April 2, 2025 • 29 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):
Here's the third one over here.
Of course, we're looking atthem in the negative sense, and
this is commitment.
Now, it is not such the thingthat passion is and that it's
hot.
As a matter of fact, commitmentnow has changed to rather than
being committed to be with you,I have decided that I'm
(00:22):
committed to be away from you,and he calls that a cold hate.
It doesn't typically involve alot of emotion, it tends to be
more logical, and that cold hateis a decision not to be with
you Now.
By the way, if you've beenkeeping up with this all along
(00:44):
and I'll give you some questionsabout this at the bottom just
as well, when I get to the endof this, you may be measuring
whether, like well, my spousehas the cool hate toward me, but
I've seen no evidence of thehot hate toward me.
Or you might be saying, oh, hothate, that's definitely what
I'm running into.
I see it and it's extremelypainful.
Well, this is the cold hatethat, if it's just by itself,
(01:05):
I've just decided I don't wantto be with you anymore, and it's
not necessarily involvingintimacy, not necessarily
involving passion, but it's likeI've made a decision I just
don't want to be with you, thenit's a cold hate.
They're typically notmanifesting a whole lot of
emotions and it typically comesbecause they view you as being
different than what they oncethought.
(01:26):
In other words, they typicallywind up seeing you as being
inferior.
You don't have the intelligenceI have.
You don't have the worldlinessthat I have.
That I think is important tofunction well in the world and
in life.
Or you don't, you don't, youdon't, or I thought you were
(01:46):
much more willing to learn andapparently you don't want to
learn at all.
I thought we had about the samelevel of intelligence, but if
we do, you don't manifest it.
In other words, they begin tolook down on you and, in their
judgment, you don't measure upanymore, and basically what it
means is the story that theyhave in their mind about you has
(02:09):
changed.
The story they had in theirmind about you that led them to
fall in love with you and be inlove with you has now changed to
a story they have about youthat you don't measure up.
Either you're not who I thoughtyou were to begin with, or
grown and changed and youhaven't, or you've changed in
(02:30):
ways that I can't begin to be apart of and therefore I don't
want to be with you because Ilook down on you.
So maybe they think that you'renot smart enough or that you're
not pretty enough, or thatyou're not holy enough enough,
or that you're not pretty enoughor that you're not holy enough,
and they no longer see you astheir equal.
And any old negative storiesresurface, like remember 15
(03:00):
years ago when I caught you inthat affair, and your response
would be we dealt with that, wegot past that, we've had a good
life since then.
And their response would be no,no, that's not it at all.
It's come back and it'sbothering me more than it ever
had.
And so it's in this cold hatethat when you tend to hear about
the things from five years ago,10 years ago, even 25 years ago
(03:20):
, because they resurface and sothey have a very changed view of
you, a very changed view of therelationship, and sometimes
that can just be based on theirfear of change.
I suppose that you have beendeveloping, you have been
growing, you're becoming abetter person because you've
been learning and you've beenpracticing the things you
learned, that you're practicingyour religion in good ways and
(03:43):
et cetera, and this person'skind of stuck where he or she
was, and so the change they seein you may well have to do with
the fact that they look down onyou because deep down inside,
they think maybe you're lookingdown on them, or deep down
inside they begin to feel alittle bit inferior to you and
therefore the story they tellthemselves reverses that and
(04:06):
makes you inferior to them.
Now, people in this particularsituation often feel trapped and
they want freedom.
And it's not unusual for peoplein this particular situation,
when they have this craving thiscommitment model in the
negative sense, like I don'twant to be committed with you, I
(04:27):
don't want to have a connectionwith you anymore, I want to be
away from you.
Now, the other thing it had todo with being away from you as
well, but this is a decision,it's a commitment to be away
from you, a decision orcommitment to be away from you,
and as they do that, sometimesthey'll devalue you to the point
(04:50):
where they feel contempt foryou.
Now, contempt is one of themore difficult emotions to
change, because it comes fromthe story they're telling
themselves about you and aboutthe way you relate to them, and
they can make so convinced ofthat story that trying to turn
it around can be a chore, but itcan be done.
And so cold hate has to do withdevaluation.
(05:12):
It has to do with diminishingyou, of seeing you as somebody
that's not worth theircommitment anymore.
So that's cold hate.
We talked about hot hate.
We talked about cool hate.
Let me give you some of thequestions they would ask.
On this part, I cannot imaginethat you will ever change, or I
(05:33):
need to protect myself againstyou.
You might be thinking well, drBeam, could we possibly at some
point get a list of thosequestions?
Actually, you probably can findthem on the internet if you
want to look them up.
They're by Dr Robert Sternbergand he's the guy who writes
about this, and what you want isto find Sternberg's writings on
(05:53):
hate, and you're going to findthat he's going to tie them back
together with his writings onlove.
Now he's researched both loveand hate, and he doesn't just
look at hate in the sense of oneindividual toward another.
He also examines hate of onegroup toward another.
Now, we're not going to getinto that in this particular
video, but do understand thisthat either of these hates, the
(06:19):
one that's well, this is thecool hate, or the one that's
this is the hot hate the onethat's the cold hate.
There are more combinations.
So if you combine the cool hatewith the hot hate, you actually
get a kind of hate that hecalls boiling boiling hate,
which is a revulsion.
Or if you combine the cool hatewith the cold hate, he calls
(06:42):
that simmering.
It's a form of loathing, like,not only will I not be open and
transparent with you, not onlyhave I made a decision to be
away from you.
Therefore I loathe you, I lookdown on you terribly.
Or if you combine the cold hate, which has to do with
commitment, and the hot hate,which has to do with passion, he
(07:03):
calls that seething.
It's revilement.
Like, even thinking about youmakes me mad.
So did I talk about them allBoiling hate, simmering hate,
seething hate, as well as theothers I talked about already.
And if all three are very strong, the cool hate and the hot hate
and the cold hate are all threevery strong.
That combination he callsburning hate strong.
The cool hate and the hot hateand the cold hate are all three
(07:23):
very strong.
