“Finally, I’ve found the love of my life,” we triumphantly declare. “My soul mate—at last!” When past relationships have quickly fallen in shambles, new love appears refreshing. But when the roadmap to successful relationships is mysterious, we see success in the first flashes of attraction, proclaiming greatness and decorating the experience with beautiful projections of deeper meaning.

Many want love so badly that they misconstrue the rush of gleeful beginnings for the security of carefully constructed intimacy. The extreme emotions of attraction followed by devastating disappointment is a familiar pattern. We refer to these volatile bonds as love-hate relationships, known in psychology as relational ambivalence.

A love-hate relationship is a complex emotional bond characterized by both intense feelings of love and deep frustrations or animosity. Individuals oscillate between affection and resentment, resulting in a challenging and tumultuous dynamic marked by passion and conflict.

The Illusion of the Idealistic Mate and “Pseudo-Love”

Love-hate relationships typically involve personal insecurities and unrealistic expectations. The insecure partner wrongfully holds to the magical belief that true love will solve their inner turmoil. Thus, the romantic hopeful is continually seeking the idealistic mate.

The renowned psychoanalyst Erich Fromm provides profound academic insight into this dynamic. Fromm differentiated between mature and immature love, noting that immature love operates on the principle, “I love you because I need you,” while mature love asserts, “I need you because I love you”. Fromm warned against “idolatrous love,” a form of pseudo-love where a person loses their sense of self and intensely worships the partner. Because no human being can continually live up to the expectations of an idolatrous worshiper, disappointment is inevitable, often leading the worshiper to quickly seek a new idol (Fromm, 2006). When relationships are scrutinized against these impossible ideals, they are eventually dashed against the hard rocks of reality.

The Roots of the Push and Pull: An Attachment Perspective

To understand the “push and pull” of love-hate relationships, psychologists turn to Attachment Theory. Research by Hazan and Shaver translated infant attachment patterns into adult romantic styles, demonstrating that adults with an “anxious/ambivalent” attachment style experience love as a preoccupying, almost painfully exciting struggle to merge with another person (Hazan & Shaver, 1987).

Later adult attachment research often conceptualized insecurity along two broad dimensions: attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance (Brennan et al., 1997). In love-hate relationships, attachment anxiety is especially relevant because it can intensify fears of rejection, abandonment, and emotional distance. Avoidance may also contribute when vulnerability feels threatening and the person responds by withdrawing or emotionally shutting down.

Anxiously attached individuals suffer from profound relational ambivalence—meaning they hold simultaneous, conflicting attitudes toward their partner (Mikulincer et al., 2010). Because of underlying fears of rejection and abandonment, their relationships are characterized by emotional highs and lows, extreme sexual attraction, and intense jealousy (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). When they feel threatened by a partner’s perceived distance, their attachment system goes into overdrive (hyperactivation), leading to desperate attempts to force closeness (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2017). However, this same fear can paradoxically cause them to defensively push the partner away when vulnerability becomes too frightening, fueling a perpetual tug-of-war.

The Psychology of “Splitting” (I Love You; I Hate You)

In a love-hate dynamic, the person judges relationships with rigid, non-flexible, all-or-nothing thinking. Perfect or terrible are the only choices. In psychoanalytic terms, this is known as cognitive splitting.

Splitting is often discussed within broader psychoanalytic accounts of defensive functioning, in which the mind protects itself from intolerable conflict by simplifying emotionally complex experience (Vaillant, 1992). Splitting is a defense mechanism utilized when a person cannot easily tolerate having simultaneous feelings of love and hate toward the same individual (Grotstein, 1981).

To cope with this internal conflict, the ego “splits” the representations of the partner into “all good” or “all bad”. During the honeymoon phase, the partner is overidealized as the perfect savior; however, at the first sign of conflict or disappointment, the partner is suddenly devalued and seen as entirely malicious. This inability to integrate the complex shades of human imperfection prevents the formation of stable intimacy, locking the couple in a cycle where love rapidly reverses into hate (Sandler & Freud, 1985).

The Double-Edged Sword of Ambivalence

All relationships include positive and negative interactions. While experiencing ambivalence (mixed feelings) toward a partner is highly distressing, recent psychological studies reveal that it acts as a double-edged sword (Zoppolat et al., 2024).

According to research, when individuals are explicitly aware of their conflicting feelings, they engage in both constructive and destructive cognitions. This means that the ambivalent partner spends time ruminating on the relationship’s severe problems (destructive), but also actively thinks about ways to improve the relationship (constructive). This cognitive tug-of-war translates directly into behavior: partners will wildly fluctuate between approach behaviors (wanting to spend time together and fix things) and avoidance behaviors (ignoring, criticizing, or distancing) on a day-to-day basis (Zoppolat et al., 2024).

