While I am convalescing from my surgery, I am reading a stack of old magazines I picked up at the library. In an issue of Psychology Today from 2006, I read the blurb below, which reminded me of this thread:

Tainted Love. He loves me, he loves me not. Yale researchers found that people who tend to see their mates as either all good or all bad lack self-esteem. They struggle with conflicting desires: to form close relationships yet avoid rejection at all costs. When these Jekyll-and-Hydes feel most vulnerable, they retreat into self-protection mode and withdraw their loving feelings.

This sounds so much like the "I love him, I hate him" cycle Pink describes with her T. Could improving self-esteem help circumvent the cycle? Is the "I hate him" phase just a self-protective mechanism? I definitely have self-protective strategies, but don't express them as "I hate him." I find these ideas really interesting and it makes me wonder even more if people who experience the "I love him/I hate him" with their T have the same pattern in their marriages and other love relationships?