Why I hate my ex

“NO one can hate you with more intensity than someone who used to love you.” American author Rick Riordan’s quote from The Blood of Olympus is an expression and experience many people know well, having incurred the wrath of someone they once loved, when things go awry.

But what makes hatred worse from someone you once held affection for — or as another author, Bangambiki Habyarimana, put it, “the end of love looks like the beginning of war?” A study, titled Neural Correlates of Hate by Semir Zeki and John Paul Romaya, published in 2008, seems to explain.

The study selected participants who expressed a strong hatred for an individual and with one exception, all those who participated testified to the hatred of someone who was either an ex-lover or a competitor at work.

It found that like love, “…hate too can be an all-consuming passion. But whereas in romantic love, the lover is more likely to be less critical and judgmental regarding the loved person, it is more likely that in the context of hate, the hater may want to exercise judgment in calculating moves to harm, injure or otherwise extract revenge”.

Counsellor Teresa G Robinson says the explanation is quite simple — “love and hate are related, in fact when there are emotional ties, an emotional connection, and then betrayal, it’s that same level of energy that transforms to hate. So the more love there was, the deeper the love was, the deeper the hate will be.”

How does one get to this point of hatred?

“Easy — my wife stopped sleeping with me because she found another guy, and played out the entire affair in my face, and neglected our children while she had her midlife crisis. And then when he was done with her, she came to me for forgiveness,” Mark shared.

“It was the most difficult time of my life — imagine that big dis, then at the same time trying to be strong and still earn a living and not make my business fail, and not being able to leave because we have a mortgage and other ties. Imagine watching all that, watching her show off with this guy like she found her soulmate, while she neglected me. The hate built up so much that even while I loved her and would have died to get her back, I hated her and wished for the worst things to happen to her.”

Like Mark, hating an ex is a burden many people carry around, and some share why below.

Keith, 37:

Our daughter is a teenager now, and I’ve raised her all by myself all her life. Her mom just recently started showing an interest, and I allowed a visit a few months ago. Well, my daughter, who was an A student, returned with all these ideas that not only does she want to go live with her mother, she was told all sorts of lies about our relationship and why her mother wasn’t in her life, and now she blames me. I will never forgive her mother for the lies, or for trying to ruin our daughter’s life and future. It’s been difficult even getting her back on the right path, because it’s like her mother opened a Pandora’s box of lies and I have to be doing damage control.

Lianna, 34:

He got two of us pregnant at the same time, then chose to be with her and their kid, and did nothing for mine. And if that wasn’t bad enough, everytime his other family members tried to do anything for my son, he threatened to cut them off. I’ve never hated anyone as much as I hate him, because he’s just spiting my innocent son because I was unwilling to put up with his foolishness.

Ashley, 30:

He knew he was messing around but refused to use protection, got something and didn’t tell me, and by the time I found out, it had messed me up so bad that I can’t have children naturally. Tell me if I’m not justified when I pray for evil to overtake his life.

Kesha, 43:

When he broke up with me I took it badly — I’m a crier naturally, and I literally threw myself down and bawled in public. I begged and pleaded and he would have none of it, in fact he laughed it off and said I should “calm the hysterics”. Someone was videotaping it and he got hold of the video, and I don’t know why he kept it. But years later I had a very public proposal from my new man, and you know what he did? He sent around the video to my friends and family to try to embarrass me. There was no reason for that as I had grown and matured, and it just goes to show that he’s immature and spiteful.