Why Do We Hurt the People We Love Most?

Why do I keep hurting the people I love the most? It's an old old song. You always hurt the one you love the most, the one you shouldn't hurt at all. That's a sort of common struggle. And the common answer is that the people you love the most are usually the ones who are closest to you. And if they're close to you, that means you're around them. And if you're around them, you come to take them for granted. Then you get careless and sloppy. And you end up doing things that you regret. Like people often lament that let's say a spouse when we were dating when you were courting me you were so thoughtful and considerate and now it's the complete opposite. So that's the classic reason for that. I have a thought that may also be a helpful idea to ponder and that is the person that most of us hurt the most is ourselves. If you think about it, the person that you have caused the most harm to, that you have disrespected the most, is yourself. And what happens is when we're really, really close to people, we start to identify with them. We start to think of them as a part of ourselves. And that can be in a positive way, like where we think of their needs as on par with or even before our own needs. But the negative side of that is that just like we cause harm to ourselves, we start causing harm to the people who we identify with as being part of ourselves. And the only real solution to that, if that's the cause, is to start loving ourselves and therefore by extension loving those who we identify with as a part of ourselves. Contrary possibly to the belief that one has to be a martyr and has to be selfacing in order to be more loving toward the people in your life. The reality is and we see this for ourselves. Experience has shown us that this is the truth. That when you become more compassionate and gentle and accepting of yourself, you will also act that way toward the people who are closest to you in your