That combination he callsburning hate.
And in burning hate it's like Ineed to annihilate you Now in
some situations that will leadto physical violence like I need
to murder you.
I'm not saying your spouse isgoing to do that.
(07:44):
That typically is more what yousee between groups.
Now sometimes in a marriage itwill be that strong, although
typically the annihilation hereis I just need you completely
out of my life.
But I want to point out beforeI tell you how to overcome this
that it can be exacerbated.
(08:04):
That it can be exacerbated.
Any of these kinds of hate canbe exacerbated by other people.
For example, we hear a lot myin-laws, and particularly my
mother-in-law, or particularlymy father-in-law, or
particularly my sister-in-law orbrother-in-law.
My in-laws seem to hate me andthey are feeding my wife's
(08:31):
negative view of me.
So other people can actuallyinfluence the story in your mind
toward your spouse.
And so if you've had sometroubles, whatever it might be,
and now your spouse is maybeback with the in-laws or maybe
possibly even sitting with you,but having a lot of interaction
and contact with the in-laws, ifthese in-laws, if, if they are
(08:55):
painting a very negative storyhere, remember the time he said
this to you, remember the timewe saw him treat you this way.
Remember the time we saw himtreat you this way, remember,
remember, remember.
And they continue to feednegative stories that they have
small experiences with and oftendon't even understand the
context of, and they're puttingthose into your head and it
becomes part of the story youbuy into.
(09:15):
So other people can exacerbateall of this negativity by the
stories they're putting intoyour head or into your spouse's
head, and it might not just bein-laws, it can be the affair
partner putting negative storiesabout you into your spouse's
head, exacerbating thesenegative feelings.
(09:37):
It can be friends.
One thing I have noticed overthe years is if you have an
angry wife who begins to hangout with a group of divorced
women who are still angry towardtheir ex-husbands, the
likelihood of divorce increasesdramatically.
You say why?
(09:59):
No, I'm not quoting research,I'm just telling you my
experience, so you can call thisanecdotal if you wish.
But why does it increase thelikelihood of divorce?
Because they not only will tellnegative stories about her
spouse, the woman who's hangingout with them, they'll tell
negative stories about theirspouse and apply it to her
(10:20):
husband, like, yeah, this iswhat my husband did, and if he
did anything, even in theballpark, that's similar to that
, it becomes part of hernegative story about him.
And so friends friends canreally make this worse by the
negative stories they're puttinginto their hands.
Families, even counselors, cando this.
(10:40):
I'll leave him unnamed becauseof the fact that I asked him do
you have research on this?
He said no, just my anecdotalexperience.
Therefore, I will not tell youwho said it, except to say that
he's famous and he's awell-renowned researcher and
counselor for whom I have a lotof respect.
And he said Joe, if you have anangry wife, go to an angry
(11:03):
female counselor.
It's one of the greatestpredictors of divorce I've ever
seen.
In other words, if there'ssomebody who's going to feed
more of that negative story, andafter I've done all this, you
might be saying, oh my goodness,there is no hope.
I wish I hadn't watched thisthing, because all you've done
is convince me.
There's no hope that my husbandor my wife feels this up here,
(11:26):
where it's a negation ofintimacy.
I don't want to be intimate inthe sense of openness,
transparency, trust,vulnerability, not toward you,
nor you toward me.
And there's also this, this hotanger over here because of the
fact that they have all thesenegative emotions toward me and
it could be fear, because theyfeel that I have been
dictatorial or that I've beendangerous in some passion.
Or it may be anger in the senseof I'm between them and
(11:49):
somebody else and they wish thatI weren't here, that I didn't
exist at all.
So they're angry at me and theytry their best to get rid of me
.
You're no good, you're rotten,you need to get rid of me.
You're no good, you're rotten,you need to get out of my life.
Or it might be even the coldthat they have decided that I am
inferior, even if theythemselves feel inferior.
(12:09):
They've decided that I'minferior and they're looking
down on me and therefore I don'thave any hope.
Do I, dr Bean?
Well, sure you do.
I looked through and found aninteresting study that was done,
a doctoral dissertationactually and I found it really,
(12:30):
really interesting in the sensethat it was done where it was
like how do people get past thisand can they get beyond it?
Now, as soon as I read I'm justgoing to read you a little bit
of the abstract of this doctoraldissertation how do people get
past this and can they getbeyond it?
Now, as soon as I read I'm justgoing to read you a little bit
of the abstract of this doctoraldissertation and as soon as I
read the abstract I thought I'vewitnessed this, I've seen this
so many times I don't even needto read all their research to
(12:52):
validate this.
I've seen it so many times thatI just I know it's true because
we've dealt with thousands andthousands and thousands of
couples and many of them havefelt hate.
I remember one couple that cameto one of our workshops and
when she walked in the door onFriday morning, that woman was
dripping venom.
I mean I was kind of afraid toget between her and anything,
(13:12):
thinking oh my goodness, she'sso mad, she'll kill everybody in
here, if not physically, atleast verbally.
She's going to assaulteverybody in here and, by the
way, she did.
And there's no hope, no hope.
She said this man is evil, he'sterrible.
And by Sunday afternoon, thethird day of the workshop, they
were holding hands and huggingeach other and she's in love
(13:33):
with him again.
It didn't happen overnight, butit started almost that fast.
So you've witnessed thesethings so many times I can't
count.
Or where the man was so angryand hurt because of what the
wife had done say maybe he'dbeen involved with another man
or she'd started gambling and hedidn't know about it and she'd
(13:54):
wasted away all their money orwhatever.
It might be that I'm herebecause of the fact that she
offered me a deal on the divorceif I came.
But you need to know right nowthis is not going to work.
I hate this woman.
Thank you for being honest.
Glad you're here, pleaseparticipate.
Who on Sunday afternoon whenthe workshop ends, looks me in
(14:16):
the eye or whoever our leader isat the time and says you know
what I can see my part in allthis?
I'm not ready to put it allback together right now, but I'm
sure ready to learn a lot moreso we can figure out how to put
it together back now and thatare today pretty much in love
with each other again.
