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You always hurt the one you love, the one you should not hurt at all; You always take the sweetest rose, and crush it till the petals fall; You always break the kindest heart, with a hasty word you can't recall; So if I broke your heart last night, it's because I love you most of all. (The Mills Brothers) It is easy to understand why someone who doesn't love another person might break the heart of this person-when we do not love those who love us, we are likely to hurt them. However, the above song refers to hurting the one we do love. How can one both love and hurt the same person? Lovers can easily hurt the beloved without intending to do so. Because the lovers are so significant to each other, any innocent remark or action can be interpreted in a manner that the other person did not intend and hence be hurtful. For instance, someone might devote a lot of time to her work, thereby neglecting, and inadvertently hurting, her partner. The more time two people spend together, the greater the likelihood that this will occur. Our beloveds hold great significance for us and this makes these people a source of both great happiness and deep sadness; they can bring us great joy, but they can also hurt us deeply. In situations in which we have nothing of value to lose, we seldom experience disappointment. In love, which involves our happiness and many of our most precious experiences, there is a great deal to lose. Hence, disappointment and frustration, and consequently hurt, are common. It has been said that completely blissful love does not exist. Indeed, in a survey of over 500 lovers, almost all of them assumed that passionate love is a bittersweet experience. Similarly, it has been found that people low in defensiveness have more experiences of love than do highly defensive people. This link suggests that to love is to make oneself vulnerable in ways that enhance the possibility of pain. These and other considerations indicate how easily you can hurt the one you love without intending to do so. However, the explanation for deliberately hurting the person you love is far more complex. Certainly, one major factor in hurting the beloved deliberately is related to the central role that mutual dependency plays in love. Mutual dependency may exist in inappropriate proportions: lovers can consider their dependency on the partner to be too great or too little. Hurting the beloved may be one resort, usually the last one, which the lover takes to bring this dependency to its appropriate proportion. Mutual dependency has many advantages, stemming from the fact that two people are joined together in a relationship attempting to increase each other's happiness. However, a sense of independence is also important for people's self-esteem. Indeed, in a study of anger, the most common motive for its generation was to assert authority or independence, or to improve self image. Anger has been perceived as a useful means to strengthen or readjust a relationship. This type of behavior is frequent in the child-parent relationship: children often hurt parents in order to express their independence. This behavior is also part of romantic love in which mutual dependence may threaten each partner's independence. Sometimes lovers hurt their beloved in order to show their independence. Other times, however, hurting the beloved expresses an opposite wish: the lover's wish for more dependency and attention. Indeed, a common complaint of married women, far more than of married men, is that their partners do not spend enough time with them. By hurting the beloved, the lover wishes to signal that their mutual relationship, and in particular their mutual dependency, should be modified. Hurting the beloved may be the last alarm bell that warns of the lover's difficulties; it is an extreme measure signaling urgency. If the relationship is strong enough, as the lover wishes it to be, it should sustain this measure. A less extreme and more common measure employed is that of moodiness. Moodiness, which imposes a small cost on the relationship, may function as both an alarm bell and as an assessment device to test the strength of the bond. Love involves a dynamic process of mutual adaptation, but not all adaptive processes are smooth and enjoyable; hurting the beloved is an example in kind. Another consideration in light of which the lover may sometimes hurt the beloved is related to the lack of indifference in love. Since the lover greatly cares for the beloved and their mutual relationship, the lover cannot be indifferent toward anything that may harm the beloved, their relationship, or the lover's own situation. This lack of indifference toward the beloved may lead the lover to take measures which hurt the other when viewed within a partial perspective, but can be seen as beneficial from a global perspective. This is the painful side of care: a close connection exists between people who help and hurt as well. In the same way that improving the quality and happiness of our lives may demand some suffering, improving the quality and happiness of our beloved's life may require such suffering. As for people who love us but whom we do not love, we may be indifferent, or at least would not harbor such a deep overall concern. Accordingly, we may not bother to help them by hurting them. Therefore, people in love prefer to be hurt by the beloved rather than be treated with indifference. Jose Ortega y Gasset says that the person in love "prefers the anguish which her beloved causes her to painless indifference." Similarly, the saying goes that it is better to break someone's heart than to do nothing with it. Concerning those who are near and dear, we prefer anger to indifference. I do not want to say, as Oscar Wilde did, that "each man kills the thing he loves"; however, hurting one's beloved is frequent. Since the beloved is a major source of happiness, this person is also a major threat to our happiness: more than anyone else, the beloved can ruin our happiness. Similarly, the security involved in love goes together with the fear of losing that security. Feeling happy is often bound up with the fear of losing that happiness. Caring for the beloved sometimes goes together with hurting the beloved. Love is closely connected with vulnerability: the ability to hurt and to be hurt. Although some kinds of hurt in love are intended, most of them are not. Nevertheless, someone who deliberately hurts another person can simultaneously claim to love that person. The phenomenon of emotional ambivalence, stemming from the presence of two different evaluative perspectives, can account for such a possibility (see here). The lack of indifference and mutual dependency typical of love suggests why this frequently occurs in love. The above considerations can be encapsulated in the following statement that a lover might express: "Darling, although this article has given you some justification to hurt me, I am still not sure you are doing it out of your profound love for me."
