Do love and abuse contradict each other
“They would never abuse me; they love me!”
There are so many people who remain in toxic, controlling, unhealthy relationships because they feel that their partner loves them, and therefore, what they’re experiencing cannot possibly be abuse. As comforting as that thought is, it absolutely isn’t true.
A person can truly, sincerely love you, and still abuse you.
“Someone who loves you would never, ever abuse you. A person who loves you always wants what’s best for you. Love is the opposite of abuse.” It’s a pretty story, isn’t it? It’s reassuring. It tells us that as soon as we find love, we’re safe.
It also tells us that if we feel love, the thing we’re doing is not abuse. I can’t be abusive! I sincerely, deeply love them! Love is the opposite of abuse! I know I love them, so the things that are going wrong in our relationship…they can’t be my fault! I’m in love and people in love never abuse! This toxicity…it’s their fault!
Meanwhile, in the real world, yes, you can truly, deeply, sincerely love someone and also be an abuser. Yes, that can and absolutely does happen, feel-good platitudes notwithstanding.
Image: Leighann Blackwood
Okay, let’s unpack this.
Love is both a feeling and an action. It’s kinda like the word “respect” that way—sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes to mean “treating someone like an authority,” and if you’re not really super-clear on how you’re using the word, there’s all kind of potential ways for gaslighting and toxicity to creep in.
Sometimes people use “love” to mean “have a certain kind of feeling for you” and sometimes people use “love” to mean “treat you a certain way,” and if you’re not super-clear on what you mean, people can easily end up in a position where someone thinks “I love you because I have a certain kind of feeling for you, but everyone knows abuse is not live, so therefore this way I’m treating you can’t possibly be abuse.”
And that leads to some dark places.
Separating the feeling from the action
Just so we’re clear: abuse, whatever form it takes—verbal, emotional, psychological, physical, whatever—is never a loving act. But people absolutely can feel love for you yet still abuse you, because abuse isn’t about hate or desire to destroy. Abuse is about power and control, and a person who loves you but fears losing you absolutely can try to exercise power and control from a warped, twisted desire to keep from losing you.
And not the fun, consensual kind of control. Image: Tinnakorn
That’s the thing about abuse. Abusers aren’t evil. They’re not saying “gosh, I feel like being mean today because it’s been such a long time since I twirled my mustache.” We tend, I think, to de-humanize those who abuse, which makes it that much harder to recognize when we’re being abused.
Yes, feeling love for someone and then mistreating them is a fucked-up thing to do. The people who do this aren’t trying to be destructive. They’re practicing maladaptive strategies to try to get their needs met. They might be from dysfunctional families or broken homes, they might not trust the person they’re with will want to stay with them, they might not know constructive ways to deal with anxiety or insecurity, they might be practicing mate-guarding behavior (there’s a reason abusers will isolate their victims from friends and family, and it’s not always strategic—sometimes it’s just “I’m afraid if they spend time with others they’ll meet somebody they’d rather be with and leave me”)…whatever.
Abuse is usually about power and control
Abuse isn’t about love, or the lack of love. Those who abuse are often fearful, and they deal with these fears by exercising power and control…not out of “ha ha, look at me, I’m going to randomly just decide to be an asshole!” but rather from a place of “there’s this person I’m completely drowning in these overpowering feelings for, but I’m afraid they’ll leave me and I don’t have constructive ways to handle that, so I’ll fall back on power and control.”
Or “I’m overpowered by these chaotic feelings and I have a poor sense of where I end and the other person begins, so I’ll use power and control to try to regain a feeling of safety.”
Or “I’m overpowered by these feelings and desperately frightened of losing this relationship, so I’ll try to control my partner to protect myself from that fear of loss.”
Fear of loneliness or abandonment, not evil, is often the root of abuse. Image: Hailey Kean
Whatever it might be, the underlying reality is the same: yes, a person who loves you can abuse you, because there’s a deep dysfunction inside of them, and the abuse, perversely, is a maladaptive response to how that love makes them feel.
If you tell yourself “someone who loves you can never abuse you,” you might find yourself mistreating someone while failing to recognize what you’re doing is abuse, because you tell yourself “I love them, someone in love doesn’t abuse, so what I’m doing isn’t abuse.” Or you might find yourself being mistreated while failing to recognize what’s happening to you is abuse, because you tell yourself “I know they love me, someone in love doesn’t abuse, so what’s happening to me isn’t abuse.”
It’s a pretty idea, people who love never abuse. But the reality is that people are much more complicated than that.
Recognizing Healthy Love
Love is not enough. If it’s possible for someone who truly loves you to abuse you, what does heathy love look like?
In my experience, the best way to recognize healthy love is to examine how closely the person who claims to love you acts in ways that align with what they say.
Love is not controlling. If someone tells you they love you, but seeks to control you—where you go, who you talk to, what you do, what you wear—thats an expression of control, not love.
Love is not demanding. People in a relationship should be free to ask for what they want and need, without fear or shame, but that’s not the same as demanding. The difference between a request and a demand is what happens if the answer is “no.”
Love is not selfish. You have the right to expect balance between what you offer and what you gain from the relationship. A person who is all take and no give, is not showing love.
Love is kind. A person who is mean, argumentative, dismissive, contemptuous, or hostile is not showing love.
Love leaves space. Love is two individuals, not one unit. A relationship that expects you to surrender your interests, hobbies, identity, or individuality is codependency, not love.
Love is freeing. Love is not a prison or a cage. If you feel trapped, something’s wrong. A good relationship makes you feel freer, more capable, able to do more.
And finally, as a friend of mine said, love is expansive. It increases capacity for lovingkindness to others. If the relationship becomes “us against the world,” that can be negative reinforcement that throttles love.