And when I left Dallas for thatlittle woman way back in the
(14:39):
mid-1980s, before a lot of thepeople listening and viewing
were even born, I hated her.
She was between that woman andme just by the very fact that
she still existed.
So intimacy stopped way back.
I never tell the name of theother woman.
I just call her Sally Sue,because all of my intimacy, my
(15:00):
openness, transparency andvulnerability, it was always
Sally Sue and the craving foroneness was toward Sally Sue and
my commitment was developingtoward Sally Sue we're going to
marry each other after ourdivorce and we're going to live
happily ever after all that kindof stuff.
And so my negation of intimacytoward Alice became very strong,
my hot hate, the passion verystrong, because she was standing
(15:25):
between me and Sally Sue justby existing.
My cold hate in the sense ofI'm now looking down on her.
In my mind Sally Sue is thegreatest thing and in my mind
Alice is terrible, which was notlogically true or factually
true, but definitely true in mymind.
And I hated her literally byall these definitions.
(15:46):
And yet today we've beenmarried.
At this recording we're comingup on 38 years in the second
marriage.
She's my best friend and I loveher very much.
Now you might be thinking okay,get to the doctoral dissertation
.
You're kind of varied off therea little bit.
We want to know.
Well, a study was done and thefirst thing they would measure
(16:09):
with people who said I hate myspouse is what did you feel when
you hated your spouse?
What happened, what was goingon?
And it pretty much tied back toeverything we've been talking
here and in that.
Then the second thing was okay,these were people that had
actually put their relationshipsback together, and it was like
(16:30):
resolution of hate.
And what they found was this.
Let me read it for you.
Okay, it appears from theseresults and I can verify because
I've seen it so many times itappears from these results that
as people learn to see theobject of their hate from a
different perspective, they'reable to resolve their hate and,
(16:51):
in some cases and I've seen itin many cases to restore a
meaningful relationship to theobjects of their former hate.
What do you mean?
Typically, what they did was,somewhere along the line, they
went back and looked at why.
What was this hate comprised of?
(17:13):
Was it the cool hate, where Iwithdrew intimacy?
And if so, what was my part inthat?
Was it the hot hate, in that Iwanted to be away from them
emotionally?
Okay, then, what was my part inthat?
If it was the cold hate, whereI began to look down on them
with disgust and contempt, whatwas my part in that?
And as they reconsidered thosethings, then whatever it was
(17:37):
that the other spouse didbecause never is the other
spouse perfect They've done somethings to contribute to all
this, but those things becametrivial in the sense that it was
not nearly as big a deal as Ithought it was, or it became
quote, justified end quote, notsaying that it was right, good
(17:58):
or holy.
But I see now how that happened.
I see now why that happened andI can see whatever part, if any
, that I played in it and that Ihave seen again and again and
again, and all the people thatwork with us that work with
marriages have seen again andagain and again.
It's like I now reframe whathappened.
(18:22):
I still know that my spousecommitted adultery, or I still
know that my spouse gambled awaythe money, but now I have a
different picture of it becauseI'm seeing it through a
different light and either itwasn't as big a deal as I
thought it was obviouslyadultery and gambling all that
money away are big deals, butsome other things aren't as big
as I thought they were or,because I now see it through
(18:44):
light, I understand what led myspouse to do that, even if my
spouse was wrong, and then, bybeing able to forgive, they were
able to put the thing backtogether.
You say, well, okay, how do I dothat?
Okay, number one, if you havebeen contributing in any of
(19:05):
these ways, for example, if whenyour spouse tried to be open
and transparent and vulnerablewith you, tried to tell you what
he or she felt or thought orbelieved or did.
And you can look back now andsay, oh my goodness, I was
always correct here.
Like you shouldn't feel thatway, or I can't believe you did
that.
That's the stupidest thing I'veever heard.
(19:26):
Or really, aren't you more?
If you know you've played apart in that, then accept it,
learn from it.
Now you don't need to gorunning to your spouse right now
and saying, hey, it's my fault,you did this.
As a matter of fact, I don'tknow that I would ever advise
anybody, in any situation, justto say it that way, because you
just give your spouse moreevidence that you're no good.
(19:48):
So there are different ways todo that than just running out
and confessing everything,although we want you to tell the
truth.
But there's a right way to dothat.
But right now let me just sayit this way you need to accept
internally in your own mind,your own heart hey, I did this.
Now, once you have identifiedthose things, stop doing them.
(20:08):
If you still have interactionwith your spouse, don't do those
anymore.
If your spouse starts tellingyou about how much she's in love
with Charlie.
Acknowledge it.
Acceptance is acknowledgingreality.
I understand that you loveCharlie.
Now, don't endorse it, don'tencourage it, don't say, well, I
don't blame you, charlie's aheck of a guy.
(20:29):
Don't do that.
Don't encourage it.
Like, well, why don't you guystake the guest bedroom for a
couple of weeks and see if youcan work this thing out?
Don't do that.
But you can acknowledge reality, like I understand.
I understand that's how youfeel right now.
And if he or she says somethingto you, like you know, you hurt
me when you did such and such Ifindeed you really did that you
(20:49):
say I know that now I'm sorry.
Don't keep saying I'm sorrybecause again you'll begin to
frame yourself as a really,really weak or bad person.
If she brings it up or hebrings it up again, you can say
something to the effect of I'mso happy, I know better now.
If they bring it up again later, you can say I never want to
(21:11):
hurt you again If they bring itup.
In other words, stop sayingyou're sorry.
In other words, stop sayingyou're sorry, because you'll
paint yourself as being a sorryperson and no good person.
But what you do is that you stopdoing anything that you did
wrong and, even if you didn't dovery much wrong, start being
much better at doing thingsright, so that if you ever have
(21:34):
opportunity to have aconversation with your spouse,
don't demand it, don't push forit, don't drag for it, don't
drag for it, but when they startbeing open and honest and
transparent about what they feel, listen, validate.
I understand that you feel thatway, really, really, and she
(21:54):
says I never want to see youagain.
