The phenomenon of hurting the one who loves you, which is different from hurting the one we love is common. Philosophical love involves interchange, the lack of which is painful. Some people hurt the one they love accidentally, while others do so purposely. However, the first behavior pattern is easier to explain.
Insensible Re-creation of Emotional Disturbance
We all experience numerous degrees of emotional hurt and trauma growing up. Unluckily, we form part of our identities around whatever we experience, be it love, distance, drama, or verbal or physical abuse. As adults, we may feel most alive or most like ourselves when we are feeling the same way we did as children, and so we may do things automatically to get our partner to trigger those feelings. For example, a person who grew up with a lot of distance may feel uncomfortable with closeness, and may sabotage it by picking fights or avoiding intimacy. Or a person who grew up in a chaotic, dramatic home may be painful with harmony and quiet and always seem to trigger confusion or drama in their relationships.
Broken Promises
Unnecessary to say, broken promises are a significant hurt that many of us experience in relationships. What makes us break promises? Research has found that your self-regulation ability has a huge inspiration.
Self-regulation mentions to your ability to control your own behavior. People with greater self-regulation skills tend to keep their promises. These people frequently act with the long-term in mind. Whereas, people with poor self-regulation tend to break more promises. They often make more emotional, in-the-moment promises that are difficult to live up to.
Bad Behavior
Many people may realize how they hurt their partners, and feel like they want to change that behavior, but only not know how to change, or how to communicate what they are feeling in a constructive manner. Our culture does very little to teach us how to relate to our own feelings, and how to communicate those feelings to others in a safe, healthy way. Men especially may feel painful dealing with feelings of fear or vulnerability and may feel harmless expressing anger or control when they are really scared.
Lack of Trust
We’re frequently less careful about courtesy and good manners with the people we’re closest to. The more trust you have in each other, the more freedom you feel to act and speak openly. This can build a greater sense of intimacy, but it also makes it easier to accidentally hurt the other person with your words or actions.
Unsuccessful Communication
We may get angry at our loved ones simply because we don’t know how to communicate our deeper feelings, like hurt or sadness. Problematic feelings can be hard to express, and it may take an equal of susceptibility that you’re not comfortable with to open up to someone who’s hurt you.
Childhood Gear
We may naively try to recreate our childhood experiences to bring up those early feelings. For example, if your parents were emotionally aloof and unable to give love when you were a child, you may reject others and avoid familiarity as an adult in order to recreate the feelings of emotional coldness.
