to do with beingopen and transparent and
vulnerable, so that I let yousee my strengths, my weaknesses,
my idiosyncrasies.
I trust that you're not goingto betray me.
(07:38):
I trust that you're not goingto send me away when you find
out that I'm not perfect.
Surely you knew that already.
But the more I tell you aboutmy flaws, the more I tell you
about my experiences in life.
The good experiences, these arethings that happen that make me
happy or that I'm proud of, andthese are the experiences in
life that make me well feel deeppain, and some of those I'm
(07:59):
actually ashamed of because ofthe role that I played.
I look at that and it hurts meto think I could do that thing.
So intimacy has to do withopenness and transparency and
vulnerability.
And as you do that, then.
Then you understand this, thatthe hate side of intimacy is I
(08:22):
want to get away from you in thesense of I don't want you to
know anything about me,particularly anything that I
might tell you that you'll reactnegatively to that.
You may assassinate myintelligence, like how stupid
could you be?
Or you might assassinate mycharacter, like you've never
been any good, you never will beany good.
(08:44):
And so when it comes tobeginning to feel hate and this
is what Sternberg calls a coolhate I begin to pull back from
you very strongly.
Pull back from you because Idon't want to know about you
anymore and I don't want you toknow about me anymore.
And so I actually stop with theintimacy, and so I'll read some
(09:07):
of the things that I've writtendown in notes, having studied
Sternberg and others.
I can't trust you with myemotions or actions.
Therefore I won't.
I feel that you don't listen orthat if you do listen, even a
little, you wind up judging merather than trying to understand
me.
And therefore I don't want tobe intimate, in the sense of
(09:29):
openness and transparency, withyou anymore.
I feel controlled, I feel I'mnot treated as an equal, I feel
that you look down at me, andwhen I tell you what I think,
you tell me I should thinksomething differently.
When I tell you what I feel,you either say that's not what
you feel or you tell me youshouldn't feel that way.
You're not trying to understandme.
Therefore, I don't want to tellyou what I feel and I begin to
(09:52):
pursue distance from youemotionally Now, not just
distance physically that's notsuch a big deal when it comes to
negation of intimacy but Ibegin to distance myself from
you emotionally because I don'twant you judging me.
Therefore, I don't want you toknow anything else about me and
I really don't want any moreabout you because I don't care.
(10:14):
And in that sense, you mayactually feel some repulsion
toward the other person or feelsome disgust toward the other
person, and so the more I feeldisgust for you, the less likely
I can envision a futurepositive relationship with you.
In other words, my story is nowchanging, not just about what
(10:34):
our story is now, but about whatour story will be in the future
.
And the story I start tellingmyself about you is there's no
way I can live with you.
It'll be this bad or worse ifwe stay together.
And as you tell that story inyour mind, envisioning what your
future will be.
Then you become angrier, youbegin to more upset and less and
(10:57):
less and less do you want theother person to know about you.
Now, this can also happen notjust because the other person
judges you, or that the otherperson tries to control you, or
the other person says negativethings to you.
This can also occur because ofthe fact that you want to be
with someone else.
(11:17):
Now, what I've described so far,if you stay with me, if your
spouse says I hate you and theyreally actually do, it's not
just something said in a bit ofanger and they really do hate
you it could be because of thefact that they don't trust you
anymore, in the sense that theyfeel that you don't love.
Now, I'm not trying to beat youup.
I'm not trying to make you feelbadly.
I'm not trying to justify theemotions they feel toward you.
(11:38):
I'm just trying to explain them, to say if you pay attention to
this, begin to understand whatthey feel.
Because when we start talkingin a few minutes about how can
you overcome hate If the otherperson hates you, how can you
get past that, you mustunderstand that you need to do
some evaluation and find out.
(12:04):
If your spouse has moved awayfrom you in terms of sharing
intimacy, is it because of howyou have treated your spouse,
especially when he or she istrying to tell you what they
feel or what they think or whatthey believe, or what they do or
what they want to do.
They believe or what they do orwhat they want to do.
You see, accepting the otherperson as he or she is is the
strongest pull to humanity.
(12:27):
I want to be with people whocan accept me, warts and all who
can accept me with my strengths, my flaws, my idiosyncrasies.
And if I become very much awareof the fact by the other
person's behavior, either inwhat they do or sometimes even
in what they don't do, when I'mbeing open and transparent with
(12:48):
them, I'll stop doing that.
And if I withdraw far enough,I'm going to have this thing
called cool hate.
Cool in the sense that I'mprobably not actively doing
things to cause you pain or toattack you or undermine you or
anything like that, but it'scool hate in the sense that I
(13:10):
don't want intimacy with you.
Now here's another reason forthat.
If you have not been rejectingthe other person, another reason
might be that they don't wantyou to feel intimacy with them
because of what they're involvedin them.
So let's say they're involvedin a lifestyle that they know
that you would reject thatlifestyle because they expect
(13:41):
you to reject them, to rejectwhat they're doing, because of
the fact that they know it'scompletely beyond the lifestyle
that you would accept or be partof or even tolerate them being
part of.
