Why do we hurt the ones we love?

+42 votes
asked Jun 2, 2018 in Relationships by crystal (470 points)
edited Sep 24, 2018
I don’t get it. The people we care the most are the people we hurt the most. I mean not in the way people in an abusive relationship does, but just with friends in general. With my best friends I could, just hit and cuss him or even with my siblings. I won’t do that to people I’m not close with obviously, but why are we most awful to the people we love and close to? Why do we hurt the ones we love?

2 Answers

+25 votes
answered Nov 9, 2018 by Kiandra (740 points)
edited Apr 3, 2019
There is an actual study done on why do we hurt the ones we love. Psychologically (and statistically), people who we are likely to cause harm, verbal, emotional or physical, are likely to be on someone that we know. Professor Deborah South Richardson of Georgia Regents University dub this phenomenon “everyday aggression.” Focus on the definition of aggression is based on the intent and not of the result if it end up hurting someone. If you plan to hit a person with a ball, it’s not whether it hits or misses, but rather if you intend it to hit the person. Anyway, there is still no clear evidence that shows why we are more aggressive to the people we know. Could it be we spend more time with them? Could it be the relationship feels more significant? It’s still unknown, but what we know is that they involved us to be opening up to each other.
+10 votes
answered Aug 29, 2018 by LorettaGotts (360 points)
edited Sep 11, 2018
We feel more freedom to hurt someone that we know of. Let’s say a sibling; we are likely to yell at them, plus the usual bickering and stuff. It could be because we feel safe to do it. We know that the relationship is strong enough so much so that we wouldn’t mind showing our anger to them. This applied to romantic partners too. In some way, it strengthens people relationship since we are used to putting up a facade in front of strangers or people we barely know of. We feel that it is alright to be our true self with the people we know of. An extreme version of this could be seen in an abusive relationship. A person could love someone so much that they would hurt the other just so they won’t leave. It’s about knowing someone well enough that we feel the freedom to hurt them without having them leaving.
commented Sep 27, 2015 by deeznutsaz (120 points)
Totally agree with your answer to why do we hurt the ones we love. I think sometimes we yell at those who are close with us, but I really do think we should hold it cuz they are our love, they’ll feel hurt too.
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