Ambivalence about a relationship

Why Ambivalent Relationships Are Terrible for You (And How to Deal With Them)

There are people we really love — friends and family we consistently enjoy and feel strong affection for.

There are people we completely despise — folks we positively can’t stand.

Then there is a category of people which sits right in between. You might call them “frenemies,” though the “enemy” part of that compound can feel like too strong a descriptor. Social scientists have a better term for these kinds of ties: “ambivalent relationships.”

Both positive and negative elements exist in every relationship. In a good, supportive relationship, the positive significantly outweighs the negative. In a bad, aversive relationship, the negative significantly outweighs the positive. In an ambivalent relationship, neither the positive nor the negative predominates; your feelings about the person are decidedly mixed. Sometimes this person is encouraging, and sometimes they’re critical. Sometimes they’re fun, and sometimes they’re a drag. Sometimes they’re there for you, and sometimes they’re not. Sometimes you really like and even love them, and sometimes they bug the ever-living tar out of you.

We can have ambivalent relationships with co-workers, friends, family, and even our spouses. And while we don’t tend to think about our ambivalent relationships as much as we do those on the more polarized ends of the affection spectrum, they actually make up about half of our social networks.

If we feel so lukewarm about ambivalent relationships, why do we end up in so many of them?

Sometimes you see enough good in a new acquaintance to feel intrigued, and to put aside their more annoying qualities to keep giving them chances and getting to know them. In the early stages of any relationship, its newness generates a dopamine-derived haze that magnifies the other person’s better qualities and downplays their flaws. However as time goes on, and this haze wears off, those flaws increasingly come to the fore and feel progressively more bothersome. But, by that time, you may have hung out enough with the person that it feels like you’re friends, and it’s hard to break up with a friend.

Sometimes the connection you feel with someone is very strong when you first meet, but over the subsequent years and decades, you change, and they change, so that your lifestyles, outlooks, and personalities end up more and more disparate. You still think of yourselves as friends, and still have a bond built on a shared history, but your connection is more conflicted than it once was.

Sometimes you’re friends with someone because your spouse is friends with their spouse. They’re not someone you would have actively chosen to be friends with, but because you spend time together as couples, you end up in a relationship, albeit an ambivalent one.

Sometimes you’re just thrown together with people. There are office colleagues and fellow church congregants and roommates who you neither strongly like nor strongly dislike, but that you come to feel quite familiar with because of how much time you spend together. Sometimes this familiarity rises to the level of affection, and sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes the relationship just kind of is what it is.

Sometimes you simply fail to invest in the maintenance of a marriage. At the start of the relationship, the positive greatly outweighed the negative; over time, and several seasons of neglecting to cultivate your connection, the latter has risen to the level of the former.

And, of course, there’s the whole dynamic of family. You may have grown up around certain blood relations, but you otherwise share little in common, and the fact you still get together is based more on biological bonds, and the expectations around filial piety and familial obligation, than genuine desire and enjoyment. You’re in fact more likely to have ambivalent relationships with family members than friends, which makes sense; while relationships with friends are a matter of voluntary choice, you end up connected to family members by chance.

Why Ambivalent Relationships Are So Terrible for You

Supportive relationships have been shown to buffer stress, boost resilience, and improve physical and mental health.

Aversive relationships have been shown to amplify stress, diminish resilience, and damage physical and mental health.

You might think that because ambivalent relationships feel middle-of-the-road, their impact on your life would be similarly neutral. But in fact, multiple studies have shown that their effect is significantly and uniformly negative, and that “ambivalent relationships not only are less effective at helping individuals cope with stress but also may be sources of stress themselves.”

Studies have found that your blood pressure goes up more when you interact with someone with whom you have an ambivalent relationship, than it does when you interact with someone with whom you have a supportive relationship. Even just anticipating interacting with an ambivalent tie triggers a greater increase in heart rate and blood pressure. Researchers speculate that this heightened stress response is due to the unpredictability of an ambivalent relationship: Are you going to enjoy your time with this person or are you going to get in a fight? Are you going to have fun or just feel annoyed? Are they going to be supportive or critical?

We might hypothesize a couple other reasons that cardiovascular reactivity increases when interacting with ambivalent ties.