Also and I'm sure you'vealready reached this conclusion
it can be because of the factthey have become involved with
another person and because oftheir involvement with that
other person, then they don'twant intimacy with you because
(14:02):
they don't want to feel thisbond of friendship, because
that's really what intimacycreates a deeper and deeper
friendship and they don't wantthat with you because they're
now doing that with somebodyelse, either him or her, and as
they're doing it with that otherperson, they actually can begin
to feel that they're cheatingon them by being open and
(14:25):
transparent and vulnerable withyou.
And so, therefore, they'llbegin to feel this cool hate
towards you that when you evensay such things as how was your
day?
Oh, leave me alone, don'tbother me.
And if you say, tell me whatyou feel, no, I don't care for
you to know what I feel.
Or maybe you just shut down ina different way, like I'm not
(14:46):
wanting to talk about that rightnow.
Now, that's what's normallycalled cool hate in the sense
that they're manifestingnegative feelings toward you in
the sense of intimacy.
It's the contradiction tointimacy, it's the negation, he
would say, of intimacy andthat's one kind of hate.
But it's called a cool hate.
And when Sternberg measuresthat these are some of the
(15:10):
questions he would have you takeon the profile, I think you're
disgusting.
I can't trust you.
I have no sympathy for you.
I have no sympathy for you.
I have no empathy for you.
I don't believe we canmeaningfully communicate.
I feel that you're differentfrom me and people like me and
(15:34):
he would have you rate those ona one to seven Likert type scale
, from strongly disagree tostrongly agree about what you
feel for your spouse.
If they were measuring yourhate, and if you were measuring
your spouse's hate and you'veheard what he or she's had to
say, you could kind of do thatrating it for them.
And that's what that cool hateis all about.
(15:54):
Now stay with me.
We're going to wind up byshowing you how to overcome hate
.
I'm just trying to explain toyou there are different kinds of
hate, because a person withcool hate probably is not
attacking you.
They're mostly probably justavoiding you.
But on Sternberg's love scale,and that's what we're looking at
the negative of Sternberg'slove scale Because, if you heard
me earlier, hate is a parallelto love.
(16:17):
It's the negative, it's not theantithesis, it's not the
opposite.
The opposite of love isindifference.
This has to do with theparallel, but rather than a
positive, I want you to be open,intimate, that kind of thing.
It's like I want you to moveaway from me.
I don't want to be open andhonest and transparent and I
(16:39):
don't want you to be that waytoward me.
Now, the second part of thatscale would be what Sternberg
calls passion.
Now, passion has to do with acraving for oneness.
But if a person is feeling hatetoward you, if we were
measuring that, we'd bemeasuring how much they want to
be away from you, because nowthe craving is no longer, for I
want to be one with you.
The craving is I want to beaway from you because now the
(17:00):
craving is no longer, for I wantto be one with you.
The craving is I want to bedistant from you.
I'm craving distance.
Now this one involves a strongeremotion and when he goes
through this he'll actually callthis hot hate as opposed to the
cool hate from the intimacysection, opposed to the Kool-Aid
from the intimacy section.
And this can come from thingslike feelings of betrayal, like
(17:22):
you've hurt me or you've hurtsomebody that I love.
So let's suppose your wife isbeating mercilessly your child
and you ask her to stop, eventold her to stop, even said I'll
call the cops if you do itagain, and she's still abusing
your children physically, thenyou feel betrayed, you're
(17:43):
hurting our progeny, you'rehurting our children.
So it might be that it's youthat's being hurt, either by
physical ways, like you're beingbeaten, or it could be physical
ways in the sense that I'll cutyou off from the money so that
you are absolutely beingcontrolled because you don't
have enough money to do anything.
It can be physical in the sensethat I'm going to demand sex
(18:03):
all the time from you to thepoint that you get sick of it.
I actually talked to a lady onetime who still was struggling
with hate toward her firsthusband that she had divorced
because he was forcing her tohave sex with him several times
a day, every day.
Her body couldn't even adjustto that.
You know arousal, lubrication,those kinds of things, and so it
(18:25):
was not only quite painful, itwas humiliating, and she felt as
if she were a piece of meatthat he was using.
And in that sense, that senseof violation of self, violation
of expectations, violation ofprivacy, violation of
expectations, violation ofprivacy, violation of trust,
respect, violation of my rightsall those kinds of things can
(18:48):
cause very intense negativeemotions toward the other person
and it's like no, I don't wantto be close to you anymore, I
want to be as far away from youas I possibly can because you're
causing me pain.
And then a person who has thishot hate right, sometimes he'll
be asking himself what did Iever see in you to begin with?
How did I not notice this a lotsooner than I do now,
(19:10):
understanding that maybe theywere like that all the time and
a Cinderella complex kept youfrom seeing, or Prince Charming
complex kept you from seeingthat.
