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Saturday, 3 October 2026dailybeirut.com
Culture & Society
Aaron Ben-Zeév explains that the capacity to hurt loved ones stems from deep intimacy, contrasting this with polite indifference toward strangers.
The individuals who hold the greatest significance in our lives possess the unique ability to inflict the deepest pain. This dynamic arises not from malice, but from the profound nature of emotional closeness itself. Intimacy demands honesty and mutual development rather than mere pleasant exchanges. Consequently, the objective of love is not to prevent all suffering, but to repair it and derive lessons from the experience.
People frequently extend greater courtesy and forgiveness to strangers’ minor flaws than to those of their romantic partners. With significant others, individuals often become more demanding, impatient, and occasionally hurtful. This behavioral pattern connects to specific traits of romantic bonds: psychological proximity, deeply intertwined lives, and intense mutual concern. While distance protects us from the impact of a stranger’s actions, closeness amplifies the effect of a partner’s behavior on our well-being.
Psychological distance defines the core difference between a partner and an outsider. Partners are woven into the fabric of daily existence, whereas strangers exert minimal influence on personal welfare. Because a partner matters so intensely, their successes and failures resonate strongly within the relationship. Possessiveness, jealousy, insecurity, dependency, and fears regarding lost freedom emerge precisely because the connection carries such weight. In contrast, a stranger’s achievements or disappointments barely register, allowing for detached politeness.
Mutual nurturing lies at the heart of romantic love, intertwining each partner’s flourishing with the other’s. This interdependence makes individual behavior highly consequential. Mistakes by a partner are taken seriously because they affect the shared life, unlike interactions with strangers which follow conventions of politeness. Politeness smooths social encounters by softening criticism and avoiding conflict, a strategy essential when dealing with people who know little about us.
Romantic relationships operate under different rules. Partners require kindness and tact, yet genuine intimacy necessitates honesty, which can be unpleasant. Communicating what troubles one may cause temporary discomfort but ultimately strengthens the bond and fosters growth. Romantic love may involve less surface-level politeness but deeper underlying concern. Actions that appear unkind in the moment often reflect a commitment to the relationship’s health. The opposite of love is not hurt, but indifference; pain is often the cost of caring enough to remain vulnerable.
Calmness is frequently mistaken for indifference, though the two concepts differ significantly. Indifference signals a lack of concern, while calmness can coexist with profound caring. In healthy relationships, calmness often stems from security, allowing individuals to care deeply without reacting anxiously to every difficulty. A stranger’s wrongdoing leaves us relatively unmoved due to its irrelevance, whereas a partner’s behavior triggers criticism and reaction because the relationship matters.
In the short term, this intensity may make partners seem less kind than strangers. Over time, however, individuals devote far more attention and effort to a partner’s flourishing than they would to any outsider. Greater criticism can therefore coexist with greater caring. The measure of behavior lies not in momentary pleasantness, but in the broader context of commitment and concern. As noted by Ben-Ze’ev (2019), security allows for deep care without anxious reactivity.
Romantic life functions as a package deal. The same intimacy that provides joy, meaning, and fulfillment also exposes individuals to disappointment, frustration, and heartache. Maintaining emotional distance reduces the risk of being hurt but may deprive one of life’s richest experiences. Strangers make few claims on our lives, permitting polite detachment. Love, conversely, demands vulnerability, forgiveness, patience, honesty, and the capacity to repair inevitable wounds.
Hurting a beloved is not always evidence of insufficient love. Often, it is a by-product of profound intimacy. Deeper investment in a relationship increases vulnerability, expectations, and potential for conflict. The truest measure of caring is enduring commitment rather than momentary politeness. Meaningful love does not offer only sweetness; its rewards require accepting both the bitter and the sweet, as highlighted by Wong & Mayer (2023).
The central question is not whether we will hurt those we love, but whether love is resilient enough to absorb and repair these injuries. Relationships flourish not when partners never hurt one another, but when they learn to transform inevitable wounds into deeper understanding. The Mills Brothers' lyric suggests hurting the one you love proves you love them most. However, this action actually reflects the fact that love makes individuals vulnerable enough to matter deeply to one another.