The Trap of Early Idealization and the Shattered Facade

In the intoxicating early moments of romance—often termed the “honeymoon” phase—it is common to fall prey to the psychological mechanism of idealization. Driven by a deep-seated yearning for a perfect match, the romantic hopeful imposes a highly personalized, self-sustaining fantasy onto their new partner. During this period, positive characteristics are drastically exaggerated while evident shortcomings are minimized or entirely ignored, creating a seamless concordance between a preconceived internal myth and the actual person (Cramer, 2006). Erich Fromm described this dynamic as “idolatrous love”—a sudden, intense form of pseudo-love in which the worshiper loses their own sense of identity and strength in their devotion to a flawless savior (Fromm, 2006).

However, the expectation of unconditional perfection is idealistic hogwash. Because no flesh-and-blood human being can continuously live up to the impossible expectations of an idolatrous worshiper, this flawless facade is destined to shatter (Fromm, 2006). When the inevitable imperfections of the partner are finally unveiled, the relationship is violently dashed against the hard rocks of reality.

The psychological consequences of this disillusionment are devastating. Rather than recognizing that the failure lies in their own impossible demands, the disillusioned individual experiences intense rage and disappointment, often blaming and punishing their partner for refusing to play the assigned perfect role. This crushing fall from perfection rapidly turns infatuation into resentment, frequently prompting the worshiper to abandon the relationship entirely to resume an unending, futile search for a new, untarnished idol (Fromm, 2006).

Positive and Negative Interactions

No partner is perfect. We all have flaws. Beyond flaws every relationship is built from a pair of different individuals with different ideas and histories. Accordingly, all relationships include positive and negative interactions as these differences collide.

Our ability to process the negative is essential for the relationship to thrive. Relationships involve an ebb and flow of closeness and conflict (Campione‐Barr & Killoren, 2019). Unfortunately those that seek a perfect partner, where nothing in the relationship will strike their insecurities, eventually must confront negative feelings and conflict. The slightest disagreements sets off alarms, and sending the insecure lover into fits of rage.

The Gottman institute suggests that stable, happy marriages have a “magic ration of roughly five positive interactions for every negative interaction during conflict (Gottman & Levenson, 1992).

Recognizing and addressing the negative interactions within a relationship can be challenging, yet it is crucial for growth. Partners must cultivate an environment where open communication is encouraged, allowing them to express their feelings without fear of retribution. This means actively listening to one another and validating each other’s emotions, even when disagreements arise. By fostering this dialogue, couples can transform conflicts into opportunities for deeper understanding and connection, ultimately reinforcing their bond.

Fromm’s Example of Love Hate Relationships

Erich Fromm explains this phenomenon in detail in his timeless classic the Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. He describes the love hate relationship through an example of a narcissistic and exploitive aunt towards her servants. However, I find his depiction of this relationships as strikingly familiar with romantic love hate relationships.

Fromm wrote:

“She demanded that a servant should be completely ‘devoted’ to her, have no interests of her own, and gladly accept the role of a creature who is happy to serve her. She approaches each new servant with the phantasy that she is the one who will fulfill her expectations. After a short ‘honeymoon’ during which the aunt’s phantasy is still sufficiently effective to blind her to the fact that the servant is not ‘right’—and perhaps also helped by the fact that the servant in the beginning makes every effort to please her new employer aunt wakes up to the recognition that the servant is not willing to live up to the role for which she has been cast.”

Eventually, Fromm explains the aunt “experiences intense disappointment and rage.” Not being aware that “the cause for this rage lies in her impossible demands, she rationalizes her disappointment by accusing the servant. Since she cannot give up her desires, she fires the servant and hopes that a new one will be ‘right.’ The same mechanism repeats itself until she dies or cannot get any more servants” (Fromm, 1992).

Unquestioning Love that Quickly Turns to Hate

Over the last eight-years at Flourishing Life Society (the first website I used for publishing articles), many followers have come and gone. I have noticed a noteworthy pattern. Occasionally, a new follower arrives, liking and commenting daily. Some often giving compliments expressing great admiration. However, as time passes, the flowing praises cease and they soon, I suppose, are lavishing comments at a new page they have found.

​The perfect match of philosophy seldom exists; eventually ideas will clash and challenge our commitment. With the variety of topics, and the frequency of posting on Flourishing Life Society, there will always be some differences. Soon the perfect match disappoints and the page is abandoned for another site where the engagement hasn’t yet revealed a difference.

In clinical psychology, a more extreme form of this pattern is sometimes discussed as splitting: the difficulty of holding positive and negative perceptions of the same person at the same time (Kernberg, 1975; APA, 2022). In everyday relationships, similar all-or-nothing thinking can appear less dramatically. A partner is idealized when they soothe insecurity, then devalued when they disappoint, disagree, or assert separateness.