You can reply with I canunderstand why you feel that I
hope that you do see me again,but I can understand why you
feel that way.
So, again, you're not endorsingit Like I don't blame you, I
wouldn't want to see me againeither.
That's an endorsement.
I'd say I understand that.
I hope that you do see me again.
(22:14):
I understand that I hope thatyou do see me again.
But I understand you're hurt, Iunderstand your pain and so
you're undoing things you didbefore.
You say what's the basic pointhere?
Dr Beam?
Change the story about you.
Now for those of you who arethinking well, that's really
good news.
But here's my problem I don'thave access to my spouse anymore
(22:36):
.
We don't have children, so wedon't have any interaction.
She lives way over there, Ilive way over there.
Or he lives way over there, Ilive way over there.
What am I going to do?
You change the story about you.
Even if you have no access tothe other person, don't try to
force it.
Don't try to set it up that youhave access to them.
(22:58):
Yes, wherever you are, whateveryou're doing, you change the
story about you.
Stop whining, stop complaining,stop feeling sorry for yourself
.
You become the best person youcan possibly be.
You can go to our YouTubechannel, go to youtubecom slash
marriagehelper that's likemarriagehelper, you are a
marriagehelper and there's allkinds of things there you can
find about what we call PISPhysical, intellectual,
(23:20):
emotional, spiritual so you canbecome the best that you can
possibly be.
And then you learn about whatwe talk about over there called
acceptance.
There are well over a thousand,almost two thousand.
I just looked at our producerover there Almost two thousand
videos there that are000.
I just looked at our producerover there Almost 2,000 videos
there that are free.
I do some of them.
Kimberly Holmes, our CEO, doessome of them.
(23:43):
We have some other people dosome of them, but free resources
and you learn how to change thestory about you to the people
that you interact with, so theybegin to see you as better.
And you can do that throughworking the pies and working the
acceptance.
You're not manipulating.
You're becoming better.
(24:04):
You change the story about you,but my spouse may never know
that it changed.
That's possible, butopportunities come to those
people who are prepared for it.
Did I say that well enough?
Do you understand?
Opportunities come to thosepeople who are prepared for it.
So, if ever you're going tohave a shot at putting it back
(24:26):
together, it's because you havechanged who you are.
You might be saying but heck,it's not my fault, it's what he
did.
I'm not the one that causedthis, he's the one that had the
affair.
I understand, and there arepeople on the one that caused
this.
He's the one that had theaffair, I understand.
And there are people on theinternet that just attack me
like crazy because I don'tsuggest ways to punish the
person who did the bad stuff.
But it's not my job to punish.
Do I agree that what they didwas right?
(24:48):
No, do I think what they didwas wrong?
Yes, Then why don't you want tobeat them up?
My job is not to beat people upmy job's to help people put
their marriages back together,if that's what they choose to do
, and so you'll learn to forgive, in the sense that you're not
going to bring up all thosenegative things again.
(25:09):
You're going to change the storyabout you when it comes to
being intimate, open,transparent, vulnerable, and you
start with the people aroundyou who matter to you.
You're going to change thestory with you about passion, in
the sense that you're going tobe a person that other people
want to spend a lifetime with,that they crave oneness for you,
(25:29):
and you do that by becoming thebest person you can physically,
intellectually, emotionally,spiritually and learning how to
accept.
And you learn how to live up tocommitments.
And as that story about youchanges and you can, then after
a while don't push it, don'tforce it, but after a while, the
(25:50):
other person, if they stillhave some knowledge of you, some
interaction with you and oryour friends, they're going to
begin to notice that after awhile Will the hate go away?
Yes, how do you know?
Mine did.
I love Alice.
Now, as a matter of fact, youmade things crazy, but the day I
called her and asked her if shewould take me back.
(26:11):
She said you fall in love withme.
Did you fall in love with meagain?
To which I replied not yet, buthey, at least I don't hate you
anymore.
I've made progress.
You say you really did that.
Yeah, I did.
Then why did she take you back?
That's another story foranother time.
Let's just put it this way Ihad changed my story to a really
(26:34):
good story.
Now.
I had to go through a man-madehell to get there, but I changed
it to a good story and sheheard and saw that good story
and that's when she thought I'llrisk it, I'll marry him again,
and I think it's going to makeit.
We're coming up on 38 years inthat second marriage at the time
of this recording.
So I think she made a goodchoice and she thinks she did
(26:56):
too.
Do you hear the point?
You change this story about youby becoming open and
transparent and vulnerable, bybecoming the kind of person
people would crave to be with,and that you make a decision
that you're going to be loyaland true to whoever matters to
you.
And as you change that storyand the other person begins to
(27:18):
see it, then if they open a door, we would strongly recommend
that you contact us.
You say why?
Because doing all this on yourown pretty hard.
It can be done, but it's kindof difficult.
So let the professionals helpyou.
And you can contact us by goingonline to marriagehelper.
That's marriagehelpercom slashcall and you can schedule there
(27:42):
a free 15 minute visit with oneof our advisors who can help you
understand what we can help youdo.
And if you want to go further,they'll give you access to one
of our specialists who can evenlook deeper into that with you
to help you know what we can doto help you do it.
And if your spouse will ever atsome point agree to come, I
hope he or she comes to thatthree-day intensive workshop we
(28:03):
do.
You can find out a lot moreabout that by just going to our
website at marriagehelpercom.
And, trust me, in the 30 yearsI've been doing this, we have
helped thousands upon thousands,upon thousands of people, even
the ones whose spouses said Ihate you with all my heart.
I would never be in the sameroom with you again.
(28:23):
I hope I never see you.
I hope you drop dead.
We're now happily married toeach other.
Oh, we don't do it.
We just help people find a wayto do it.
So don't leave this as havingno hope.
The reason I went into suchgreat detail is so you can know
that there are different kindsof hate, so you can know that
(28:45):
whatever your spouse is sayingto you may be true or false, but
either way you can understandwhere it's going on and
therefore you know what torepair in you.
If not repair, at least makestronger in you, because there's
always hope.
