People who see their relationships as either all good or all bad tend to have low self-esteem, according to a series of seven studies by Yale researchers published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In two of the studies participants were asked to indicate as quickly as possible whether each of 10 adjectives applied to their relationship partner, adjectives such as caring and warm or greedy and dishonest. Partners in this study included college roommates and mothers.
Individuals low in self-esteem were considerably slower to respond when negative and positive adjectives were alternated than when similar adjectives appeared in blocks. Those high in self-esteem were equally quick to respond to the adjectives no matter how they were presented.
“This suggests it was hard for them to think of their partners as a mix of positive and negative characteristics at a given point in time,” said Margaret Clark, a professor in the Department of Psychology and senior faculty author of the study. “We do not think these results are limited to any one type of relationship. We think they apply to any close relationship.”
Clark said the effects were obtained only when people judged relationship partners. There was no delayed response when judging an object, in this case, their computer.
The researchers first measured self-esteem by asking participants to fill out the Rosenberg self-esteem inventory, a self-report measure of self-esteem. The reaction time task was administered weeks later by an experimenter who did not know their evaluation results.
“Those low in self-esteem are chronically concerned about whether or not their close relationship partners will or will not accept them,” Clark said. “In good times, those low in self-esteem tend to idealize partners, rendering those partners safe for approach and likely to reflect positively upon them. At the first sign of a partner not being perfect, however, they switch to focusing on all possible negatives about the partner so as to justify withdrawing from that partner and not risking vulnerability.”
Based on their research, Clark and Steven Graham, first author of the study, developed a way to measure the extent to which people segregate thoughts about partners into “all good” and “all bad” qualities. Their new scale is called the I-TAPS (Integration of Thoughts About Partners Scale).
From Yale University
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Have been in a relationship for an year now and till now it seems that as if had just started a week ago…love never dies!
My relationship is just like this, ive been with my gf for just over 2 years and when its good its good, when its bad its really bad. In the end her childishness at times makes me hate her and not even want to see her, she throws shit in my face when we talk, or when i try to help her at driving for instance she just dismisses everything i say, even though im right as her ego wont allow constructive criticism. But when shes not acting like a spoilt twat, were great together and were in love. Its actually a relief to see others in the same situation as me. Every time we have a big argument we break up as i feel id rather not argue but be single instead, but as soon as i break up with her she crys and we end up back together and the cycle continues. I really dont know what to do, i love her but i hate having to walk on eggshells when talking to her or when she asks for advice.
My boyfriend and I have been together 9 months however we are in our late 30′s and are looking toward building a life together. Problem is he gets drunk and breaks up with me. When he sobers up he apologizes and we start the cycle again. As soon as we have any disagreement, especially when he has been drinking, he is packing his bags. But then he returns, knocking on my window begging for another chance and then things are good all over again.
I love him, I just think it can’t be too late to fix us.
Wao So many responses and it confirms my thought that I am not alone. I think every relationship is a love-hate relationship. No one is perfect ! right ? So in my opinion if you really love your partner and want to live with him without any of the hassles involved, you should talk. Talking it out is a good start for saving a relationship. You can also ask for professional help. A relationship expert can help you find the faults and defaults in a relationship. Every expert works in his/her own way, some have their own relatietherapie (almere) (Netherlands) courses or sessions which can help and some just let you open up and talk to your partner without hesitations.
I can say I’m in a love/hate, passion/pain relationship now going on 3yrs. I have had longer relationships, however just like life I have rolled with punches of those relationships and used that knowledge to help me; reluctantly realizing inturn hurting my current relationship. I have carried around this ” If your playing, I’m playing mentality”. I have stick to that method of thinking until my current relationship after time. yes, i said after time…
I have to be honest in saying i die cheat but with that mentality i had it wash like inviting a person into a relationship knowing your going to do whatever you felt like doing regardless. My heartless mentality helped me bhuild a wall or forcefield and that there was my “gift and my curse”.
