Why We Hurt the People We Love

In love, there is a responsibility that many assume but few are ready for. Suddenly our words and actions can have such a large effect on another person that we have to tiptoe around their hearts or risk breaking something. In a way, love actually shifts our ethical burden. To treat a stranger well is simple: Be kind, not malicious. But to treat a lover well one must forego a portion of their freedom. Just by following one's own interests or being impartial when it comes to those who favor us, or even by simply failing to give yourself to them, you can cause emotional pain. With the heightened sensitivity they have towards us, our capacity to cause harm is augmented. 

The haphazard human design comes to seem like a cruel joke when love hands us control over another person's feelings. We're far too clumsy to be trusted with such power. By sheer accident, we can cause someone pain. An introvert who enjoys their solitude might now be spending that time alone at the expense of another's comfort, whatever ineptitude we naturally have when it comes to communication and reading other people now frustrates and hurts, and our capacity to love or be attracted to more than one person at a time can erode another's happiness. We are individuals, with limited awareness and self-control, and are poorly suited to the task of wielding dominion over a person's emotions. 

A late night out, laughing at a stranger's joke, a delayed response to a phone call, an otherwise harmless comment that touches on some insecurity, and instances of not doing as well - of not saying enough, of not demonstrating sufficient enthusiasm, etc.- can all cause suffering. Love can turn every small misstep into a blow to the gut. When we're young, we step out into the field not knowing what waits for us. We love with naivety at first; our hearts are open, and we express our feelings freely. We've yet to learn that lesson that we all eventually do: Love hurts. 

We carry our wounds with us, and each time we open ourselves up to another, we leave with a new set of scars. At some point, we may find ourselves unrecognizable. Maybe we close off and do everything we can to hideaway our feeling, loving self; or we become needy and require constant reassurance that what has happened so many times before isn't about to happen once again; or we aim to be callous and manipulative so that we can hold all the power in our relationship, ensuring for a time that we won't be the ones to get hurt. Every lover is a fighter who has learned their own style for attacking and defending. After those first bouts, we lose ourselves before this power, and it makes us scared to be vulnerable - to be ourselves. 

And the tragedy carries on with two sides: We are harmed, and we harm others. How can we not? Of all those who hurt us, which of them sat down and thought to themselves, I am out to make this person suffer today. It is not some malice that's behind the endless chain of trauma we pass along to one another. It's simple incompetence, and that love's intensity makes leaving behind some bruises nearly impossible to avoid. We're all, at times, reckless with the hearts of others. Some treat other people as play things, and shame on them, but even the well-intentioned take their pound of flesh. The soul is weighed down on one side with the pain we've felt and on the other, with the pain we've caused. We move through life thusly saddled, until by a certain age there is an air of quiet sadness around all of us. 

It takes tremendous strength and bravery to make inroads against the rose's thorns. It's for fear of getting hurt that we hurt. We cannot reassure another that they're safe with us, without revealing our feelings for them. We cannot be proactive, and be a good partner, without opening ourselves up to the possibility that we might waste our effort on someone who cannot or will not reciprocate our efforts. With every attempt we make at finding a lasting love, we have to try to disregard all the scrapes and bruises from past attempts, and hopefully muster enough mettle to present ourselves honestly, as the person we are and want to be. The real misfortune is that when we let the hurt change us, we often change into someone who drives away exactly what it is they want most.

Underneath all the years of emotional wear, we're still those same naive, open-hearted children we were in the beginning. We still have the exact same wants now that we had from the moment of our birth. We want to forget everything in the arms of another. We want to feel so entirely safe with them, and connected to them, and comfortable with them, that we can let go of everything else that exists and just get lost for a moment. We want to know that someone has us, that someone has chosen us above everyone else. We want to know that of the thousands and thousands of miles of earth out there, there is this one place where we belong and that we can call home. It's out there, but it takes the heart of a soldier to find it. 

