Any two items naturally get associated if they happen simultaneously. Pavlov’s dog salivated at the sound of a bell because after many experiences, he “learned” that bells cause dog food. But you can see from this example, the matter of cause and effect can be tricky business: one can easily read things wrong, and form incorrect associations.
When it comes to intimacy, who hasn’t been hurt by unloving attitudes and behaviors that happened within a love relationship? As a result of unlove that occurs within the context known as love relationships, we build an association of pain with love, and that association creates a Pavlovian fear reflex.
“Love hurts,” says a bitter man, “and I have the battle scars to prove it.” But those scars — were they from a gentle caress, a tender look? Or were they from the fights, the betrayals, the abuse? No doubt about it: those were scars of unlove, not of love.
And what about the painful love relationships we’ve all suffered in the past? Were they love relationships, or not? Since they had some love in them, we called them love relationships. But truth be told, it was not love that attacked those intimacies and tore them down: it was unlove, egoism¹, selfishness, and reactivity.
If we “learn” from pain that love is unsafe and conclude that selfishness and self-protection is the way to go, we jump straight from the frying pan into the fire. We decide we need to protect ourselves from love, which raises our defenses — and increases our offenses, too. The more unloving we become, the worse things get, until beauty disappears into the mud, and we lose our chances for real intimacy.
It is crucial to our happiness and fulfillment in intimacy to rewire our fearful and negative associations about love. How do we do that? We need to become aware of the eight invisible mistakes that are listed at the end of this article. In the next eight articles I will explain each of the most common ways unlove infiltrates, unsuspected, into our love relationships, and then fools us into thinking love hurts.
It’s so easy for love to morph into unlove, since all of us are motivated by both real caring and self-interest. Such mixed motivations are natural, and unavoidable — but the balance between love and selfishness is crucial. When self-interest slips unnoticed into predominance, we’re on a slippery slope to hurting the one we love. The shift itself may go unnoticed, but if not corrected, its effects can be felt: First, an uneasy feeling in the gut. And then, a bitter taste in the mouth, when an interaction goes mysteriously south.
Most people are not sufficiently aware that their motivations are mixed — or how often a similar but more selfish intention, masquerading as its wholly positive and loving counterpart, colors their interactions several shades darker. This shade shifting happens because the same action feels totally different when the motivation shifts from loving to self-serving.
For example, what if a man takes his wife out to dinner on their anniversary as a sincere gesture of love and commitment? His loving intention is what makes the occasion meaningful. In this case, the meaning is love, and the feeling between them is beautiful.
On the other hand, what if the husband takes his wife out to dinner because he knows that otherwise he’ll be in trouble with her? The dinner is now a gesture of self-protection — an expression of the man’s desire to stay out of trouble. How could that dinner be as joyful and bonding as the one which is sincerely motivated by love? It can’t!
The greater the self-interest component in the mix, the closer we come to crossing the fine line between love and unlove. My next eight articles will describe what commonly happens in close relationships, when unlove masquerades as love in the following eight forms:
- Collusion: Supporting destructive tendencies to avoid confrontation and conflict
- Manipulation: Exerting control over the beloved in indirect ways (from sweet-talk to coercion) to get what one wants
- Martyrdom: Appearing virtuous and self-sacrificing through physical service to avoid higher expressions of love
- Unhealthy Attachment: Creating “security” by cultivating possessiveness, jealousy, and addictive desire
- Unhealthy Obsession: Ignoring others and even the beloved’s best interests while intensely focusing on the beloved (and what one hopes to get from the beloved)
- Addiction to Pleasure: Greedy, self-indulgent focus on “mutual” gratification while ignoring the negative impacts on oneself and the beloved
- Selfish Self-Interest: Sacrificing the beloved’s best interests in pursuit of what one wants
- Impersonal Agape Love: Appearing loving while avoiding the deeper challenges and satisfactions of close intimate relationship
¹ Egoism is the set of ideas, beliefs, and assumptions by which we maintain our sense of separateness from all of life — even those closest to us — and justify our resistance to wholehearted loving. And, it is the selfish, self-protective, fearful mentality that accompanies our sense of separation.
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Previously Published on Medium
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