I Hate How Much I Love You: A Letter To The Girl I Both Love And Hate

Paul Hudson

If you’ve never loved and hated someone at the same time, you’ve never truly been in love.

Sure, there’s much more to love than just feelings. But the emotions we experience in love make such a lasting effect. We become our true selves because of how we feel about people.

Often, these feelings seem to battle each other. We can both love and hate our partners.

This has happened billions of times around the world. But each story is a little different. Sometimes these emotions begin to conflict early on in the relationship.

Other times, we begin to feel resentment later on in the relationship, when we suspect that our partner is falling out of love.

Other times, still, it happens when we try to rekindle a past love.

No matter which of these situations you’ve found yourself in, loving and hating someone at the same time means you’re certainly in for a hell of a ride.

And that’s how I feel with you.

I hate how cold you can be, but I still want you.

I hate how cold you are to me, but in those brief moments when you warm up to me and show me the real you, I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Your smile makes me feel alive.

I hate when you won’t talk to me. Sure, you say words, but the conversations are shallow. It feels like I’m speaking to your shadow — not your real self. I just want to get to know you on a deeper level, and I hate that you won’t let me.

Because I know that, deep down inside, there’s love. There’s a big, caring heart and an incredibly beautiful soul.

I hate how you distance yourself, but that only makes me want to bring you in closer.

I understand your need your space. Everyone does. But the only way for us to build a lasting relationship together is for us to actually be together. And I don’t mean just in the same room. I’m talking about on the same wavelength.

I want us to become one and the same. I want a partnership, a unit, a love. I’m not sure if you’re scared or just not ready (which I understand), but I need you to know how much I want and need this.

There is no doubt in my mind that one day we will be all I know we can be. I just wish that day would come a lot sooner.

I hate that you don’t trust me, but I want you to open up to me.

I’m trustworthy, but you don’t seem to believe it.

I know you’re not to blame, though. You’ve had it rough for quite some time now. You’ve suffered from failed relationships, heartbreak and abandonment by your friends. I’m incredibly sorry for that.

I know I may have made some mistakes in the past, but I love you. I’m here for you and will always be here for you. Trust me.

You’re someone I will never fully let go of; you are a part of me. You influenced me in a way that no one else will ever influence me again. And the path I’m on is largely due to having met and loved you. I couldn’t leave you if I wanted to.

I hate that you don’t care about me the way I wish you did, but I know one day you could.

It hurts. When I look at you or talk to you, I can tell you don’t care about me the way I care about you.

And though it hurts unlike any pain I’ve endured before, it’s okay. I understand you don’t love me.

But you could. And if there is an order to this world — one in which love wins in the end — then you will love me, eventually. It just wouldn’t make sense that someone who loves someone as deeply as I love you wouldn’t receive that love in return. It just can’t be.

I don’t love you like I’ve loved anyone else before; I love you the way someone is supposed to love someone.

I hate how much I love you.

It breaks my heart how much I love you. It hurts to love you. If I just loved you a little less — just a little — then I’d be able to move on and let go. I know that’s probably what I ought to do, but I don’t know how.

How does one let go of someone who has become a part of them? Tell me where to cut the cord, and I will.

I hate myself for loving you, because I know I deserve better than this. I know I deserve the love I’m giving you.

Why can’t you be that person to me? Why can’t you let me love you? If you won’t let me love you, at least let me hate you completely. I can’t go on loving and hating you at the same time. The tension inside me is building, and I’m feeling like I’m about to implode.

But I know this will one day all work itself out. You will either love me, or I’ll find a way to survive without you. It won’t be easy. I’m not even sure it’s possible to ever completely let go of you, but I have to try.

I won’t let you be the end of me, because there’s a life out there waiting for me to live it. Just know that this could have been beautiful. We could have been beautiful together.

And it wasn’t me who ruined it. Not this time.

Hazy Day

The weather has been hazy in Malaysia lately. We can see almost everyone is posting photos of the haziness on FB. I was in the mood to rhyme yesterday and came up with this:

The weather is hazy

Makes us feel lazy

How-lah to stay healthy

When the air is so smoky

When the air is so smoky

Our vision becomes blurry

Our throat so dry & itchy

Makes us feel so thirsty

Drink water to stay healthy

Too bad the API still so "tinggi"

Skin is dry, nose is itchy

Head is heavy, we become dizzy

No more sunset, no more beauty

Sky looks cloudy, actually it's foggy 

We look forward to be happy

When the weather is no more hazy

True love should be painful

If you're doing it right, love and marriage will stretch our hearts to new depths of love.

Seth Adam Smith

*Editor's Note: This article was originally published on SethAdamSmith.com. It has been republished here with permission.*

For whatever reason, we seem to have this funny idea that love is supposed to be bliss or that when we get married we've somehow achieved a state of "happily-ever-after."

Well, that's just not true. Love is actually quite painful.

In fact, if you're doing it right, love, marriage and family will be the most painful things you'll ever experience. Not because they're bad things, but because to love at all means to open yourselves up to vulnerability and pain. And to love someone completely — as you do in marriage — is to put your whole heart on the line.

True love will be painful. True love _should be_ painful.

To be clear, when I say that true love should be painful I am not referring to abusive, obsessive or co-dependent relationships. Those relationships are predicated upon selfishness and will inevitably produce a pain that's destructive and detrimental.

No, the "painful love" to which I am referring are those relationships that help us grow beyond ourselves. Because we are all imperfect, we will inevitably get hurt. But that hurt has the ability to make us stronger than before. Marriage and family relationships are to our hearts like exercise is to our muscles.

A number of years ago, I overheard my mother talking about her parents — Grandpa and Grandma Adams. While in her 50s, Grandma Adams was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease that disrupts the body's ability to communicate with its nervous system. Within a few short years, Grandma had lost the ability to walk and was confined to a wheelchair. Grandpa, who was a police chief, retired two years earlier than he had planned so he could take care of his wife.

My grandfather helped my grandmother bathe, get around the house, and run errands. He once told my mother: "It hurts me to see her like this. You know, when I got married I thought that everything would be smooth sailing. I never imagined that I would have to help her change her catheter every day. But I do it and I don't mind it — because I love her."

Please disabuse your minds of a perfect, painless love; it simply doesn't exist. Because love isn't always fluffy, cute, and cuddly. More often than not, real love has its sleeves rolled up, dirt and grime smeared on its arms, and sweat dripping down its forehead. True love asks us to do hard things, almost impossible things— to repeatedly try to help a sibling overcome an addiction again and again and again, to care for a dying parent, to embrace a wayward child, to comfort someone who is suffering, to risk your safety for another or to give birth to a child.

C. S. Lewis put it this way:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one…Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness…The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Yes, love is painful. But as C. S. Lewis suggests, we can respond to any relationship with either a closed, hellish heart, or an open, heavenly heart. If you keep your heart open, that same pain can become a purifying pain, a strengthening pain. If we choose forgiveness over bitterness, that pain can heal instead of hurt. Instead of a pain that divides, it can be a pain that binds. Instead of a pain that breaks us down, it can be a pain that builds us up.

Fear, hatred and selfishness? Those are easy. But, Hell is easy. Faith, love, and selflessness? Those are hard. But, Heaven is hard — and rewarding.

Grandpa and Grandma Adams created a legacy for their children and grandchildren that we have never forgotten. But creating a legacy of love is simply impossible without pain or opposition. So don't worry that your relationships are painful and difficult. Love will always be quite painful. Instead, worry about how you will react to the pain. Will you respond with a closed, hellish heart, or an open, heavenly heart?