The Opposite of Love is Not Hate

The opposite of being totally consumed by someone you cannot live without is not being totally consumed by someone you can't stand.  The consumption is still there, only inverted.  The opposite of love, therefore, is not hate...

it's indifference, or a complete lack of feeling.  The opposite of being totally consumed with emotions for someone is to feel nothing at all.  To wish them a good life and move on.  To feel no jealousy when you find out they are seeing someone else and to take no comfort and find no glee in their tragedies.  You have moved on.

I'm currently working with a divorced couple who are having trouble embracing this concept.  Though divorced, they continue to rage on in their never ending battle with each other, using their son as the battleground.  Visitations, holidays, child support - you name it - they are all excuses for power struggles, mind games and volatile attempts to trump the other.  This is not the opposite of love.  It is a bastardization of it.  They both continue to devote huge portions of their lives on revenge, to wreak havoc on each other's emotions and to toy with each other's minds.  They continue to fill each other's thoughts as they plot the next move or counterpoint.  They push each other's buttons and pull each other's chains.  The consumption and passion remain, only now, they are channeled into vengeful destruction.