When I really committed I learned I had a large amount of insecurity which made it easy to have that careless commitment value I once had. That why I refer to my previous mentality as “a gift & a curse”. It help me metor once i changed but unmasked insecurity i struggle with today…. help with advice please
I have been involved in a love/hate relationship, off and on, for most of the last eight years. Ever since year one, I have known that the relationship is not healthy for either party involved, but it’s as if I’m in love with a fantasy image of my own creation that I project onto my partner. Same with him.. and when we each don’t live up to each other’s expectations, the fighting and controlling ensues. I am always the one who moves to end it, but even if we both try to move on, we are bound to our dependence upon this relationship. I do have the foresight to see that dealing with the pain of a breakup now would be far less debilitating than a life spent making each other miserable, so once again I am the one with the strength to make the move. It is hard to completely disassociate with one you have loved dearly..it rather feels like abandonment, but I cannot remain friends or try to help him, because my cause always ends up sabotaged and we end up back at square one. He was a child of alcoholism/abuse and I grew up with a father who was very possessive and controlling of my mother and every time we get back together, I see the combination of these early environments start to form. The only way I know to stop the cycle is to leave for good and work on my own issues. I don’t wish to be hated or have to cause pain by walking away, but I really do feel it is the right thing to do.
It’s as if I wrote the above comment myself. I am in EXACTLY the same sort of situation – right down to our parental backgrounds. I don’t know what to do
Wonderful. Self esteem is a struggle for so many of us. It is so much easier to find fault than bolster the good…maybe that is what we thought we heard growing up. Thank you for the reminder.
Self Esteem Affirmations
Wow! I thought I was the only one. My relationship of 2.5 yrs is definately love/hate. As everyone has said when it is good it is really good and when it is bad it is all I can do not to lose my mind! I’m pulled in so many directions. The hardest is deciding whether to stay or go. I know it isn’t healthy fighting the way we do but it is so hard to walk away from the good.
in a relationship, we really need to keep away our ego and everything that would hinder your relation
Low self esteem is a form of self-centerdness. A form of perverse narcissism. Its a cancer that eats away at relationships, and ourselves. Its not easy to overcome, but the first step is acceptance and moving beyond denial, and then realizing we can conquer it and MUST conquer it, and no one else can do that for us. It’s not easy but I wish everyone the very best.
true…agreed
It seems to me the more I love my partner, the more she hates me. I just don’t get it. How is that possible?
DUDE UR BEING CHEATED ON!
I have been with a man for just under two years. It is as though he has two personalities. He loves me, wants to get married and be with me forever. During this time frame, I am beautiful and the best thing that ever happened to him and he is very vocal about his feelings. When he says “I love your,” within 48 hours he has staged a fight over something normal individuals would not even react to and he becomes someone else. He calls me ugly names, destroys my possessions, acts like a little boy having a violent temper tantrum and tells me how stupid, fat and ugly I am, though I am none of the above.
He has left about seven times and stays out for a night, a few days up to three weeks. When he comes back, he is loving and kind and acts like nothing has happened. It is a predictable pattern after this time frame.
I have researched this and see similarities to borderline personality disorder and narcissism. Can anyone enlighten me please.
You need to leave him. Now.
Love and hate are both based upon self-identification in your experience. You do not bother to love or hate a person that you cannot “identify” with. No deep emotion is elicit or sought after. Hatred always involves and comes in from the painful sense of separation from love, perhaps, as in your partner’s case. A person you feel strongly against , at any given time , upsets you because he, or she does not live up to your expectations, and this works both ways, from your partner’s standpoint, and yours at the same time. If you hate a partner it is precisely because you “expect such love,” (he as well). Anyone from whom you expect nothing, will never earn your bitterness. So, in sort of a strange manner, “hatred” is a means of returning love. Therefore, left alone but expressed, it is meant to communicate a separation that exists in relation to what is expected.