Or it may be that they havedevolved into it for other
reasons, then, or it may be thatthey have devolved into it for
other reasons.
And so in this particularsituation, this hot tape.
People in that are longing andlooking for another relationship
(19:30):
, or they may be longing andlooking for a different
lifestyle.
And so if I want to go outcarousing and drinking and
partying every night, then Iactually will start having
negative passion toward Alicebecause she'll be negative about
it.
I don't want you to do that.
What are you doing to yourself?
What are you doing to your body?
What are you doing to ourfamily?
What are you doing to ourchildren?
You can't live like that.
(19:51):
You can't do those things.
And so I'll start feeling thishot hate toward her, because how
dare you try to stop me fromdoing what I want to do, to stop
me from doing what I want to do.
And so this hot hate can bebecause I'm looking for a
different lifestyle, I'm lookingfor a different relationship
(20:13):
with a different person, or Ihave felt violated, or maybe
continually feel violated by youagainst my mind, my body, my
soul, my heart, and I can't takethat pain anymore.
And so, rather than being ableto forgive you and move on, this
happens enough, and to thedepth, that I hate you with a
(20:34):
hot hate.
Now, did you notice in there,just like with intimacy, there's
two parts.
One is it might be because ofsomething that you actually do.
You're betraying me orbetraying our children,
betraying our family.
So it could be based onsomething you've actually done.
But you also heard the secondpart, just as you did with
intimacy.
No, it really is not about you.
(20:56):
It's about me wanting to dosomething that I know you'll not
be part of, nor will you accept, you won't tolerate, you'll be
totally against this.
And because I want to be withthat person or live that
lifestyle, whatever it might beand I see you as a barrier to
that I crave moving away fromyou.
But it's not your fault.
(21:19):
Now you said but what if thisperson has put up boundaries
that are just controlling anddominating, like you can't go
anyplace but straight to workand straight back because I'm
afraid that you're going to beOK, in that case it would be
this person's fault.
If you're being unreasonable inthe boundaries you're placing
(21:40):
out there, then it could be thisperson's fault over here.
Boundaries you're placing outthere, then it could be this
person's fault over here.
But if it's a normal, typicalsituation where it's just like
I'm not going to the sex clubswith you, I'm not going to put
up with you coming home drunkevery night, et cetera, et
cetera, then it's not you that'sthe cause, because you're
standing with what you alreadybelieve, as opposed to be trying
(22:01):
to control and dominate.
I hope you see the differencebetween those two.
And in that hot hate, if youfeel anger, you'll typically go
at them.
I'm going to yell at you, I'mgoing to argue with you.
I may even become physical withyou in a negative kind of way,
(22:22):
because anger tends to leadpeople to attack.
Or I'll start telling otherpeople bad things about you,
trying to destroy yourrelationship, trying to get you
fired from your job.
Because if anger is now theemotion I feel, rather than this
craving for oneness in mycraving for distance from you, I
feel anger because I feel thatyou are such a problem for me
(22:44):
and I'll try to hurt you.
Now, do people always do that?
No, I'm talking about atendency here.
But in anger they attack.
But if they feel fear, theyjust try to get further away
from you as fast as they can.
If I'm afraid he's going tobeat me in front of the children
again.
I remember a lady who told meyears ago that her husband would
(23:04):
take off his belt and beat herwith that belt in front of their
children, who are old enough tosee this and be terrified about
it.
All she wanted to do was to run.
Let me get my children and getout of here.
Some women are too afraid torun.
If I try to go someplace else,if I try to be away from him to
(23:26):
be safe, he's going to track medown and he may kill me.
Oh, and hear me well, I'mtalking as if men are the only
ones who do this.
But you understand, there arewomen who are just as bad that
they physically cause such painto the spouse or to the children
.
And what I'm saying is, if yourspouse says I hate you and
(23:46):
they're angry at you, they'reprobably going to attack you,
either directly or to otherpeople.
And if they're afraid of you,they're going to run from you
and they'll be afraid to tellother people for fear that
you'll find out and cause themmore pain.
But the interesting thing aboutthis kind of hate that when it
comes through passion, it canchange rapidly, very rapidly.
(24:09):
The person who just last weeksaid I hate you, I never want to
be around you again, I've gotto get out of here, I've got to
find someplace else to live.
This week may be as romanticand passionate in a good way as
you have ever witnessed.
Like I love you so much, Ican't be without you, because
passion is the one that changesthe fastest.
I've actually seen people who,intimacy-wise, have the cool
(24:35):
hate in the sense that I don'twant to be open with you, I
don't want you to be open withme and who have had the hot hate
where I am angry at you, wantnothing to do with you, get away
from me.
I have seen these people all ofa sudden become, for a week or
two I'll never be able to livewithout you.
I'm here, please be with me inthe bedroom so we can express
(24:58):
our love, et cetera, et cetera,et cetera.
But a couple of weeks laterwe're right back where they were
before, et cetera, et cetera,et cetera, but a couple of weeks
later are right back where theywere before.