你总是伤害你爱的人，那个你根本不应该伤害的人； 你总是选取最芳香的玫瑰，摧残它直到花瓣凋落； 你总是伤害最热情的心，用你回想不起来的草率话语； 所以如果我昨夜伤了你的心，那是因为我爱你最深。（米尔斯兄弟The Mills Brothers） 很容易理解为什么某个不爱另一个人的人可能使这个人伤心，当我们不爱那些爱我们的人时，我们很可能伤害他们。然而，上面的歌指的是伤害我们确实爱的人。一个人怎么能够既爱又伤害同一个人呢？ 情侣可以轻易伤害所爱的人，虽然不是有意为之。因为情侣对彼此是如此重要，任何直率的言论或行动都可能以另一个人并不想要的方式解读，因而可能造成伤害。例如，某个人可能投入大量的时间在她的工作上，从而忽略了，并且不经意间伤害了她的伴侣。两人共处的时间越多，这种事情会发生的可能性就越大。我们所爱的人对我们有重大意义，这就使得这些人成为巨大幸福和深切悲哀的源泉：他们能带给我们巨大的快乐，但他们也能深深地伤害我们。 在我们没有什么珍贵的东西可失去的情况下，我们很少体验到失望。爱情与我们的幸福和许多最宝贵的经历密切相连，在其中有大量的东西可失去。因此，失望和沮丧，从而伤害，是常见的。据说，完全幸福的爱情是不存在的。事实上，在一项对500多对情侣的调查中，他们几乎所有人都认为充满热情的爱是又苦又甜的体验。同样地，已经发现防御性低的人比高防御性的人有更多爱的体验。这种联系表明爱就是使自己在提高痛苦可能性方面脆弱。 这些及其他要考虑的原因指出，你在无意之中可能多么容易地伤害你爱的人。然而，对故意伤害你爱的人的解说要复杂的多。当然，故意伤害所爱的人的一个主要因素与相互依赖在爱情中所扮演的核心角色有关。 相互依赖也许以不适当的比例存在：情侣们可能认为他们对伴侣的依赖太多或太少了。伤害所爱的人可能是一种手段，通常是最不合适的手段，情侣们以此使这种依赖达到适当比例。相互依赖有很多好处，这源于这样的事实：两个人在试图增大彼此幸福的亲密关系中结合在一起。然而，独立意识对人的自尊也很重要。事实上，在一项对愤怒的研究中，愤怒发生的最常见动机是维护威信或独立，或者提升自我形象。人们已经认识到愤怒是一种加强或重新调整亲密关系的有用方法。 这种类型的行为经常发生在亲子关系中：孩子经常为了表达他们的独立而伤害父母。这种行为也是浪漫爱情的一部分，在爱情中相互依赖可能威胁伴侣双方的独立。有时情侣伤害他们所爱的人是为了表现他们的独立。但是在其他时候，伤害所爱的人表示一种相反的愿望：爱人想要更多的依赖和关注。事实上，已婚女性的一个常见的抱怨是她们的伴侣没有和她们共度足够多的时间，这比已婚男性要多得多。 通过伤害所爱的人，爱人希望发出信号表明他们的相互关系，特别是他们的相互依赖，应该得到修正。伤害所爱的人可能是警告爱人的烦恼的最后警钟；这是一个发出紧急信号的极端方法。如果亲密关系足够坚固，如爱人所希望的那样，它就应该承受住这个方法。所使用的一个较不极端且更为常见的方法是喜怒无常。喜怒无常，在亲密关系上强加一个小的成本，可以既起警钟的作用，也有测试联结强度的评估手段的作用。爱情包含一个相互适应的动态过程，但并不是所有的适应过程都是平稳和令人愉快的；伤害所爱的人就是一个此类例子。 另一个要考虑的原因——爱人可能有时据此伤害所爱的人——与爱情中缺乏公正有关。由于非常关心所爱的人和他们的相互关系，爱人就不能公正地对待可能伤害所爱的人、他们的关系或者自己的处境的任何事。对所爱的人缺乏公正可能导致爱人采取某些措施，这些措施如果从一个局部的角度之内看是伤害另一个人，但是从一个全面的角度看却是有益的。这是关爱的痛苦一面，关爱是既帮助也伤害的人们之间存在的一种亲密关系。提升我们的生活质量和幸福需要一些痛苦，同样地，提升我们所爱的人的生活质量和幸福可能也需要这样的痛苦。 至于爱我们但我们不爱的人，我们可能是不关心的，或者至少不会怀有这样一种深切的全面关心。因此，我们可能不操心通过伤害来帮助他们。所以，在爱情中的人宁愿被所爱的人伤害，也不愿被冷漠对待。何塞·奥尔特加－加塞特（Jose Ortega y Gasset）说，在爱情中的人“更喜欢她所爱的人对她造成的痛苦胜于无痛的漠然。”同样地，俗话说使某人伤心比置之不理更好。对于那些亲近和亲爱的人，我们喜欢愤怒胜于漠然。 我并不是想像奥斯卡·王尔德（Oscar Wilde）那样说，“每一个人都杀害他所爱的东西”；但是，伤害所爱的人却是时常发生的。因为所爱的人是幸福的主要来源，这个人同样也是对我们幸福的主要威胁：比起其他任何人，所爱的人更能毁灭我们的幸福。同样地，包含在爱情中的安全与失去这种安全的恐惧如影随形。感到幸福经常与失去这种幸福的恐惧联系在一起。关心所爱的人有时与伤害所爱的人相伴存在。 爱与脆弱——伤害和被伤害的能力——紧密相连。尽管爱情中有些种类的伤害是有意的，但它们中大多数并不是如此。 然而，有的人故意伤害另一个人，可能同时还声称爱那个人。正反感情并存的现象——源于存在两种不同的评价观点——可以解释这样的一种可能性。爱情中典型的缺乏公正和相互依赖间接表明为什么这种事经常在爱情中发生。 以上要考虑的原因可以被概括为下面一个爱人可能表达的话：“亲爱的，尽管这篇文章给了你一些正当的理由来伤害我，但我仍然不确定你这么做是出于对我的一片深情。” |
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