One is the greater exercise of self-control you have to muster during one of these interactions; you have to check yourself from rolling your eyes, showing signs of your boredom or frustration, offering an overly harsh rebuttal to an opinion you strongly disagree with — and this takes effort. The heightened stress response experienced around ambivalent ties may also be due to the psychic split you feel over whether you even want to be hanging out with this person at all. You don’t dread seeing them the way you might the dentist, but you don’t really look forward to seeing them, either. The interaction feels more compulsory than voluntary, more obligatory than willful, and we feel a measure of frustration when we don’t experience ourselves as fully autonomous and have to do things that are contrary to our personal desires.

Here’s the really surprising thing: blood pressure not only rises more when you’re interacting with an ambivalent tie versus a supportive one, it also rises more when you’re interacting with an ambivalent tie than it does when you’re interacting with an aversive one. In other words, you feel more stressed when interacting with someone you like/dislike, than you do when interacting with someone you entirely dislike.

The reason for this counterintuitive phenomenon goes back to the uncertainty surrounding an ambivalent relationship. With an aversive relationship, you know exactly where to set your (very low) expectations. You already know the interaction isn’t going to be pleasant. You’re inured to its inherent negativity. You also don’t care about an aversive person, so if they say or do something negative or hurtful, you take it with a grain of salt. With an ambivalent tie, however, you never know what you’re going to get, and this unpredictability creates stress. Plus, since you do care about them, and may have a close relationship with them, when they say or do negative things, it’s significantly more irksome. You can never entirely relax in the presence of an ambivalent friend.

Given that we feel stressed when interacting with ambivalent ties, we unsurprisingly turn to them a little less often than we do to our supportive relationships, whether in a positive (e. g., sharing good news), negative (e.g., sharing bad news), or neutral context. And when we do turn to our ambivalent relationships, we’re less open and share less about ourselves and what’s going on in our lives. This is likely because, as research has found, we don’t experience the responses of our ambivalent friends/partners/family members as supportive. In fact, research suggests that even when an ambivalent friend offers active support when you’re in the midst of tackling something stressful, their presence doesn’t have any stress-buffering effects whatsoever, and isn’t any better than having no support at all.

We might hypothesize that people also tend to share less with their ambivalent ties because self-disclosure is one of the primary things that builds intimacy, and people are, well, ambivalent as to whether or not they want to get closer to folks they have such mixed feelings about. People think, “Well, we’re in a relationship, and sharing things is what people in a relationship do, but I’m not 100% sure I even want to be in this relationship, so I’ll share, but I’ll only share a little. ”

This emotional distancing and disengagement only leads to deeper ambivalence. Studies have found that spouses who feel ambivalent about each other have less intimacy in their marriage.

Whether from the stress, the lack of effective support, the impoverished intimacy, or the general burden of constantly keeping a handle on conflicted feelings, people who have a greater number of ambivalent ties in their social network are more likely to experience cardiovascular reactivity, anxiety, interpersonal conflict, and depression, and may even suffer accelerated aging as well. And this is true regardless of the number of supportive ties they also have in their network.

In short, ambivalent relationships are pretty terrible for your all-around well-being.

How to Deal With Ambivalent Relationships

When psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad, who authored many of the studies cited above, began to get a sense of the impact that ambivalent relationships have on people, a subsequent question naturally arose: If ambivalent relationships are so potentially detrimental, why do people maintain them?

While she found that people gave various answers, from external barriers like being stuck in the same workplace, to feelings of obligation, folks most frequently said that they held onto their ambivalent ties because of the positive aspects they perceived in these relationships.

You might be maintaining your ambivalent relationships for a similar reason. But once you know what the research says about these ties, you might want to reevaluate this assessment, considering whether a certain relationship really is a net boon in your life, and if it ultimately isn’t, how to mitigate its potentially negative effects.

When it comes to how to do that, your recourses to action take three primary forms: removing the relationship, reframing the relationship, or recalibrating the relationship’s ratio of positive to negative elements. Which of these three R’s you should pursue depends on which category a particular relationship falls into.

The first category of ambivalent relationships includes people you feel generally indifferent about. You don’t share some backstory like a long history or a family bond. These people annoy and frustrate you, and while there’s some good to the relationship too, contemplating losing that good only makes you shrug your shoulders. People you were randomly thrown together with — roommates, co-workers, associates in the various organizations to which you belong — are apt to fall into this category.