In the love-hate dynamic, the person judges relationships, employers, and social media providers with rigid, non-flexible all-or-nothing thinking. Perfect or terrible is the only choice. They dismiss the countless shades of complexity hoping for greater cognitive ease. I love you; until I hate you.

Mistaking Volatility for Passion

It is a common trap for those entangled in a love-hate dynamic to mistake the turbulent highs and lows of their relationship for profound romantic passion. However, from a psychological standpoint, emotional volatility and genuine passion are entirely distinct phenomena.

In Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love, true passion is defined as the motivational drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and a deep, fulfilling longing for union with another person. In contrast, chronic emotional volatility typically stems from profound attachment insecurities and a fundamental inability to regulate affective arousal (Sternberg, 1986).

Individuals with an anxious or ambivalent attachment style often experience love not as a secure bond, but as a painfully exciting, obsessive struggle marked by extreme emotional fluctuations, intense jealousy, and an underlying fear of abandonment (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). Driven by an unfulfilled need for security, these individuals unconsciously hyperactivate their attachment system, artificially amplifying their distress and confusing their desperate yearning for acceptance, protection, and merger with genuine romantic or sexual desire (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2017).

As psychoanalyst Erich Fromm astutely observed, romantically entwined individuals frequently mistake the sheer intensity of their infatuation—the sensation of being “crazy” about each other—for the depth of their love, when in reality it only proves the magnitude of their preceding loneliness and emotional hunger (Fromm, 2006). Ultimately, the explosive outbursts and dramatic reconciliations that characterize a volatile relationship are not measures of passionate devotion; they are desperate, primal protests against disconnection and the terrifying prospect of emotional isolation (Johnson, 2008).

Regulating the “Emotional Boxing Match”

Those who routinely explode when things don’t feel right, or who hide behind a mask of indifference, create a toxic environment. Partners feel threatened, unable to predict which triggers will ignite dangerous tantrums. This results in an “emotional boxing match,” where disagreements escalate into events designed to leave deep emotional marks.

Noted relationship researcher John Gottman identified that “nonregulated” couples—those who cannot maintain a healthy balance of positive to negative interactions—are significantly more prone to defensive, stubborn, and angry behaviors. During these intense conflicts, couples experience severe physiological hyperarousal (e.g., increased heart rate and blood pressure), which literally activates the body’s “fight or flight” response which impairs rational and open communication. (Gottman & Levenson, 1992).

It’s essential for partners to develop coping strategies that help manage insecurities during times of conflict. Techniques such as mindfulness and emotional regulation can equip individuals with the tools needed to navigate turbulent moments more effectively. Instead of reacting impulsively or letting anger take control, partners can learn to pause and reflect on their emotions before responding. This practice not only mitigates potential escalation but also paves the way for constructive discussions that address underlying issues rather than merely focusing on surface-level disputes.

The next time you find that perfect match—your soul-mate—slow down and ask, “Does it only seem perfect because the relationship hasn’t encountered its first conflict?” “How will I respond when I discover relationship differences that cause discomfort?” And equally important, “how will my partner respond?” We don’t need to rush to the conflict; but we should be prepared when it arrives. And conflicts will arrive. And when they do, Will the soul mate transform into a hated adversary?

Flourishing Through the Choppy Waters

We need skills to process displeasure if we want the enjoyments of a lasting relationship. Relationship skills are perishable and dynamic. Unconditional love and complete acceptance of destructive behavior are idealistic hogwash; eventually, differences will emerge that challenge the connection.

Emotionally stable relationships require working through conflicting emotions and tolerating the normal ambivalence of human connection without resorting to “splitting” or explosive emotional boxing matches. With refined emotional regulation skills, partners can pause, reflect on their emotions before responding, and learn that differences are not inherently dangerous.

Intimacy demands we work through occasional distressing emotions. Successful couples are not successful because they are perfectly matched; they are successful because they have the emotional maturity to resolve conflict, ultimately building the resilient bonds of trust. I love you; you are different, but we can work through this.

Associated Concepts

• Fear of Abandonment: this refers to the overwhelming fear that others will leave you both physically or emotionally. The fear motivates unhealthy bonding behaviors that sometimes motivates the feared abandoning.
• Emotional Boxing Match: This refers to emotional disagreements where each party swings with words that they hope will leave a deep emotional mark, causing an emotional reaction. These method of resolving disagreements are at the heart of relationship drama.
• Relationship Drama: This refers to interpersonal conflicts, disagreements, or emotional turmoil within a romantic relationship or between partners. This can encompass a wide range of issues such as jealousy, insecurity, communication breakdowns, infidelity, or differing expectations, all of which can lead to heightened emotions and tension within the relationship.
• Attachment Theory: This is a psychological framework that helps explain how human beings form emotional bonds and connections with others, particularly in early childhood.
• Entangled Relationships: These are are codependent relationships where the relationship impairs rather than expands the individuals in the relationship.
• Counter-Dependency: This trait is characterized by a intense fear of commitment that motivates overt behaviors to avoid emotional dependence on others. This behavior often manifests as a defensive mechanism to protect oneself from perceived threats of vulnerability and emotional exposure.
• Co-Dependent Relationships: This is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person’s addictive or self-destructive behavior. This can manifest as an excessive reliance on the needs of others for self-esteem and identity, while neglecting one’s own needs and well-being.

