There are emotions Christians are comfortable admitting. We talk about love, joy, peace, gratitude, hope, and compassion. But there are other emotions we would rather keep hidden because they don’t sound particularly Christian. Hatred is certainly one of them. Yet lately I have found myself wrestling with a question I never expected to ask: Can you love someone and hate them at the same time?
I think the uncomfortable answer is yes. I don’t mean that hatred is something we should nurture or justify. Scripture repeatedly warns us about bitterness, anger, vengeance, and hatred. But I also don’t believe healing begins by pretending emotions aren’t there. Sometimes the person who has wounded you most deeply is also someone you deeply loved. Sometimes compassion and resentment occupy the same heart. Sometimes you can pray for someone in the morning and be furious with them by afternoon. The Bible doesn’t hide these kinds of complicated relationships from us.
One of the clearest examples may be the relationship between David and his son Absalom. Absalom wasn’t merely disrespectful toward his father. He betrayed him. He undermined David’s authority, stole the hearts of the people, declared himself king, and forced his own father to flee Jerusalem. This was an extraordinarily painful betrayal within a family. Yet when David’s soldiers prepared to fight Absalom’s forces, David gave them a remarkable command: “Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom” (2 Samuel 18:5). David had been betrayed, humiliated, and driven from his home, but Absalom was still his son.
Then David received the news that Absalom had been killed. He didn’t celebrate the death of his enemy. He broke down, crying, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee” (2 Samuel 18:33). That’s complicated love. David could recognize the terrible things Absalom had done while still grieving for the person who had done them. Betrayal hadn’t magically erased the relationship that existed between them. Sometimes that’s what broken relationships look like. You can be deeply wounded by someone and still care about them.
Psalm 55 captures another dimension of this pain. David writes, “For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it… But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance” (Psalm 55:12–13). Then he remembers what their relationship once looked like: “We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company” (Psalm 55:14). That may be one of the most painful forms of betrayal. If somebody who doesn’t like me attacks me, I expect it. If a stranger says something terrible about me, it may sting, but eventually I can walk away. But betrayal from someone you loved is different. They know your weaknesses. They know your history. They know your dreams. They know what hurts you. They know the life you shared together.
That’s why betrayal within a marriage or family can create emotions that seem completely contradictory. You can experience love and anger, compassion and resentment, grief and relief, longing and rejection. You remember the person you once loved while simultaneously struggling with what you believe that person has done.
This is where this subject becomes painfully personal for me. There is still a very small part of me that loves my wife. We’ve shared many years together. She is the mother of my children. I remember the life we built together, the ordinary days, the family traditions, the struggles we survived, and the dreams we once had. I also have compassion for what she is going through. I know that her life isn’t easy either. I know she carries burdens of her own, and there are moments when I genuinely hurt for her. There are even moments when I wish I could somehow make things easier for her.
And then there is another part of me that says something completely different: I hate her. That’s difficult for me to write, especially as a Christian, but it is an honest description of an emotion I am wrestling with. I hate what I believe has happened between us. I hate the betrayal I feel. I hate the decisions that have been made. I hate what has happened to our family. I hate how far removed I have become from the lives of my boys. I hate looking at what used to be our family and realizing how completely different everything is now. Sometimes that hatred becomes directed not merely toward what happened, but toward her.
And that’s the part I have to bring before God. There is an important difference between saying “I hate what you have done” and allowing my heart to settle permanently into “I hate you.” Romans 12:9 says, “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.” There are things we should hate. We should hate sin. We should hate deception, injustice, cruelty, betrayal, and everything else that destroys people. But I don’t want hatred of what has happened to become hatred that consumes me.
Perhaps the hardest part for me is that I don’t know how we could ever simply put everything back together. There was a time when I believed reconciliation was possible. I wanted my family restored. I wanted my marriage restored. I wanted us all under the same roof again, but prolonged separation and deep hurt change things. I can still believe marriage matters and admit that I don’t know how ours could be repaired. I can still have compassion for my wife while admitting that there are days when I don’t ever want to see her again. I can still remember the woman I loved while struggling with enormous anger toward the woman I believe has hurt me, and I can still want something good for my family without knowing what “good” even looks like anymore.
If reconciliation ever happened, I don’t think it could mean pretending the past never happened. You cannot rebuild trust by ignoring the reasons trust disappeared. Forgiveness, reconciliation, and restored trust aren’t necessarily the same thing. Forgiveness can begin in one heart; reconciliation requires two people willing to face the truth, take responsibility where responsibility belongs, change where change is necessary, and patiently rebuild what was broken. Right now, I don’t believe that will ever happen for us, and that’s one of the hardest things for me to admit.
Jesus said something incredibly difficult in Matthew 5:44: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say to pretend they didn’t hurt you. He doesn’t say to automatically trust everyone who has betrayed you. He doesn’t say you must feel affection toward someone who wounded you. He commands love.
Biblical love is bigger than an emotion. Sometimes love is praying for someone when you don’t particularly want to. Sometimes it is refusing to retaliate. Sometimes it is asking God to work in someone’s life while simultaneously asking Him to heal the damage you believe that person caused in yours, and sometimes love means saying, “God, I cannot fix what I’m feeling right now. You’re going to have to change my heart.”
The emotion of hatred tells me that I am wounded, but what I do with that emotion determines something much more important. I can feed hatred. I can replay every offense. I can rehearse arguments in my head. I can imagine revenge. I can allow bitterness to become part of my identity. Or I can bring the ugly, uncomfortable truth to God: “Lord, I don’t know if I have any love left for my wife, but I do have compassion for her, and right now, part of me hates her too. I don’t know what to do with all of that.”
God already knows. I’m not giving Him new information. The Psalms show us that God would rather hear the painful truth of our hearts than a sanitized prayer designed to make us sound spiritual. But bringing hatred to God isn’t the same thing as asking Him to approve it. It means allowing Him to confront it. Maybe eventually God changes “I hate her” into “I hate what happened.” Maybe eventually He changes anger into grief. Maybe grief eventually becomes forgiveness. Maybe forgiveness eventually becomes peace, and perhaps peace will come eventually after the divorce papers are signed. I don’t know yet.
Maybe that’s where I am right now. I don’t have a neat conclusion. I have compassion for my wife. I’m angry with her. I feel betrayed by her. There are moments when I hate her, and I don’t believe that we could ever sit together as husband and wife again and somehow rebuild everything that has been lost. Those things can apparently exist inside the same heart.
But there is one thing I do know: I don’t want hatred to have the final word. Whatever happens to my marriage, whatever happens in court, and whatever my family looks like in the future, I still have to answer for the condition of my own heart. I cannot control another person’s choices. I can control what I continually place before God.
So perhaps my prayer right now isn’t, “God, make everything the way it used to be.” Maybe it’s simpler: “God, don’t let what has happened to me turn me into someone I don’t want to become. Teach me how to love when I am angry, forgive when I am wounded, have compassion without denying the truth, and trust You with the things I cannot repair.”
Because sometimes love and hatred really do seem to occupy the same heart. The question is which one I am going to feed.