You may love a partner, and if the partner does not seem to return that love, and denies your expectations, then hate results. The same partner leads you to expect more of the love that is or was denied. Here, the hatred is meant to get back your love. It is supposed to lead to a communication from you, stating your feelings, clearing the air, so to speak, and bringing you closer to the love object, in this case, your partner. Hatred is not the denial of love then, but an attempt to regain it, and is a painful recognition of the circumstances that separated you from it.
Trust in your feeling and they will lead you to psychological and spiritual states that enhance mystic understanding, calmness and a peaceful disposition. Following your own emotions can and will lead you to deeper understandings, because you cannot have a “physical self” without emotions, any more than you can have a day without weather.
Love is of course always changing. There is no one state of deep mutual attraction in which two people are forever involved. The emotion love, is “mobile,” and can change quite easily to anger, or hatred for that matter, and back again to love.
Had the same exact problem, he was in the closet with the gay side of his personality!
Our life with our loved one is a long journey. Like any road it changes as we travel. It has ups and downs, hard parts and easy parts, sometimes beautiful and sometimes unattractive, at times boring and at times exciting. Through it all we treat our best beloved with love and respect, over and over letting things go, and in so doing we gain dignity for ourselves.
how do we fix love hate relationships??
First be honest with yourself & the one you with. Do you see the relationship progressing for the two of you or do you linger on to what happened in the past. Neither one of you can’t change the past but you can make do something about your future. Life is too short and if you’re going on an emotional rollercoaster in your relationship then its best to call it quits. Any imperfections your partner has can trigger those haunting negative feelings towards them. Why be in a relationship that is so unpredictable that you have to walk on egg shells so you don’t have an arguement? This is no way to live if you’re in a loving relationship. Life is also about change and change at time could be devastating but as long as you don’t have the feeling of being unfulfilled you could be more happier.
I have been in a relationship for nearly 11 years, my partner has definite nartisstic behaviour, our reationship has been up and down for 9 years, I left him for a year, but during that time we were still seeing eachother, i am back with him but nothing much has changed, if marriage is mentioned, he says if you are a good girl and behave yourself, I will think about it. I feel it is time out of this relationship as he is just using me.
After 11 years, the best he can offer as far as marriage is “maybe if you’re a good girl”? SMH. Sooner or later, I hope you find the strength to cut ties with him for good.
You read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” and you fix one third of your problems.
My husband and I had been dating off and on for four years before we abruptly decided to get married. We have been married for 3.5 months now and he’s decided to leave me again for probably the 10th time. I am sometimes blown away by his ability to go from Dr. Jekyl to Mr. Hyde. He is a crazy African so maybe that has something to do with it? Not completely sure becasue men are crazy all across the earth. If I do have low self-esteem, it’s because of him. I can’t explain why I keep allowing him back in my life either. I have dismissed the fact that we have a three year old together. After he goes off, he will come back in about a month or two. It is really love and hate. I know I deserve more but how to I break this horrible pattern of emotional abuse at the hands of this man?
Well i think relationship is depends on some facts and the most important thing is the healthy communication. So if you are having this and you are providing the best quality to your partner then this will be the sign of the long term relationship.
Interesting that you are all going through the same things. But great that you have have found a way to talk and deal with the issues that you are all going through. I think that often when we talk about things we discover ways of solving problem that we would not otherwise know exist..
Well i think relationship is depends on some facts and the most important thing is the healthy communication. So if you are having this and you are providing the best to your partner then this is the sign of the long term relationship.
Many times a relationship comes to an end due to misunderstandings in that relation, sometimes immaturity is the reason and at times personal egos clash.
My God, that sounds so familiar. I have low self-esteem, and I would describe my relationship with my partner as being very ‘love/hate’. Now I know why!
yea i have low self-esteem too and this line fits me exactly “concerned about whether or not their close relationship partners will or will not accept them”.. i dread making new relationships and specially marriage.
I took the Rosenberg Self-Esteem test and scored 26/30. I wouldn’t consider myself low in self-esteem but I used to be when I met my partner. We have an extreme love/hate relationship that is borderline preposterous. From my personal experience, I don’t necessarily believe that you have to have low self-esteem in order to experience this type of relationship. I think, in my case, that we became so accustomed to this type of behavior that it lingered while I became more confident around others.