So, when it comes to thepassionate hate, the hot hate,
can it be overcome?
Absolutely.
We're going to show you how todo all that.
But understand that it'smercurial, it's it can move so
rapidly.
Don't put all your eggs in thatbasket, don't like.
(25:21):
Well, she came home and drug meinto the bedroom and she loves
me so much.
Now it's all over, everything'sfine, maybe.
Maybe we don't trust thatbecause this is based on
emotions, and here's the kind ofthings he would have you to
rate on that one to nine, likeher top scale, if if Sombra were
measuring this.
But you say it was like this.
(25:42):
I fear you, at least atsometimes.
I feel threatened by you.
You present a danger to me.
Sometimes I feel rage towardyou.
Thinking about you makes meangry, and other questions like
(26:04):
that.
Now, don't get discouraged.
We're only about maybe a littlemore than halfway through with
this.
I just wanted you to understandwhat hate is if we're going to
show you how to get past it.
But let me repeat now, sincewe're a little past the halfway
mark If your spouse has beentreating you in such a way that
(26:24):
you think they hate you becausethey're being distant, or the
tone of voice they use, or theyhave called you some names that
are not polite, understand thatthat might not be indicative of
the kind of hate I'm talkingabout here.
Those could be flashes in thepan of anger.
They're certainly not good,definitely not right.
They can definitely be painful,but they're not the kind of
(26:45):
hate we're talking about here.
You deal with those in adifferent way, but now we're
talking about Sternberg'striangle again.
So there's intimacy at the topand there's passion over here,
and if those are positive, thenthat has to do with contributing
to deep love.
And here's the third one overhere, of course, we're looking
(27:08):
at them in the negative sense,and this is commitment.
Hate.
Isn't that such a harsh word?
Even if you hear a little girlsay it to her sister or her
brother, I hate you.
And we know they don't reallyhate them, they're just upset or
angry at the moment, it stillsounds so harsh.
Yet we know that one of themost looked-for things on the
Internet when people go tosearch engines would have to do
(00:20):
with the word hate.
Like my spouse said, I hate you, or why does my spouse hate me?
And so we know it's a big dealin relationships.
Now, just as it might be with alittle girl saying it to her
brother or sister, it could bethat sometimes a spouse, wife,
husband might say it to theother spouse when they don't
(00:41):
really mean that.
They're just really angry atthe moment.
And typically if they say Ihate you in that context, it's
not long before they're tellingyou I am so sorry, I didn't mean
to use that word, I didn't meanto say that I was just angry, I
was acting out, I don't meanthat at all, I don't hate you.
And yet at other times thereare people who will tell their
(01:02):
spouses that I hate you and theyactually mean it.
Well, in that context, whatdoes the word hate mean.
Before we define it, let's talkabout it in the sense of hate
really has to do with some ofthe similar things that love has
to do with.
Now, sometimes people say, well, aren't love and hate opposites
?
No, they are not opposites, asa matter of fact, they're
(01:31):
parallels, and so hate is not alack of love and love is not a
lack of hate.
It has to do with the fact thatthey're very similar, they're
parallels, and that one can turnto the other.
Yes, love can turn into hatewith the right circumstances,
and believe it or not, into hatewith the right circumstances,
and believe it or not, hate canturn into love with the right
circumstances, and we're goingto be teaching you about some of
those circumstances.
(01:52):
What leads to a person feelinghate toward another?
Or what leads to a person whosaid and felt genuinely, I hate
you, evolving to a point ofbeing able to say I love you, I
want to be with you?
Well, we can look at hate inall kinds of ways.
We can look into the dictionary, we can look into how Sigmund
(02:12):
Freud defined it, we can evenlook into how the neurologists
defined it.
But basically, I think that youand I would agree that hate has
at least three components.
We'll be talking about those ina minute.
They come from Dr Well, theydon't come from Dr Robert
Sternberg, but Dr RobertSternberg has written about them
and explained them and, like Isaid, they're a parallel to love
(02:34):
, but they're very negative.
While some of the same thingsoccur in love, they occur in a
positive context, but when theyoccur with hate, they occur in a
negative context, but when theyoccur with hate, they occur in
a negative context.
Now, that may sound confusingright now, but give me a few
minutes to define that, if I may.
But before we go even furtherinto that, let's go back again
(02:54):
and say if your spouse has saidI hate you, make sure that
that's really what they mean andit wasn't just something said
in spite or in anger that theylater were very sorry about and
apologetic about and asking youto forgive them.
If that's the case, please do,please forgive them, please be
able to move on from that anddon't overreact to it.
(03:17):
And sometimes people, when wetalk to a person well, my spouse
didn't actually say I hate you,but I know he does or she does
Well, how do you know?
Well, you should hear the toneof voice they use when they
speak to me.
You should hear the names theycall me when they talk to me.
You should see the anger theymanifest toward me and many
(03:38):
other negative things like that,or even the fact that they tend
to avoid me.