Removal is your best strategy here, and you should feel free to pursue it without guilt, as it will benefit your life with minimal downside. Request to do more fieldwork outside the office; avail yourself of WFH options; request to serve in a different position at church; find a new roommate (or decide to live by yourself) once your lease is up. Of course, you can’t always easily extricate yourself from these situations, but doing so may be more possible than you think, and if it isn’t possible to get away from an ambivalent person altogether, you can at least look for ways to put more distance between you. As Eric Barker recommended in our podcast interview with him, keep the relationship strictly transactional.

The next category of ambivalent relationships includes people you do have a backstory with — family members or folks you’ve been friends with for years — and do feel possess some positive aspect you’d like to hold onto. However, when you really think about it, you realize that your backstory with this person is the positive aspect of the relationship, and the relationship doesn’t actually impart something good to your life outside of it.

How to navigate these relationships represents one of the thorniest, most difficult questions in life. On the one hand, you have a righteous desire to be committed and loyal. This person may have done a lot for you and you want to reciprocate. You may feel like you owe them. On the other hand, you want to look out for yourself, and while you may sometimes protest to the contrary, you have probably viscerally felt that these relationships are a net drag on your life.

There are no easy answers here. If there’s one bit of advice that’s universally applicable, it’s that everyone can probably put a little more distance between themselves and this kind of relationship than they currently have. You can have a little less contact. You can say no a little more often. If you struggle to do so without guilt, keep these things in mind:

1) While the desire to be loyal is a worthy one, it’s not always connected to a higher plane of virtue, but to an ingrained evolutionary impulse — a basic instinct to contribute to mutual survival that isn’t nearly as relevant and applicable in the modern age. 2) Just because you share a past with someone doesn’t necessarily mean you need to share a future. 3) While you feel like you may “owe” people, the extent of this debt, and when it is “paid,” is inherently subjective and unclear. For example, people often say that children “owe” their parents for raising them. Yet, speaking for ourselves, neither of us experiences parenting as an altruistic, unselfish endeavor. Instead, we feel that our kids have at least given us as much as we’ve given them; our lives would be hugely impoverished without them! We don’t feel like either party owes the other; it’s a reciprocal, mutually beneficial relationship. 4) The language of obligation is often thrown around in the absence of investment, i. e., someone doesn’t make the effort to be the kind of person you’d willfully want to have a relationship with, and so they resort to appealing to duty to keep you tied to them. Might we all be better off if we based relationships more on genuine, mutual, voluntary, intentional, earned connection and affection, rather than a standard like “years known” or where it is that people randomly, passively fall in a family tree?

A third category of ambivalent relationships includes people with whom we do feel a genuine connection and who do offer a real, perhaps even irreplaceable, aspect of positivity, even if they sometimes drive us bananas. These folks may be worth holding onto, but not in the context of the default relationship you currently maintain.

Here you can work to mitigate some of the frustration and stress this type of relationship can generate in your life, by reframing your expectations for it.

Oftentimes, we want every friend to be the end-all-be-all for us — someone with whom we connect on nearly every level. These kinds of bosom buddies are surely one of life’s greatest treasures, but they are a rarity, rather than the norm. With most people, there are going to be places you align, and places you conflict. The trick to appreciating these folks is not to expect them to be a relational jack-of-all-trades, but to enjoy them for their particular “specialty.” You wouldn’t call a carpenter to unclog your sink, and you shouldn’t call your fun-but-not-particularly-empathetic friend to talk through some setback. Enjoy people in the contexts in which they shine, while avoiding interacting with them in the contexts where they frustrate. Don’t expect your flaky friend to show up for you at the hospital, but appreciate what a hoot he is at parties. Don’t expect your overly-competitive brother to ever be able to play basketball with you without losing his cool, but appreciate the way he always has good feedback about how to build your business.

Marriage represents the final, special category of ambivalent ties. Having pledged a solemn, voluntary vow to your spouse, you should want to stick around and feel a duty towards making your marriage last. And you probably want to experience a level of intimacy with them that goes beyond only connecting in certain contexts.

Nearly every romantic relationship starts with a very high degree of positivity, and a very low degree of negativity. But in the post-honeymoon period, the latter can begin to creep up, both because spouses start to take each other for granted — slacking in the little niceties and affection-building behaviors that once drew them together — and because the goggles of new love fall off, so that each partner begins to see flaws in the other they hadn’t noticed before. After the swooning season subsidies, romantic partners may not come to outright despise each other, but the feeling between them may turn decidedly “meh.”