There is always hope.
Here's the third one over here.
Of course, we're looking atthem in the negative sense, and
this is commitment.
Now, it is not such the thingthat passion is and that it's
hot.
As a matter of fact, commitmentnow has changed to rather than
being committed to be with you,I have decided that I'm
(00:22):
committed to be away from you,and he calls that a cold hate.
It doesn't typically involve alot of emotion, it tends to be
more logical, and that cold hateis a decision not to be with
you Now.
By the way, if you've beenkeeping up with this all along
(00:44):
and I'll give you some questionsabout this at the bottom just
as well, when I get to the endof this, you may be measuring
whether, like well, my spousehas the cool hate toward me, but
I've seen no evidence of thehot hate toward me.
Or you might be saying, oh, hothate, that's definitely what
I'm running into.
I see it and it's extremelypainful.
Well, this is the cold hatethat, if it's just by itself,
(01:05):
I've just decided I don't wantto be with you anymore, and it's
not necessarily involvingintimacy, not necessarily
involving passion, but it's likeI've made a decision I just
don't want to be with you, thenit's a cold hate.
They're typically notmanifesting a whole lot of
emotions and it typically comesbecause they view you as being
different than what they oncethought.
(01:26):
In other words, they typicallywind up seeing you as being
inferior.
You don't have the intelligenceI have.
You don't have the worldlinessthat I have.
That I think is important tofunction well in the world and
in life.
Or you don't, you don't, youdon't, or I thought you were
(01:46):
much more willing to learn andapparently you don't want to
learn at all.
I thought we had about the samelevel of intelligence, but if
we do, you don't manifest it.
In other words, they begin tolook down on you and, in their
judgment, you don't measure upanymore, and basically what it
means is the story that theyhave in their mind about you has
(02:09):
changed.
The story they had in theirmind about you that led them to
fall in love with you and be inlove with you has now changed to
a story they have about youthat you don't measure up.
Either you're not who I thoughtyou were to begin with, or
grown and changed and youhaven't, or you've changed in
(02:30):
ways that I can't begin to be apart of and therefore I don't
want to be with you because Ilook down on you.
So maybe they think that you'renot smart enough or that you're
not pretty enough, or thatyou're not holy enough enough,
or that you're not pretty enoughor that you're not holy enough,
and they no longer see you astheir equal.
And any old negative storiesresurface, like remember 15
(03:00):
years ago when I caught you inthat affair, and your response
would be we dealt with that, wegot past that, we've had a good
life since then.
And their response would be no,no, that's not it at all.
It's come back and it'sbothering me more than it ever
had.
And so it's in this cold hatethat when you tend to hear about
the things from five years ago,10 years ago, even 25 years ago
(03:20):
, because they resurface and sothey have a very changed view of
you, a very changed view of therelationship, and sometimes
that can just be based on theirfear of change.
I suppose that you have beendeveloping, you have been
growing, you're becoming abetter person because you've
been learning and you've beenpracticing the things you
learned, that you're practicingyour religion in good ways and
(03:43):
et cetera, and this person'skind of stuck where he or she
was, and so the change they seein you may well have to do with
the fact that they look down onyou because deep down inside,
they think maybe you're lookingdown on them, or deep down
inside they begin to feel alittle bit inferior to you and
therefore the story they tellthemselves reverses that and
(04:06):
makes you inferior to them.
Now, people in this particularsituation often feel trapped and
they want freedom.
And it's not unusual for peoplein this particular situation,
when they have this craving thiscommitment model in the
negative sense, like I don'twant to be committed with you, I
(04:27):
don't want to have a connectionwith you anymore, I want to be
away from you.
Now, the other thing it had todo with being away from you as
well, but this is a decision,it's a commitment to be away
from you, a decision orcommitment to be away from you,
and as they do that, sometimesthey'll devalue you to the point
(04:50):
where they feel contempt foryou.
Now, contempt is one of themore difficult emotions to
change, because it comes fromthe story they're telling
themselves about you and aboutthe way you relate to them, and
they can make so convinced ofthat story that trying to turn
it around can be a chore, but itcan be done.
And so cold hate has to do withdevaluation.
(05:12):
It has to do with diminishingyou, of seeing you as somebody
that's not worth theircommitment anymore.
So that's cold hate.
We talked about hot hate.
We talked about cool hate.
Let me give you some of thequestions they would ask.
On this part, I cannot imaginethat you will ever change, or I
(05:33):
need to protect myself againstyou.
You might be thinking well, drBeam, could we possibly at some
point get a list of thosequestions?
Actually, you probably can findthem on the internet if you
want to look them up.
They're by Dr Robert Sternbergand he's the guy who writes
about this, and what you want isto find Sternberg's writings on
(05:53):
hate, and you're going to findthat he's going to tie them back
together with his writings onlove.
Now he's researched both loveand hate, and he doesn't just
look at hate in the sense of oneindividual toward another.
He also examines hate of onegroup toward another.
Now, we're not going to getinto that in this particular
video, but do understand thisthat either of these hates, the
(06:19):
one that's well, this is thecool hate, or the one that's
this is the hot hate the onethat's the cold hate.
There are more combinations.
So if you combine the cool hatewith the hot hate, you actually
get a kind of hate that hecalls boiling boiling hate,
which is a revulsion.
Or if you combine the cool hatewith the cold hate, he calls
(06:42):
that simmering.
It's a form of loathing, like,not only will I not be open and
transparent with you, not onlyhave I made a decision to be
away from you.
Therefore I loathe you, I lookdown on you terribly.
Or if you combine the cold hate, which has to do with
commitment, and the hot hate,which has to do with passion, he
(07:03):
calls that seething.
It's revilement.
Like, even thinking about youmakes me mad.
So did I talk about them allBoiling hate, simmering hate,
seething hate, as well as theothers I talked about already.
And if all three are very strong, the cool hate and the hot hate
and the cold hate are all threevery strong.
That combination he callsburning hate strong.
The cool hate and the hot hateand the cold hate are all three
(07:23):
very strong.
That combination he callsburning hate.