They hate me because they won'teven talk to me at all and they
don't even sleep in the samebed with me anymore.
And when you're defining hatewell, define might be the wrong
word here when you're decidingif your spouse hates you and
you're doing it based on thosekinds of things I just said, the
(04:00):
way they're acting towards you,it is possible that you are
diagnosing it correctly, butit's also possible you may not
pay.
Well, let's go ahead and talkabout it in terms of what
Sternberg said.
Now, hate, of course, is anemotion.
It's not just a logical thing.
There is at least some emotioninvolved to it.
And Dr Sternberg says in hisstudies and Dr Sternberg is an
(04:23):
amazing researcher.
In his studies he says youcan't hate another person if
you're using hate in the senseof I really do have these very
strong negative feelings towardyou that you can't hate another
person unless you've already hadsome kind of an intense
relationship, even if thatintense relationship was only
momentary.
In other words, you don't gofrom indifference to hate.
(04:46):
There's going to be some kind ofrelationship between the two of
you to begin with, and in thatrelationship there is a story.
There's a story that led you tofall in love with each other,
and if one of you is now hatingquote, unquote the other, then
there's a story involved in thattoo.
It's how we perceive the otherperson.
That too, it's how we perceivethe other person's character.
(05:07):
It's how we perceive andinterpret their behaviors, their
actions.
It's how we interpretparticularly the way they treat
us and whether what they'redoing is for our benefit or
basically only for their benefit, even when it harms us.
And so we're telling ourselvesa story about that other person
all the time.
If you don't believe that,listen to somebody talk about
(05:29):
their spouse, because when theydo, they'll be telling you
stories about let me tell youwhat she did the other day.
Or if, in a positive sense, letme tell you about what she did
for me the other day.
And it's in that story that wetell other people.
That's really giving us insightinto what we really think and
feel about the other person.
And so if we are telling thosestories to other people.
(05:53):
So let's say, let's say Istarted talking about Alice that
way which, by the way, manyyears ago I did because I did
wind up hating Alice and I didwind up divorcing Alice to be
with another woman and I wasgoing to live with her forever
and ever, happily all thatfantasy, fairy tale crap.
(06:13):
That's just not true.
And it started with me becauseI wanted to be with the other
woman.
I started telling other peoplestories about Alice because they
would say, well, your wife isso sweet and she's so wonderful
which, by the way, she really isbut back then I would say you
(06:33):
shouldn't live with her.
You'll discover that she's notlike what you think at all.
And as I told those stories toother people about her and the
reason I did that, of course,was because I was already
getting deeply emotionallyinvolved with this other woman
but as I told those negativestories about Alice to other
people, they became the story Ibelieved about Alice.
(06:55):
And you say so, you actuallydid come to hate her.
I did.
Now, in that sense, let's talkabout the three elements of hate
as described by Dr Sternberg.
You see, when he talks aboutlove, he talks about three
things.
He said, if you're going tomeasure love between one human
being and another, like a mantoward a woman, for example, or
(07:16):
her toward him, the first thingyou're going to measure has to
do with intimacy.
Now, if you say that, sloweryou understand what he's talking
about there.
Into me, see intimacy.
Now, if you say that slower youunderstand what he's talking
about there.
Intimacy it has to do with beingopen and transparent and
vulnerable, so that I let yousee my strengths, my weaknesses,
my idiosyncrasies.
I trust that you're not goingto betray me.
(07:38):
I trust that you're not goingto send me away when you find
out that I'm not perfect.
Surely you knew that already.
But the more I tell you aboutmy flaws, the more I tell you
about my experiences in life.
The good experiences, these arethings that happen that make me
happy or that I'm proud of, andthese are the experiences in
life that make me well feel deeppain, and some of those I'm
(07:59):
actually ashamed of because ofthe role that I played.
I look at that and it hurts meto think I could do that thing.
So intimacy has to do withopenness and transparency and
vulnerability.
And as you do that, then.
Then you understand this, thatthe hate side of intimacy is I
(08:22):
want to get away from you in thesense of I don't want you to
know anything about me,particularly anything that I
might tell you that you'll reactnegatively to that.
You may assassinate myintelligence, like how stupid
could you be?
Or you might assassinate mycharacter, like you've never
been any good, you never will beany good.
(08:44):
And so when it comes tobeginning to feel hate and this
is what Sternberg calls a coolhate I begin to pull back from
you very strongly.
Pull back from you because Idon't want to know about you
anymore and I don't want you toknow about me anymore.
And so I actually stop with theintimacy, and so I'll read some
(09:07):
of the things that I've writtendown in notes, having studied
Sternberg and others.
I can't trust you with myemotions or actions.
Therefore I won't.
I feel that you don't listen orthat if you do listen, even a
little, you wind up judging merather than trying to understand
me.
And therefore I don't want tobe intimate, in the sense of
(09:29):
openness and transparency, withyou anymore.