Fortunately, the closeness of marriage, the fact that you have so many moments of daily interaction, provides plenty of material that can be rejiggered towards a better and more intimate relationship. If the happiness of early love rested on having a positive ratio of good to bad in the relationship, the task of the ambivalent couple is to restore that balance. You can find a complete guide on how to make these kinds of positive deposits in your relational “bank account” here.

Life’s Too Short to Live in a Relational Gray Area

It would be short-sighted and immature to expect everyone in your life to be someone with whom you’re well matched. In reality, you won’t come to really like the vast majority of people you meet. Yet within this sizable cohort of ambivalent ties will reside plenty of folks who may serve valuable roles in your life. Learning to get along with various kinds of people and navigate interpersonal differences is part of how we grow as humans.

Yet, there’s a difference between life-enhancing stress, which works towards your greater good, and life-negating stress, which simply grates. Discerning which category your ambivalent relationships fall into takes an ample dose of phronesis — the kind of intentional reflection which most people don’t engage in when it comes to this area of their lives.

Research shows that people have as much contact with their ambivalent ties as they do their primarily positive ones, and while they turn to the latter a little more often than the former for support, they still lean on their ambivalent relationships quite a lot too, despite the fact that the support those relationships offers doesn’t actually feel supportive. This suggests that many people hold onto ambivalent relationships from a fear of loneliness, and the feeling that having someone, anyone, around is better than having no one.

It’s true that loneliness carries its own significant risks to physical and mental health, and no research has yet directly studied which is worse for you: having lots of ambivalent relationships or being alone. But in most cases, folks don’t have to make such a binary choice. Ambivalent ties only make up half of the average person’s social network, so that if they choose to distance themselves from their lukewarm relationships, half of their ties will still remain. Shrinking your social circle in this way so that it’s dialed down to just the people who are true positives — opting for quality over quantity — may ultimately be more of a gain, than a loss; life’s too dang short to spend it hanging out in the tepid gray zone of relationships.

___________

Citations for all the research studies mentioned above can be found in this summary paper authored by Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Bert N. Uchino.

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10 Signs of Ambivalence in a Relationship

In This Article

There are many relationship types, such as healthy, toxic, and ambivalent. Ambivalence in a relationship is seen when a partner does not know where you stand with them. Even though you do things together, they can still be unsure of their feelings.

If your partner has a blast with their friends, they may feel drained with you. Continue reading to know the ten signs of ambivalence in a relationship and what you can do about it.

Ambivalent relationship: What is it?

What is an ambivalent relationship? It means a partner cannot decide if they want to be in a relationship with someone or not. They can feel connected emotionally to this person, but they sometimes think they can have a better partner.

They also feel frustration and anxiety because they cannot leave this relationship.

To illustrate, they feel happy about how their partner treats them. Nevertheless, they also feel the desire to leave this person because of the other aspects of the relationship that they do not like.

They suddenly realize that they like their partner’s caring and generous nature when they decide to leave.

However, implicit ambivalence may have benefits when it comes to relationships. Read this research to know more.

Also Try: Quiz: Do You Have An Ambivalent Marriage?

What are the causes of an ambivalent relationship?

A sign of being in an ambivalent relationship is seeking validation of love and affection. One might not be trusting of others, so they need to validate the relationship. These can result in extreme behaviors since there is a fear of getting separated.

However, there is a feeling of dissatisfaction that does not resolve. Even though they feel connected and happy with their partner, it is only for a short period. Feeling deprived and anxious in their relationship is a possible sign of an ambivalent relationship.

What causes ambivalence in relationships?

Here are the most common cause of ambivalence in a relationship:

1. Feeling torn

Nothing is constant in relationships. Values and beliefs change. Some couples compromise, but some do not. When there is a difference, it can cause ambivalence in a relationship. That is because one partner struggles to convince the other to have the same value or belief.

2. Feeling scared of consequences

It is natural to feel worried about what can happen if you express your concerns to your partner. That is because it can cause conflicts or arguments. However, ambivalent attachment in relationships is when one fears expressing their concerns. Even though they are unhappy, they keep silent because they do not want to disrupt the relationship.

To understand the ambivalence attachment style even better, watch this video.

