Horrible thoughts

http://www.thebookoflife.org/why-we-sometimes-hope-the-people-we-love-might-die/

Quote:

Being close to someone necessarily involves a high degree of what therapists call ‘ambivalence,’ a blending of deeply negative and positive thoughts. When people play an outsize role in our lives, when they have an enormous emotional power over us, when our debt to them is immense, we will both adore and at points resent them hugely. There will be tenderness and rage; attachment and revulsion. They can let us down like few others can, they know our weakest spots, they enchant but also exhaust us.

We’re not actually going to do anything – of course. We’re not even taking the tiniest preparatory steps; we would never buy poison or encourage them to go cliff-walking on stormy evenings. But there is relief to be found in the odd grim daydream nevertheless.

Fantasies are not plans of action. They don’t correspond to our real values or intentions. They operate as momentary escapes from powerful feelings. We fantasise about the death of a loved one not because we truly want them gone but because being close to them is such a large and therefore at times tricky part of our lives. Our fantasy is a strange but real tribute to the depth of our bond. The guilt is a symptom that despite the inevitable and very real tensions and disappointments of the relationship, we care about them very much. The meaning of the fantasy isn’t that we are sick. It’s that loving someone is never free of frustration.