We think so… LOL
My significant other and I have been at it for 30 years. Love comes from the core, and hate comes from the way he trys to control me. We have been on again and off again forever. When we are together he takes complete control of my life, and when are estranged I am in control of my life, but I miss the good things about him. I just want to forget him and move on with my life. Outside issues always split us up but I am so ready for him to go away when we finally split. He becomes a major stalker that destroys everything I have when we are away from each other and very loving when we are together (as long as he can control me). The entire sititution is just sick. This last time has lasted 27 months with him stalking my house, posessions, and vehicles. I have had six flat tires in the last six weeks. I would like to fade into the sunset and never look back.
Your experience sounded so familiar i had to reply. I love my significant other with everything i have. I find myself on this website because well i dont know what to do with my situation. We have been on and off for over four years now and when things are going good, they are Great and our love comes from the core also. but when its bad, its bad. I have lost friends and almost even family over this because we become so emotional and angered when its bad. I just want stablitity and want to feel content and happy with him, but it seems as soon as i feel that way, my world comes crashing down due to an argument or something happens. I am in a constant numb because of this. I miss him when hes gone and find it hard to let this relationship go. Even though its extremely hard when were together. It makes me want to run and hide.
Sometimes we just have to let go and move on. We all deserve someone who love us for what we are and who we are becoming. The mood swings are a way to control us so we will do what is expected or demanded from us. The best goal is to become independent finacially and get away so we have time to heal and move on. Good luck.
When a brain injury is involved it is hard to leave. If you stay, it is a really hard commitment. I hope he is not hurting you physically. If he is doing that or starts you will need to leave for your own safety. Life sure is hard sometimes.
I dont consider myself a person with low self esteem, but everything else you said sure sounds familar. Is there any way a relationaship like this could be fixed? Especially if you know love is there?
I think it all depends on the two people involed – Ive been in many relationships – some people make you feel secure – some play games and make you feel insecure.
I love my husband, however his moods are unpredictable and sway like the wind. When he becomes verbally degrading, I despize and hate him (sounds like my mother). When he is nice he is nice. I feel like I am on a roller coaster ride.it is definantly a love/hate. I don’t consider having a low self esteem. Many people ask why I stay. Its hard.20 months ago he suffered a brain injury. He goes to work,drives and works out in the yard like someone who never had that injury happened. However
He goes from one extreme to the other. Like night and day…then I get that love/hate thing. Not sure what to do, how to make it better. I know I cannot change him.ugh! Advice? Please
where is all his promises??
Well, I’ll relate this little bit. happens more than l’d care to admit.
Late one night, she knocked on my door. She had drunk again, looking to score…
Now, l know l should say no but it’s kinda ”hard” when she’s raring to go…
I may be dumb, but l’m not a dweeb.
l’m just a sucker with no self-esteem…
when love comes than there is very low ratio of self esteem.this is what i think.because love is very sweet feeling so we should not ruined it by our self esteem.we should maintain proper balance.
wow i cant believe this but thats exactly how my relationship is with my bf of 1.5 yrs. that is exactly what we say when its good its really good when its bad its really bad its always the extreme of it it can be i guess like a normal couples. i dont want to break up with him because i love him but it is so hard when things are bad because i feel like i hate him so much and our arguments are over the dumbest things sometime.
Yes, it can be fixed, if you leave!! If you are accepting of bad behavior you are enabling that behavior. The person will have no real reasons or encouragement to get past their own fears, issues, fears of vulnerability. Believe me, they know exactly what their problems are. They must want to change themselves without you. Some of their goals should be to learn to trust, to become someone they like. When they lose someone which was the complete opposite of what they hate about themselves, someone that was not weak, had zero tolerance for any type of abuse, and whom they have all the respect for. They must realize they are deserving of a normal relationship and want to change what they hate about themselves. They should not establish a relationship with anyone until they have reached the goals they set out for themselves.