How to determine ambivalent relationship

Do you feel like you have an ambivalent attachment pattern but are unsure whether that is the case? You can confirm your gut feeling with the following signs:

1. You only had casual relationships

One huge sign of being ambivalent with your relationship is that your dating history was mostly composed of casual hookups. When you get into serious relationships, they tend to be easily frustrated most of the time.

2. You are very critical of your partner

At the beginning of your relationship, you may have felt like your partner was the best person on earth. However, as time passes by, you eventually get critical about them to the point where you see no redeeming qualities at all.

3. Your relationship is on and off

Another big sign of feeling ambivalent about a relationship is when every fight results in a break-up. Then, you will eventually patch up and get back together.

10 signs of an ambivalent relationship

Are you feeling ambivalent about a relationship but not sure whether that is the case? These are the top signs that will confirm your suspicion.

1. Not investing themselves a lot in the relationship

If someone did not get enough attention during their childhood, they keep themselves guarded to avoid getting hurt. Therefore, this can result in being very selfish in relationships. Your partner does not invest a lot in your or any relationship since they care more about themselves.

2. Enjoying being on your own

If your partner prefers to be alone, that’s a sign of ambivalent behavior. You might say they are introverts, but this kind of partner is difficult to bond with and open up to. They do not want to spend time and prioritize their me-time.

Put simply, your partner can be a loner who does not want to reach out to you or their friends.

3. Engaging in shallow talks

Ambivalent people are great at starting short conversations and easily breaking the ice. Nevertheless, you can notice that talking to them lacks depth after a certain period.

If your partner is like this, this can be their method to avoid deep conversations and protect their emotions. Asking them a profound question about your relationship can either change the topic or do not answer.

4. Being insecure and clingy

Many ambivalent relationships go through difficulties due to insecurities, imbalance, and confusion. If you have a partner like this, they want to feel reassured about your relationship all the time, even though they are not completely committed to it.

You can notice that they send you messages or call you all the time. When you do not reply right away, they can feel nervous. Being possessive is an indicator that you are in an ambivalent relationship.

Related Reading: 8 Signs Indicating Insecurity in Relationships

5. Not asking or giving help

Dealing with challenges in their childhood on their own can cause partners to become ambivalent. Therefore, you cannot ask them to help you or expect them to ask for help from you. If you expect help, your partner can get very irritated.

6. Feeling irritated when you want to be near

Ambivalent partners give more importance to their needs and do not regard their partner’s needs or desires in the relationship. If you ask for company, they can feel annoyed. They are indifferent when they emotionally react to it. Not only do they make themselves unavailable, but they also lack empathy.

7. Being called emotional

You are likely in an ambivalent relationship if your partner makes fun of you as being emotional. They have learned to control emotions, so they believe that being emotional is not needed in life.

They might even tell you that you are just seeking attention when you become emotional. They can also say they do not feel emotions. Even when they deny it, they can feel possessive and jealous.

8. Having an on-and-off relationship

An on-and-off relationship often means going through a cycle of breaking up after fighting and getting back together. Therefore, a sign of ambivalence in a relationship has gone through many breakups and reconciliations.

For instance, your partner seems happy for a short time whenever you break up. Then, they want to get back together when they feel sad.

Related Reading: On-and-off Relationship: What Is It, Causes & How to Fix It

9. Becoming critical

Before, your partner thought of you as the best person in the world, and you are the ideal match for them. However, you noticed that they had become more critical of you as time went by. You feel like your partner does not see anything good in you.

They do not directly point out these flaws since they do not want to hurt you.

10. Not including you in their plans

There are moments when you feel like your partner is happy to share their plans. However, there are times that they seem to avoid including you in their plans. For instance, you might notice your partner not wanting to be with you when they have plans with their family or friends.

How do you fix a relationship ambivalence?

Suppose you are in an ambivalent relationship style. In that case, the following tips can help you fix it:

1. Do not attempt to change them

Because most people with ambivalent personalities continuously deal with their insecurities and anxieties from their childhood. They are looking for ways to escape these feelings.

Therefore, if you pressure them to change, this might affect them and make them feel more shameful and guilty. It is best to support them in their relationship as they heal and recover.

2. Open up on how the relationship is affecting you

Your partner likely has a lot of relationship baggage. This makes it more suitable to open up to them about how their actions and behaviors affect you. You can explain how these have made you feel worse, unloved, and ignored.

This can be risky, but it is a possible solution to relationship ambivalence. You can consult a professional to support your relationship further.

