There's a Fine Line..

I love quotes, and when I find a particularly good one, I save it. I was recently looking through some quotes when I came across one that fit perfectly with how I was feeling about my current boyfriend. As I read the quote over a few times, I began to realize that this quote not only applies to my own situation, but to many of the situations we’ve read about in class so far. For me, it ultimately began to the raise the question of the fine line that exists between love and hate within any relationship.
“I've never felt like this before, I'm overwhelmed by an unbelievable amount of hatred for him, yet, I couldn't be more in love. It's like I want to throw him out into traffic, and then risk my life to save him.”
I think throughout the readings thus far, we’ve been able to see this idea of a love/hate relationship existing between couples, especially within “Excuse Me While I Explode.” However, there seems to be this strong love/hate relationship not only amongst couples, but also in the relationships existing between mothers and their children as we saw in “The Mother Knot.” Seen especially in the beginning of “The Mother Knot,” the idea of a fine line between love and hate is an interesting topic that is brought up.
The concept of hating someone, while loving them seems so contradictory, yet it seems to exist in all sorts of relationships. I think what struck me the most in “The Mother Knot” was the dialogue in which the mother noted, “Oh, I love him and everything” which was shortly followed by “But I could kill him sometimes (pg.65).” Of course, she did not mean to actually kill him, but those feelings of frustration and anger seem to be so much stronger for the people we truly care about. I like to think I know my own mother pretty well, and I can picture her thinking those same thoughts about myself and all of my siblings. In fact, on the flip side, I’ve felt that way towards both of my parents. I love them, yet sometimes they can make me so angry. I’ve learned to appreciate them more now that I’m older and not living at home, yet I can still remember stomping up the stairs after being “grounded” when I was younger and cursing under my breath, “Ughhh I hate you.” How can something so contradictory like love/hate make such perfect sense? Is there always that aspect of hate with the ones we truly love?
I also saw these similar feelings within the relationships that existed in The Bitch in the House. In particular, within “Excuse Me While I Explode” the woman in the relationship comments, “...I feel total affection for him,” while hardly a page later exclaiming, “...I grow angrier and angrier, until I could not even stand his presence in the same room (pg. 7& 8).” Is it possible to have relationships with only love? Or is this idea of love accompanied by hate inevitable? When we love someone so much, we are going to hate them at times too…