And in burning hate it's like Ineed to annihilate you Now in
some situations that will leadto physical violence like I need
to murder you.
I'm not saying your spouse isgoing to do that.
(07:44):
That typically is more what yousee between groups.
Now sometimes in a marriage itwill be that strong, although
typically the annihilation hereis I just need you completely
out of my life.
But I want to point out beforeI tell you how to overcome this
that it can be exacerbated.
(08:04):
That it can be exacerbated.
Any of these kinds of hate canbe exacerbated by other people.
For example, we hear a lot myin-laws, and particularly my
mother-in-law, or particularlymy father-in-law, or
particularly my sister-in-law orbrother-in-law.
My in-laws seem to hate me andthey are feeding my wife's
(08:31):
negative view of me.
So other people can actuallyinfluence the story in your mind
toward your spouse.
And so if you've had sometroubles, whatever it might be,
and now your spouse is maybeback with the in-laws or maybe
possibly even sitting with you,but having a lot of interaction
and contact with the in-laws, ifthese in-laws, if, if they are
(08:55):
painting a very negative storyhere, remember the time he said
this to you, remember the timewe saw him treat you this way.
Remember the time we saw himtreat you this way, remember,
remember, remember.
And they continue to feednegative stories that they have
small experiences with and oftendon't even understand the
context of, and they're puttingthose into your head and it
becomes part of the story youbuy into.
(09:15):
So other people can exacerbateall of this negativity by the
stories they're putting intoyour head or into your spouse's
head, and it might not just bein-laws, it can be the affair
partner putting negative storiesabout you into your spouse's
head, exacerbating thesenegative feelings.
(09:37):
It can be friends.
One thing I have noticed overthe years is if you have an
angry wife who begins to hangout with a group of divorced
women who are still angry towardtheir ex-husbands, the
likelihood of divorce increasesdramatically.
You say why?
(09:59):
No, I'm not quoting research,I'm just telling you my
experience, so you can call thisanecdotal if you wish.
But why does it increase thelikelihood of divorce?
Because they not only will tellnegative stories about her
spouse, the woman who's hangingout with them, they'll tell
negative stories about theirspouse and apply it to her
(10:20):
husband, like, yeah, this iswhat my husband did, and if he
did anything, even in theballpark, that's similar to that
, it becomes part of hernegative story about him.
And so friends friends canreally make this worse by the
negative stories they're puttinginto their hands.
Families, even counselors, cando this.
(10:40):
I'll leave him unnamed becauseof the fact that I asked him do
you have research on this?
He said no, just my anecdotalexperience.
Therefore, I will not tell youwho said it, except to say that
he's famous and he's awell-renowned researcher and
counselor for whom I have a lotof respect.
And he said Joe, if you have anangry wife, go to an angry
(11:03):
female counselor.
It's one of the greatestpredictors of divorce I've ever
seen.
In other words, if there'ssomebody who's going to feed
more of that negative story, andafter I've done all this, you
might be saying, oh my goodness,there is no hope.
I wish I hadn't watched thisthing, because all you've done
is convince me.
There's no hope that my husbandor my wife feels this up here,
(11:26):
where it's a negation ofintimacy.
I don't want to be intimate inthe sense of openness,
transparency, trust,vulnerability, not toward you,
nor you toward me.
And there's also this, this hotanger over here because of the
fact that they have all thesenegative emotions toward me and
it could be fear, because theyfeel that I have been
dictatorial or that I've beendangerous in some passion.
Or it may be anger in the senseof I'm between them and
(11:49):
somebody else and they wish thatI weren't here, that I didn't
exist at all.
So they're angry at me and theytry their best to get rid of me
.
You're no good, you're rotten,you need to get rid of me.
You're no good, you're rotten,you need to get out of my life.
Or it might be even the coldthat they have decided that I am
inferior, even if theythemselves feel inferior.
(12:09):
They've decided that I'minferior and they're looking
down on me and therefore I don'thave any hope.
Do I, dr Bean?
Well, sure you do.
I looked through and found aninteresting study that was done,
a doctoral dissertationactually and I found it really,
(12:30):
really interesting in the sensethat it was done where it was
like how do people get past thisand can they get beyond it?
Now, as soon as I read I'm justgoing to read you a little bit
of the abstract of this doctoraldissertation how do people get
past this and can they getbeyond it?
Now, as soon as I read I'm justgoing to read you a little bit
of the abstract of this doctoraldissertation and as soon as I
read the abstract I thought I'vewitnessed this, I've seen this
so many times I don't even needto read all their research to
(12:52):
validate this.
I've seen it so many times thatI just I know it's true because
we've dealt with thousands andthousands and thousands of
couples and many of them havefelt hate.
I remember one couple that cameto one of our workshops and
when she walked in the door onFriday morning, that woman was
dripping venom.
I mean I was kind of afraid toget between her and anything,
(13:12):
thinking oh my goodness, she'sso mad, she'll kill everybody in
here, if not physically, atleast verbally.
She's going to assaulteverybody in here and, by the
way, she did.
And there's no hope, no hope.
She said this man is evil, he'sterrible.
And by Sunday afternoon, thethird day of the workshop, they
were holding hands and huggingeach other and she's in love
(13:33):
with him again.
It didn't happen overnight, butit started almost that fast.
So you've witnessed thesethings so many times I can't
count.
Or where the man was so angryand hurt because of what the
wife had done say maybe he'dbeen involved with another man
or she'd started gambling and hedidn't know about it and she'd
(13:54):
wasted away all their money orwhatever.
It might be that I'm herebecause of the fact that she
offered me a deal on the divorceif I came.
But you need to know right nowthis is not going to work.
I hate this woman.
Thank you for being honest.
Glad you're here, pleaseparticipate.
Who on Sunday afternoon whenthe workshop ends, looks me in
(14:16):
the eye or whoever our leader isat the time and says you know
what I can see my part in allthis?
I'm not ready to put it allback together right now, but I'm
sure ready to learn a lot moreso we can figure out how to put
it together back now and thatare today pretty much in love
with each other again.
