It is always an intriguing phenomenon seeing how one-time star-crossed lovers go from a place of deep love to that of hate whenever there is a rift. Everything that could go bad could go quite bad, they say. But what if real love was not even present in the first place? What if our modality of courting before relationships is not the best?
Centuries ago, in Nigerian cultures, partners mostly get match-made by their families. As autonomy and agency grew in African cultures and most began to take up western ideals, couples began to choose which partner exactly they want to date or marry.
As such, there needed to be a reason for a suitor to approach the prospect that he is interested in. Enter love. Love began to be the minimum currency being negotiated or demanded by most ladies for them to be hooked up by a man – and vice versa. This trend soon became largely exploited by both parties. What if people don’t really mean it when they declare their love for a partner?
The descent of couple romance from a 100 to 0 within the twinkle of an eye is one which makes a lot of people lose faith in the institution of marriage for instance. It is a common thing to the men in these climes to lie to a lady because they want to have sex with her or even women lie to a man about love because they might want direct access to his money.
However, the strange thing is that folks in the West who introduced and largely used to practice the culture of the partner wooing a prospect with a love declaration now no longer care much about same love being a prerequisite for a relationship. It is not rare to see an American couple take time in a relationship and get to know one another before confessing love to each other. They seem to have moved on with a new working model while we remain stuck in the largely practised culture of ‘love-as-a-prerequisite’.
Why was it necessary to examine how ‘romantic love’ crept into human relationships? How could this be connected to how much hatred couples who once ‘loved’ deeply now have for each other? This historical examination would be necessary because many are now beginning to realise that love alone is not the only most important thing in the evolution of a couple’s lifetime.
Two things are possible here: it is either there was no real love between such couples who become hateful over a conflict or they allowed other factors overshadow that love which they once felt deeply. It is also possible these partners never even had the minimum kindness of heart and compassion, to begin with.
There are so many definitions of love available today, and each man or woman would also testify to experiencing it differently. But the fact that everyone wants to experience love in their own heavily biased way, without the foundational minimum of what someone who truly cares about another being present, is beckoning a romantic disaster such as having hateful feelings.
We have heard cases of a partner who would kill the other partner over a trifle. How did it get there? Can we really boldly and confidently say that it is ideal for someone’s emotions to swing from a place of deep love to a place of hate where such partner gets killed or even other types of evil is plotted against the partner?
Yes, humans are capable of a great many emotions, but an action wishing an ex-partner evil is one we would all agree did not originate from a place where real love once existed. It is too much an extreme to fathom emotionally.
Again, ex-couples may end up not caring so much about each other anymore; they may not be so fond of each other anymore but hating such people deeply deep in our minds may call for a mental therapy session instead.
Courting a sincere, strong and non-deceptive foundation to romance is very vital to curtailing this growing, ugly trend of exes turning into bitter enemies after breaking up.