I feel controlled, I feel I'mnot treated as an equal, I feel
that you look down at me, andwhen I tell you what I think,
you tell me I should thinksomething differently.
When I tell you what I feel,you either say that's not what
you feel or you tell me youshouldn't feel that way.
You're not trying to understandme.
Therefore, I don't want to tellyou what I feel and I begin to
(09:52):
pursue distance from youemotionally Now, not just
distance physically that's notsuch a big deal when it comes to
negation of intimacy but Ibegin to distance myself from
you emotionally because I don'twant you judging me.
Therefore, I don't want you toknow anything else about me and
I really don't want any moreabout you because I don't care.
(10:14):
And in that sense, you mayactually feel some repulsion
toward the other person or feelsome disgust toward the other
person, and so the more I feeldisgust for you, the less likely
I can envision a futurepositive relationship with you.
In other words, my story is nowchanging, not just about what
(10:34):
our story is now, but about whatour story will be in the future
.
And the story I start tellingmyself about you is there's no
way I can live with you.
It'll be this bad or worse ifwe stay together.
And as you tell that story inyour mind, envisioning what your
future will be.
Then you become angrier, youbegin to more upset and less and
(10:57):
less and less do you want theother person to know about you.
Now, this can also happen notjust because the other person
judges you, or that the otherperson tries to control you, or
the other person says negativethings to you.
This can also occur because ofthe fact that you want to be
with someone else.
(11:17):
Now, what I've described so far,if you stay with me, if your
spouse says I hate you and theyreally actually do, it's not
just something said in a bit ofanger and they really do hate
you it could be because of thefact that they don't trust you
anymore, in the sense that theyfeel that you don't love.
Now, I'm not trying to beat youup.
I'm not trying to make you feelbadly.
I'm not trying to justify theemotions they feel toward you.
(11:38):
I'm just trying to explain them, to say if you pay attention to
this, begin to understand whatthey feel.
Because when we start talkingin a few minutes about how can
you overcome hate If the otherperson hates you, how can you
get past that, you mustunderstand that you need to do
some evaluation and find out.
(12:04):
If your spouse has moved awayfrom you in terms of sharing
intimacy, is it because of howyou have treated your spouse,
especially when he or she istrying to tell you what they
feel or what they think or whatthey believe, or what they do or
what they want to do.
They believe or what they do orwhat they want to do.
You see, accepting the otherperson as he or she is is the
strongest pull to humanity.
(12:27):
I want to be with people whocan accept me, warts and all who
can accept me with my strengths, my flaws, my idiosyncrasies.
And if I become very much awareof the fact by the other
person's behavior, either inwhat they do or sometimes even
in what they don't do, when I'mbeing open and transparent with
(12:48):
them, I'll stop doing that.
And if I withdraw far enough,I'm going to have this thing
called cool hate.
Cool in the sense that I'mprobably not actively doing
things to cause you pain or toattack you or undermine you or
anything like that, but it'scool hate in the sense that I
(13:10):
don't want intimacy with you.
Now here's another reason forthat.
If you have not been rejectingthe other person, another reason
might be that they don't wantyou to feel intimacy with them
because of what they're involvedin them.
So let's say they're involvedin a lifestyle that they know
that you would reject thatlifestyle because they expect
(13:41):
you to reject them, to rejectwhat they're doing, because of
the fact that they know it'scompletely beyond the lifestyle
that you would accept or be partof or even tolerate them being
part of.
Also and I'm sure you'vealready reached this conclusion
it can be because of the factthey have become involved with
another person and because oftheir involvement with that
other person, then they don'twant intimacy with you because
(14:02):
they don't want to feel thisbond of friendship, because
that's really what intimacycreates a deeper and deeper
friendship and they don't wantthat with you because they're
now doing that with somebodyelse, either him or her, and as
they're doing it with that otherperson, they actually can begin
to feel that they're cheatingon them by being open and
(14:25):
transparent and vulnerable withyou.
And so, therefore, they'llbegin to feel this cool hate
towards you that when you evensay such things as how was your
day?
Oh, leave me alone, don'tbother me.
And if you say, tell me whatyou feel, no, I don't care for
you to know what I feel.
Or maybe you just shut down ina different way, like I'm not
(14:46):
wanting to talk about that rightnow.
Now, that's what's normallycalled cool hate in the sense
that they're manifestingnegative feelings toward you in
the sense of intimacy.
It's the contradiction tointimacy, it's the negation, he
would say, of intimacy andthat's one kind of hate.
But it's called a cool hate.
And when Sternberg measuresthat these are some of the
(15:10):
questions he would have you takeon the profile, I think you're
disgusting.
I can't trust you.
I have no sympathy for you.
I have no sympathy for you.
I have no empathy for you.
I don't believe we canmeaningfully communicate.
I feel that you're differentfrom me and people like me and
(15:34):
he would have you rate those ona one to seven Likert type scale
, from strongly disagree tostrongly agree about what you
feel for your spouse.