A Few Words by Psychology Fanatic

We need skills to process displeasure if we want the enjoyments of a lasting relationship. Relationship skills are perishable and dynamic. People are not perfectly predictable, surprises will arise throughout the relationship. With refined skills, we can skillfully navigate through the choppy waters while enjoying the benefits of security and love. Intimacy demands we work through occasional distressing emotions. Successful couples are not successful because of being perfectly matched; they’re successful because they have the emotional maturity and skill to resolve conflict, building the bonds of trust.

​Those who routinely explode when things don’t feel right or hide behind a mask of indifference create a new dynamic to the relationship. Their partners feel threatened, unable to predict which triggers will ignite dangerous tantrums. Instead of comfortable connection, partners to these volatile people learn that differences can be dangerous. They begin to protect by curtailing openness, guarding expressions, hoping to avoid another unfavorable encounter.

When pasts conflicts with a partner have been treacherous, the experience taints new encounters, beneath the surface of the immediate issue lies unresolved hurts. Past discussions that ended badly leave us tender during new disagreements. Embedded emotions resurface and easily overwhelm. With change, we can establish trust, over time new interactions can prove the relationship provides safety.

We can start peeling away the layers of hurt, and step by step invite the beginnings of intimacy. Trust creates security; security builds trust. Only when we work through the conflicts can we achieve the closeness we desire, utilizing our strengths, drawing upon outside resources and refraining from the push to run upon normal collisions with differences. I love you; you are different, but we can work through this.

Last Edited: June 9, 2026

References:

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). American Psychiatric Publishing.
(Return to Main Text)

Brennan, K. A., Clark, C. L., & Shaver, P. R. (1997). Self-report measurement of adult attachment: An integrative overview. In J. A. Simpson & W. S. Rholes (Eds.), Attachment theory and close relationships (pp. 46–76). Guilford Press. ISBN: 9781572301023
(Return to Main Text)

Campione‐Barr, N., & Killoren, S. (2019). Love them and hate them: The developmental appropriateness of ambivalence in the adolescent sibling relationship. Child Development Perspectives, 13(4), 221-226. DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12345
(Return to Main Text)

Cramer, Phebe (2006). Protecting the self: Defense mechanisms in action. The Guilford Press; 1st edition. ISBN: 9781593852986
(Return to Main Text)

Fromm, Erich (1992). The anatomy of human destructiveness. Open Road Media; 1st edition. ISBN: 9780805016048
(Return to Main Text)

Fromm, Erich (2006). The Art of Loving. Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Anniversary edition. ISBN: 9780061129735
(Return to Main Text)

Gottman, J. M., & Levenson, R. W. (1992). Marital processes predictive of later dissolution: Behavior, physiology, and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(2), 221–233. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.63.2.221
(Return to Main Text)

Grotstein, J. S. (1981). Splitting and projective identification. J. Aronson. ISBN: 9780876683484
(Return to Main Text)

Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(3), 511–524. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511
(Return to Main Text)

Johnson, Susan M. (2008). Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Little Brown Spark; ISBN: 9780316113007
(Return to Main Text)

Kernberg, O. F. (1975). Borderline conditions and pathological narcissism. Jason Aronson. ISBN: 9780876682050
(Return to Main Text)

Mikulincer, M.; Shaver, P. R. (2017). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press. ISBN: 9781462533817
(Return to Main Text)

Mikulincer, M., Shaver, P. R., Bar-On, N., & Ein-Dor, T. (2010). The pushes and pulls of close relationships: Attachment insecurities and relational ambivalence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(3), 450–468. DOI: 0.1037/a0017366

Sandler, Joseph; Freud Anna (1985). The analysis of defense: The ego and the mechanisms of defense revisited. International University Press. ISBN: 9780823601417
(Return to Main Text)

Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93(2), 119–135. DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.93.2.119
(Return to Main Text)

Vaillant, George E. (1992). Ego Mechanisms of Defense: A Guide for Clinicians and Researchers. American Psychiatric Association Publishing; 1st edition. ISBN: 9780880484046
(Return to Main Text)

Zoppolat, G.; Righetti, F.; Duric, M.; Balzarini, R.; Slatcher, R. B. (2024). It’s complicated: The good and bad of ambivalence in romantic relationships. Emotion, 24(5), 1190–1205. DOI: 10.1037/emo0001340
(Return to Main Text)