And when I left Dallas for thatlittle woman way back in the
(14:39):
mid-1980s, before a lot of thepeople listening and viewing
were even born, I hated her.
She was between that woman andme just by the very fact that
she still existed.
So intimacy stopped way back.
I never tell the name of theother woman.
I just call her Sally Sue,because all of my intimacy, my
(15:00):
openness, transparency andvulnerability, it was always
Sally Sue and the craving foroneness was toward Sally Sue and
my commitment was developingtoward Sally Sue we're going to
marry each other after ourdivorce and we're going to live
happily ever after all that kindof stuff.
And so my negation of intimacytoward Alice became very strong,
my hot hate, the passion verystrong, because she was standing
(15:25):
between me and Sally Sue justby existing.
My cold hate in the sense ofI'm now looking down on her.
In my mind Sally Sue is thegreatest thing and in my mind
Alice is terrible, which was notlogically true or factually
true, but definitely true in mymind.
And I hated her literally byall these definitions.
(15:46):
And yet today we've beenmarried.
At this recording we're comingup on 38 years in the second
marriage.
She's my best friend and I loveher very much.
Now you might be thinking okay,get to the doctoral dissertation
.
You're kind of varied off therea little bit.
We want to know.
Well, a study was done and thefirst thing they would measure
(16:09):
with people who said I hate myspouse is what did you feel when
you hated your spouse?
What happened, what was goingon?
And it pretty much tied back toeverything we've been talking
here and in that.
Then the second thing was okay,these were people that had
actually put their relationshipsback together, and it was like
(16:30):
resolution of hate.
And what they found was this.
Let me read it for you.
Okay, it appears from theseresults and I can verify because
I've seen it so many times itappears from these results that
as people learn to see theobject of their hate from a
different perspective, they'reable to resolve their hate and,
(16:51):
in some cases and I've seen itin many cases to restore a
meaningful relationship to theobjects of their former hate.
What do you mean?
Typically, what they did was,somewhere along the line, they
went back and looked at why.
What was this hate comprised of?
(17:13):
Was it the cool hate, where Iwithdrew intimacy?
And if so, what was my part inthat?
Was it the hot hate, in that Iwanted to be away from them
emotionally?
Okay, then, what was my part inthat?
If it was the cold hate, whereI began to look down on them
with disgust and contempt, whatwas my part in that?
And as they reconsidered thosethings, then whatever it was
(17:37):
that the other spouse didbecause never is the other
spouse perfect They've done somethings to contribute to all
this, but those things becametrivial in the sense that it was
not nearly as big a deal as Ithought it was, or it became
quote, justified end quote, notsaying that it was right, good
(17:58):
or holy.
But I see now how that happened.
I see now why that happened andI can see whatever part, if any
, that I played in it and that Ihave seen again and again and
again, and all the people thatwork with us that work with
marriages have seen again andagain and again.
It's like I now reframe whathappened.
(18:22):
I still know that my spousecommitted adultery, or I still
know that my spouse gambled awaythe money, but now I have a
different picture of it becauseI'm seeing it through a
different light and either itwasn't as big a deal as I
thought it was obviouslyadultery and gambling all that
money away are big deals, butsome other things aren't as big
as I thought they were or,because I now see it through
(18:44):
light, I understand what led myspouse to do that, even if my
spouse was wrong, and then, bybeing able to forgive, they were
able to put the thing backtogether.
You say, well, okay, how do I dothat?
Okay, number one, if you havebeen contributing in any of
(19:05):
these ways, for example, if whenyour spouse tried to be open
and transparent and vulnerablewith you, tried to tell you what
he or she felt or thought orbelieved or did.
And you can look back now andsay, oh my goodness, I was
always correct here.
Like you shouldn't feel thatway, or I can't believe you did
that.
That's the stupidest thing I'veever heard.
(19:26):
Or really, aren't you more?
If you know you've played apart in that, then accept it,
learn from it.
Now you don't need to gorunning to your spouse right now
and saying, hey, it's my fault,you did this.
As a matter of fact, I don'tknow that I would ever advise
anybody, in any situation, justto say it that way, because you
just give your spouse moreevidence that you're no good.
(19:48):
So there are different ways todo that than just running out
and confessing everything,although we want you to tell the
truth.
But there's a right way to dothat.
But right now let me just sayit this way you need to accept
internally in your own mind,your own heart hey, I did this.
Now, once you have identifiedthose things, stop doing them.
(20:08):
If you still have interactionwith your spouse, don't do those
anymore.
If your spouse starts tellingyou about how much she's in love
with Charlie.
Acknowledge it.
Acceptance is acknowledgingreality.
I understand that you loveCharlie.
Now, don't endorse it, don'tencourage it, don't say, well, I
don't blame you, charlie's aheck of a guy.
(20:29):
Don't do that.
Don't encourage it.
Like, well, why don't you guystake the guest bedroom for a
couple of weeks and see if youcan work this thing out?
Don't do that.
But you can acknowledge reality, like I understand.
I understand that's how youfeel right now.
And if he or she says somethingto you, like you know, you hurt
me when you did such and such Ifindeed you really did that you
(20:49):
say I know that now I'm sorry.
Don't keep saying I'm sorrybecause again you'll begin to
frame yourself as a really,really weak or bad person.
If she brings it up or hebrings it up again, you can say
something to the effect of I'mso happy, I know better now.
If they bring it up again later, you can say I never want to
(21:11):
hurt you again If they bring itup.
In other words, stop sayingyou're sorry.
In other words, stop sayingyou're sorry, because you'll
paint yourself as being a sorryperson and no good person.
But what you do is that you stopdoing anything that you did
wrong and, even if you didn't dovery much wrong, start being
much better at doing thingsright, so that if you ever have
(21:34):
opportunity to have aconversation with your spouse,
don't demand it, don't push forit, don't drag for it, don't
drag for it, but when they startbeing open and honest and
transparent about what they feel, listen, validate.
I understand that you feel thatway, really, really, and she
(21:54):
says I never want to see youagain.
