Negative Responses to Love

Negative Responses to Love

It is always hard to find the full package of love, kindness, respect, sensitivity and all that but it is even hard for some people to accept these kinds of things.  There are numerous reasons why people react with anger to responses of love and affection.

People will sometimes felt rage when someone says that they are worried about them or they feel that they are being judgmental.  Others will react with anger when emotions are expressed towards them or if they feel pressured.  When some are praised for their good deeds, it might make them feel mad or weird.

Some individuals do not know that being loved or valued makes them feel anger and pain.  This reaction is something that happens unconsciously and even a small compliment is hard for them to enjoy or take to heart.  Many times, when they think about the complement later, they will trigger a negative attitude that brings about disbelief and critical feelings.

Why does love and positiveness bring about rage and anger?  There are many reasons why people think this might happen.

Defenses

Some believe that anxiety comes with being loved because it causes people to have to break down their defenses and accept the idea of rejection and emotional pain, leaving the person to be vulnerable to others.

Being valued should bring happiness and excitement but it can also be fearful, especially if the person has been traumatized in the past.  When that has happened, being loved feels like an act of hurt and pain.  It feels that they should distance themselves and push away the lover because this is the only way to form a defense, one that was formed from childhood.  Since they react so negative to these things without even knowing it, they feel they are right because they blame those that are close to them.

Sadness and Pain

Being loved and treated with respect can bring about sadness from people and sometimes they will block out these feelings, but they are hard not to show.  When being with a partner, painful memories form childhood or from the past can bring up feelings of abandonment and sadness.  People do not want to be hurt like they were when they were little.

Identity

When someone is shown love, they love, but when someone has been shown hurt in their life, they have a hard time believing in love and they feel that love might end up being shattered and confusing.  They have negative feelings about who they are and about people trying to love them.

When children begin to develop, they love their parents more than anyone.  This is how they survive.  When they are small, their self-image is tied to how they are lowed by their family and when this doesn’t happen, it causes them to hate themselves.  People that have failed or been rejected have these negative views of themselves incorporated in their mind and then being given a positive response of love can cause them to disrupt their inner feelings.

Fantasy of Past

When a child begins to form, he or she thinks and fantasizes about their parents and the love and emotions that they have with them.  They connect with them and know that their mom and dad will satisfy the things they need and keep them safe.  They imagine this sense of safety and it allows children to not feel pain or rejection.  This fantasy can happen throughout adulthood and even though most people do not realize it, it is part of them.  When they have been hurt or rejected as a child, they will keep the independent fantasy that they developed and will want to care for themselves and not depend on others.  They won’t want to depend on someone and will expect to be threatened and mistreated by people, just like their parents did.  They will react in this manner to positive things because it is their defense mechanism to avoid pain.  People like this have a hard time accepting real love from their partners.

Positivity Equals Guilt

Being successful can make a person aware of the weaknesses that their parents had when they were raised.  It can show them what kind of failures they had in their life as a child.  When they are chosen and loved in a relationship or when someone shows them how successful they are, it causes them to sometimes feel guilty for doing better than their parents did.  People fear going past the limits against their own development in life.

Sometimes, a person will feel angry at being acknowledged because they feel that it is irrational, and they do not believe the people that are trying to love them.  They will act passive aggressive and will see the situation or the achievement as an expectation or a demand and believe that is why they were called out.  All of the emotions that they feel are painful even towards lovable qualities and they will sabotage their own success so that they do not have to be seen or noticed.

Existing Problems

When we are close to people that we love, we are aware of how life is precious, and we have to surrender to it.  We have to accept love and with this comes the death of independence and selfness.  When we are loved, we have more value on life and we want to be seen and want to love each other instead of having pain.  When people are close, they will experience the feeling of withdrawing so that they can have a safe distance and some people feel anxiety after being close sexually and emotionally to someone, which can evoke anger.

People have an emotional world that they live in and they create their own reality based on their childhood and how they were loved.  They will want to have safety, but they will maintain it to a false sense and will put up defense mechanisms to allow their partner to only be comfortable with them and not to get past that.  They will see their partners as who they are and will provoke responses from their partner so that they can have a happy relationship.

Most people do not even realize that they have these negative reactions to love and they continue to withhold their behavior which will affect themselves and their loved ones.  It is important for them to become aware of these defenses and challenge them so they can be free of the effects.

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