If they were measuring yourhate, and if you were measuring
your spouse's hate and you'veheard what he or she's had to
say, you could kind of do thatrating it for them.
And that's what that cool hateis all about.
(15:54):
Now stay with me.
We're going to wind up byshowing you how to overcome hate
.
I'm just trying to explain toyou there are different kinds of
hate, because a person withcool hate probably is not
attacking you.
They're mostly probably justavoiding you.
But on Sternberg's love scale,and that's what we're looking at
the negative of Sternberg'slove scale Because, if you heard
me earlier, hate is a parallelto love.
(16:17):
It's the negative, it's not theantithesis, it's not the
opposite.
The opposite of love isindifference.
This has to do with theparallel, but rather than a
positive, I want you to be open,intimate, that kind of thing.
It's like I want you to moveaway from me.
I don't want to be open andhonest and transparent and I
(16:39):
don't want you to be that waytoward me.
Now, the second part of thatscale would be what Sternberg
calls passion.
Now, passion has to do with acraving for oneness.
But if a person is feeling hatetoward you, if we were
measuring that, we'd bemeasuring how much they want to
be away from you, because nowthe craving is no longer, for I
want to be one with you.
The craving is I want to beaway from you because now the
(17:00):
craving is no longer, for I wantto be one with you.
The craving is I want to bedistant from you.
I'm craving distance.
Now this one involves a strongeremotion and when he goes
through this he'll actually callthis hot hate as opposed to the
cool hate from the intimacysection, opposed to the Kool-Aid
from the intimacy section.
And this can come from thingslike feelings of betrayal, like
(17:22):
you've hurt me or you've hurtsomebody that I love.
So let's suppose your wife isbeating mercilessly your child
and you ask her to stop, eventold her to stop, even said I'll
call the cops if you do itagain, and she's still abusing
your children physically, thenyou feel betrayed, you're
(17:43):
hurting our progeny, you'rehurting our children.
So it might be that it's youthat's being hurt, either by
physical ways, like you're beingbeaten, or it could be physical
ways in the sense that I'll cutyou off from the money so that
you are absolutely beingcontrolled because you don't
have enough money to do anything.
It can be physical in the sensethat I'm going to demand sex
(18:03):
all the time from you to thepoint that you get sick of it.
I actually talked to a lady onetime who still was struggling
with hate toward her firsthusband that she had divorced
because he was forcing her tohave sex with him several times
a day, every day.
Her body couldn't even adjustto that.
You know arousal, lubrication,those kinds of things, and so it
(18:25):
was not only quite painful, itwas humiliating, and she felt as
if she were a piece of meatthat he was using.
And in that sense, that senseof violation of self, violation
of expectations, violation ofprivacy, violation of
expectations, violation ofprivacy, violation of trust,
respect, violation of my rightsall those kinds of things can
(18:48):
cause very intense negativeemotions toward the other person
and it's like no, I don't wantto be close to you anymore, I
want to be as far away from youas I possibly can because you're
causing me pain.
And then a person who has thishot hate right, sometimes he'll
be asking himself what did Iever see in you to begin with?
How did I not notice this a lotsooner than I do now,
(19:10):
understanding that maybe theywere like that all the time and
a Cinderella complex kept youfrom seeing, or Prince Charming
complex kept you from seeingthat.
Or it may be that they havedevolved into it for other
reasons, then, or it may be thatthey have devolved into it for
other reasons.
And so in this particularsituation, this hot tape.
People in that are longing andlooking for another relationship
(19:30):
, or they may be longing andlooking for a different
lifestyle.
And so if I want to go outcarousing and drinking and
partying every night, then Iactually will start having
negative passion toward Alicebecause she'll be negative about
it.
I don't want you to do that.
What are you doing to yourself?
What are you doing to your body?
What are you doing to ourfamily?
What are you doing to ourchildren?
You can't live like that.
(19:51):
You can't do those things.
And so I'll start feeling thishot hate toward her, because how
dare you try to stop me fromdoing what I want to do, to stop
me from doing what I want to do.
And so this hot hate can bebecause I'm looking for a
different lifestyle, I'm lookingfor a different relationship
(20:13):
with a different person, or Ihave felt violated, or maybe
continually feel violated by youagainst my mind, my body, my
soul, my heart, and I can't takethat pain anymore.
And so, rather than being ableto forgive you and move on, this
happens enough, and to thedepth, that I hate you with a
(20:34):
hot hate.
Now, did you notice in there,just like with intimacy, there's
two parts.
One is it might be because ofsomething that you actually do.
You're betraying me orbetraying our children,
betraying our family.
So it could be based onsomething you've actually done.
But you also heard the secondpart, just as you did with
intimacy.
No, it really is not about you.
(20:56):
It's about me wanting to dosomething that I know you'll not
be part of, nor will you accept, you won't tolerate, you'll be
totally against this.
And because I want to be withthat person or live that
lifestyle, whatever it might beand I see you as a barrier to
that I crave moving away fromyou.
But it's not your fault.