You can reply with I canunderstand why you feel that I
hope that you do see me again,but I can understand why you
feel that way.
So, again, you're not endorsingit Like I don't blame you, I
wouldn't want to see me againeither.
That's an endorsement.
I'd say I understand that.
I hope that you do see me again.
(22:14):
I understand that I hope thatyou do see me again.
But I understand you're hurt, Iunderstand your pain and so
you're undoing things you didbefore.
You say what's the basic pointhere?
Dr Beam?
Change the story about you.
Now for those of you who arethinking well, that's really
good news.
But here's my problem I don'thave access to my spouse anymore
(22:36):
.
We don't have children, so wedon't have any interaction.
She lives way over there, Ilive way over there.
Or he lives way over there, Ilive way over there.
What am I going to do?
You change the story about you.
Even if you have no access tothe other person, don't try to
force it.
Don't try to set it up that youhave access to them.
(22:58):
Yes, wherever you are, whateveryou're doing, you change the
story about you.
Stop whining, stop complaining,stop feeling sorry for yourself
.
You become the best person youcan possibly be.
You can go to our YouTubechannel, go to youtubecom slash
marriagehelper that's likemarriagehelper, you are a
marriagehelper and there's allkinds of things there you can
find about what we call PISPhysical, intellectual,
(23:20):
emotional, spiritual so you canbecome the best that you can
possibly be.
And then you learn about whatwe talk about over there called
acceptance.
There are well over a thousand,almost two thousand.
I just looked at our producerover there Almost two thousand
videos there that are000.
I just looked at our producerover there Almost 2,000 videos
there that are free.
I do some of them.
Kimberly Holmes, our CEO, doessome of them.
(23:43):
We have some other people dosome of them, but free resources
and you learn how to change thestory about you to the people
that you interact with, so theybegin to see you as better.
And you can do that throughworking the pies and working the
acceptance.
You're not manipulating.
You're becoming better.
(24:04):
You change the story about you,but my spouse may never know
that it changed.
That's possible, butopportunities come to those
people who are prepared for it.
Did I say that well enough?
Do you understand?
Opportunities come to thosepeople who are prepared for it.
So, if ever you're going tohave a shot at putting it back
(24:26):
together, it's because you havechanged who you are.
You might be saying but heck,it's not my fault, it's what he
did.
I'm not the one that causedthis, he's the one that had the
affair.
I understand, and there arepeople on the one that caused
this.
He's the one that had theaffair, I understand.
And there are people on theinternet that just attack me
like crazy because I don'tsuggest ways to punish the
person who did the bad stuff.
But it's not my job to punish.
Do I agree that what they didwas right?
(24:48):
No, do I think what they didwas wrong?
Yes, Then why don't you want tobeat them up?
My job is not to beat people upmy job's to help people put
their marriages back together,if that's what they choose to do
, and so you'll learn to forgive, in the sense that you're not
going to bring up all thosenegative things again.
(25:09):
You're going to change the storyabout you when it comes to
being intimate, open,transparent, vulnerable, and you
start with the people aroundyou who matter to you.
You're going to change thestory with you about passion, in
the sense that you're going tobe a person that other people
want to spend a lifetime with,that they crave oneness for you,
(25:29):
and you do that by becoming thebest person you can physically,
intellectually, emotionally,spiritually and learning how to
accept.
And you learn how to live up tocommitments.
And as that story about youchanges and you can, then after
a while don't push it, don'tforce it, but after a while, the
(25:50):
other person, if they stillhave some knowledge of you, some
interaction with you and oryour friends, they're going to
begin to notice that after awhile Will the hate go away?
Yes, how do you know?
Mine did.
I love Alice.
Now, as a matter of fact, youmade things crazy, but the day I
called her and asked her if shewould take me back.
(26:11):
She said you fall in love withme.
Did you fall in love with meagain?
To which I replied not yet, buthey, at least I don't hate you
anymore.
I've made progress.
You say you really did that.
Yeah, I did.
Then why did she take you back?
That's another story foranother time.
Let's just put it this way Ihad changed my story to a really
(26:34):
good story.
Now.
I had to go through a man-madehell to get there, but I changed
it to a good story and sheheard and saw that good story
and that's when she thought I'llrisk it, I'll marry him again,
and I think it's going to makeit.
We're coming up on 38 years inthat second marriage at the time
of this recording.
So I think she made a goodchoice and she thinks she did
(26:56):
too.
Do you hear the point?
You change this story about youby becoming open and
transparent and vulnerable, bybecoming the kind of person
people would crave to be with,and that you make a decision
that you're going to be loyaland true to whoever matters to
you.
And as you change that storyand the other person begins to
(27:18):
see it, then if they open a door, we would strongly recommend
that you contact us.
You say why?
Because doing all this on yourown pretty hard.
It can be done, but it's kindof difficult.
So let the professionals helpyou.
And you can contact us by goingonline to marriagehelper.
That's marriagehelpercom slashcall and you can schedule there
(27:42):
a free 15 minute visit with oneof our advisors who can help you
understand what we can help youdo.
And if you want to go further,they'll give you access to one
of our specialists who can evenlook deeper into that with you
to help you know what we can doto help you do it.
And if your spouse will ever atsome point agree to come, I
hope he or she comes to thatthree-day intensive workshop we
(28:03):
do.
You can find out a lot moreabout that by just going to our
website at marriagehelpercom.
And, trust me, in the 30 yearsI've been doing this, we have
helped thousands upon thousands,upon thousands of people, even
the ones whose spouses said Ihate you with all my heart.
I would never be in the sameroom with you again.
(28:23):
I hope I never see you.
I hope you drop dead.
We're now happily married toeach other.
Oh, we don't do it.
We just help people find a wayto do it.
So don't leave this as havingno hope.
The reason I went into suchgreat detail is so you can know
that there are different kindsof hate, so you can know that
(28:45):
whatever your spouse is sayingto you may be true or false, but
either way you can understandwhere it's going on and
therefore you know what torepair in you.
If not repair, at least makestronger in you, because there's
always hope.
There is always hope.
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