You've been trampled on and forgotten, abused and neglected, but if you can meet the fear, force it down with a deep breath, and go forward unafraid to present yourself as you are - drawing forth the courage to offer your strength and reassurance where that other person needs it as well - then the lilacs will bloom for you once more, and this time they'll be well taken care of. 

People love to laugh at the romantics. There's a fever dream that infects the minds of these few and says, "Love is above all." What in life have we seen that brings us to this belief? Everywhere around us relationships are treated as frivolities. They're abandoned on whims, they're used as points of leverage to take advantage and manipulate, they're carried like badges of achievement, and treated as generic milestones on the walk of life. But I would present to the most ardent skeptic that at base, that before we have anything they might consider concrete, before even the drive to survival itself, we have love. From where do we come and how do we live but by the bonding of two people? Father loves mother, and both love the child, so that it may be reared and make it to adulthood to begin the process over again. Friends bandy together to the benefit of each other, lending a helping hand in times of strain. Meanwhile, past whatever there is of pleasure in food, or drink, or music (or any of the arts), we find that lovers reach unparalleled ecstasy in sex, warm embraces, and a psychological connection that soothes the deepest parts of their being. The human condition devolves and disintegrates without a fastening at every point, and that fastening is found everywhere to be only some aspect of love. There is nothing fanciful here. What truly motivates a person to pursue their ambitions and go to work every day if not some species of love? Where is there purpose for any of us in a world where we have no one to care for? 

We work to support others, to help them, to impress them, or even to gain power over them, and all of it so that ultimately we may love them and have them hopefully love us in return. Love is the fuel in the engine of humanity, and it is the most practical subject one can discuss. Its importance and its power should be both feared and lauded. 

Gravity, infinite, invisible, silent, draws all together towards centers around centers, leads every planet and star through a dance across the ages, twirling all by the hand and placing each on its own path, as a single principle of motion unfolds into countless stories. Love is a pulse in the air just the same, pulling us towards each other or one towards a third, throwing us here and there into a dizzying pirhoutte, so that our lives unfold like a game of billiards, caroming from one point of contact to another until we come to rest. In the boundless supply of time and space granted to the heavens, there is room for every possibility to become a reality, and yet even with a telescope that lets us see across incomprehensible distances, there is still something that is incredibly challenging to find instances of: a persistent harmony. The moon around the Earth or the Earth around the sun are rare examples, but this corner of our universe has carried on in an immaculate balance for eons, so we wake up every day to bear witness to a miracle. It's this same perfect equilibrium in attraction that we seek between two souls that would allow them to dance continuously in each other's orbits, and though that sometimes seems impossible to find, in the realm of human relationships there are so many who have made it to that idealized place and live their life in seamless unity with another. Our trajectory in life is fraught with collisions and quick passes all along the way, but there is a multitude out there waiting to receive each of us, and that fated match is somewhere in the expanse drawing nearer with each passing moment to its home alongside you.

For now, we pass the days as a hiker might, with arms and legs scraped from working through the brush, skin marked and irritated by biting insects, our breathing strained as we push on with one step after another, and pestered by thoughts that we should've reached our destination long ago. The summit is always farther than we imagine, but for all the complaining we do on the long trek up, we always feel afterwards that all was worth it, that the sublimity of the mountaintop is worth twice the effort put forward, and that we would readily embark on another steep ascent as soon as we've had a short respite to recuperate in. We cannot help but harm and be harmed on our way to the zenith, and we're never more susceptible to injury than at those heights. Love is fire, and it gives warmth and lights our life at one distance but never fails to burn us as we draw in closer. To hurt and be hurt is inevitable, but that is the cost of the miracle. Take your hits with pride, nurse your wounds for as long as you must, work to forgive others and to forgive yourself as well, and then enter the arena again. 

Enjoy this article? If you have Amazon Prime, you might, for a short time, have access to the digital versions of my books for free. Click here to find out.