(21:19):
Now you said but what if thisperson has put up boundaries
that are just controlling anddominating, like you can't go
anyplace but straight to workand straight back because I'm
afraid that you're going to beOK, in that case it would be
this person's fault.
If you're being unreasonable inthe boundaries you're placing
(21:40):
out there, then it could be thisperson's fault over here.
Boundaries you're placing outthere, then it could be this
person's fault over here.
But if it's a normal, typicalsituation where it's just like
I'm not going to the sex clubswith you, I'm not going to put
up with you coming home drunkevery night, et cetera, et
cetera, then it's not you that'sthe cause, because you're
standing with what you alreadybelieve, as opposed to be trying
(22:01):
to control and dominate.
I hope you see the differencebetween those two.
And in that hot hate, if youfeel anger, you'll typically go
at them.
I'm going to yell at you, I'mgoing to argue with you.
I may even become physical withyou in a negative kind of way,
(22:22):
because anger tends to leadpeople to attack.
Or I'll start telling otherpeople bad things about you,
trying to destroy yourrelationship, trying to get you
fired from your job.
Because if anger is now theemotion I feel, rather than this
craving for oneness in mycraving for distance from you, I
feel anger because I feel thatyou are such a problem for me
(22:44):
and I'll try to hurt you.
Now, do people always do that?
No, I'm talking about atendency here.
But in anger they attack.
But if they feel fear, theyjust try to get further away
from you as fast as they can.
If I'm afraid he's going tobeat me in front of the children
again.
I remember a lady who told meyears ago that her husband would
(23:04):
take off his belt and beat herwith that belt in front of their
children, who are old enough tosee this and be terrified about
it.
All she wanted to do was to run.
Let me get my children and getout of here.
Some women are too afraid torun.
If I try to go someplace else,if I try to be away from him to
(23:26):
be safe, he's going to track medown and he may kill me.
Oh, and hear me well, I'mtalking as if men are the only
ones who do this.
But you understand, there arewomen who are just as bad that
they physically cause such painto the spouse or to the children
.
And what I'm saying is, if yourspouse says I hate you and
(23:46):
they're angry at you, they'reprobably going to attack you,
either directly or to otherpeople.
And if they're afraid of you,they're going to run from you
and they'll be afraid to tellother people for fear that
you'll find out and cause themmore pain.
But the interesting thing aboutthis kind of hate that when it
comes through passion, it canchange rapidly, very rapidly.
(24:09):
The person who just last weeksaid I hate you, I never want to
be around you again, I've gotto get out of here, I've got to
find someplace else to live.
This week may be as romanticand passionate in a good way as
you have ever witnessed.
Like I love you so much, Ican't be without you, because
passion is the one that changesthe fastest.
I've actually seen people who,intimacy-wise, have the cool
(24:35):
hate in the sense that I don'twant to be open with you, I
don't want you to be open withme and who have had the hot hate
where I am angry at you, wantnothing to do with you, get away
from me.
I have seen these people all ofa sudden become, for a week or
two I'll never be able to livewithout you.
I'm here, please be with me inthe bedroom so we can express
(24:58):
our love, et cetera, et cetera,et cetera.
But a couple of weeks laterwe're right back where they were
before, et cetera, et cetera,et cetera, but a couple of weeks
later are right back where theywere before.
So, when it comes to thepassionate hate, the hot hate,
can it be overcome?
Absolutely.
We're going to show you how todo all that.
But understand that it'smercurial, it's it can move so
rapidly.
Don't put all your eggs in thatbasket, don't like.
(25:21):
Well, she came home and drug meinto the bedroom and she loves
me so much.
Now it's all over, everything'sfine, maybe.
Maybe we don't trust thatbecause this is based on
emotions, and here's the kind ofthings he would have you to
rate on that one to nine, likeher top scale, if if Sombra were
measuring this.
But you say it was like this.
(25:42):
I fear you, at least atsometimes.
I feel threatened by you.
You present a danger to me.
Sometimes I feel rage towardyou.
Thinking about you makes meangry, and other questions like
(26:04):
that.
Now, don't get discouraged.
We're only about maybe a littlemore than halfway through with
this.
I just wanted you to understandwhat hate is if we're going to
show you how to get past it.
But let me repeat now, sincewe're a little past the halfway
mark If your spouse has beentreating you in such a way that
(26:24):
you think they hate you becausethey're being distant, or the
tone of voice they use, or theyhave called you some names that
are not polite, understand thatthat might not be indicative of
the kind of hate I'm talkingabout here.
Those could be flashes in thepan of anger.
They're certainly not good,definitely not right.
They can definitely be painful,but they're not the kind of
(26:45):
hate we're talking about here.
You deal with those in adifferent way, but now we're
talking about Sternberg'striangle again.
So there's intimacy at the topand there's passion over here,
and if those are positive, thenthat has to do with contributing
to deep love.
And here's the third one overhere, of course, we're looking
(27:08):
at them in the negative sense,and this is commitment.
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