3. End the relationship if you feel trapped

You have also gone through a lot in this toxic relationship. If you feel like it is too much, you can decide to end it. Rather than going through emotional ambivalence in relationships and feeling captive, you can break the hardships and challenges in your relationship.

You can seek help from your family, friends, or a professional if you feel very hurt inside. You can take the time to heal by going on a holiday detox.

You might need to accept that there is nothing to do to save the relationship. Some relationships are bound to end even though you tried your very best. If you continue, the relationship will be more toxic and worse eventually.

All people have the right to have a dignified and peaceful relationship. This can only be achieved if both partners are satisfied in their lives.

Conclusion

Finally, you understand what ambivalence in a relationship is and its signs. Even though time was lost in trying to understand and deal with a toxic relationship like this, you can save yourself from suffering in the future.

Feeling satisfied is the most important recipe in a relationship. Considering counseling can help you and your partner mutual satisfaction. If it is not possible, you should not drain your energy in trying to save the relationship.

Ambivalence. What is "ambivalence"? The concept and definition of the term "Ambivalence" - Glossary

Glossary. Psychological dictionary.

Ambivalence (from Latin ambo - both + valentia - strength): a person's dual attitude towards something. Most often, we are talking about the duality of experience that a person undergoes, experiencing conflicting feelings for the same object. This term was formulated and introduced into use by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler. He considered ambivalence to be the main symptom of schizophrenia.

According to Bleuler, ambivalence is divided into three types. The first type is emotional ambivalence. This is an internally contradictory emotional state or experience, which is associated with an ambivalent attitude towards a person, object, phenomenon, and which a person simultaneously accepts and rejects. An example of emotional ambivalence is the jealousy of one person for another: ambivalence here is expressed in the fact that the “jealous” feels both love and hatred towards a loved one. The second type of ambivalence is volitional (it is also motivational), which is expressed in the eternal oscillation between two opposite decisions. Often this leads to the fact that a person, unable to choose any one option, eventually refuses to make a decision at all. nine0003

The last type is intellectual ambivalence. In this case, human reasoning is characterized by an alternation of diametrically opposed and contradictory ideas.

Sigmund Freud believed that ambivalence is a broader term, meaning the initial coexistence of opposing deep drives inherent in a person, the most fundamental of which are the life drive and the death drive.

There are two understandings of ambivalence in modern psychology:

1. In psychoanalysis, ambivalence is a complex range of feelings that a person experiences for someone. It is assumed that ambivalence is normal in relation to those whose role in a person's life cannot be clearly defined. If feelings are only positive or only negative (that is, they are unipolar), then this is considered a manifestation of idealization and depreciation. In this case, it is assumed that the person's feelings are initially ambivalent, but he does not realize this.

2. In clinical psychology and psychiatry, ambivalence is understood as what in psychoanalysis is called "ego splitting", that is, a polar change in the patient's attitude towards someone / something. The same phenomenon or person can cause only negative emotions in the morning, positive emotions in the afternoon, and again only negative emotions in the evening. nine0003

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What is ambivalence and why do we experience conflicting feelings

Many people, and especially girls, at least sometimes, but faced with an ambiguous manifestation of feelings for another person. I want to spend more time around, but it’s impossible to be around - quarrels and showdowns begin. The feeling of “love and hate” is a feeling that in psychology is called “ambivalence”. nine0003

In this article, we will explain what ambivalent feelings are, what ambivalence can be, and how to deal with conflicting feelings.

What is an ambivalent attitude

The concept of "ambivalence" comes from the Latin words "ambi", which means double, dual, and "valentia" - strength. That is, the literal translation is “double strength, dual sensation.”

That is, in simple words, this is an ambivalent attitude towards the object. The dual manifestation of emotions, both positive and negative, which have the same degree of manifestation. nine0003

To speak specifically about ambivalence, it is necessary that the same reason, moment or factor evoke an ambiguous attitude and ambiguous feelings.

Situation example. When bungee jumping, you feel fear and euphoria at the same time - this is ambivalence. You eat oysters - their taste causes disgust and pleasure at the same time - these are also ambivalent emotions. But if you like your job because you are close to home, but you don't like what you do, it's not a double feeling anymore. nine0003

For a mentally healthy person, ambivalence is not dangerous - he can make a decision and make a choice. But for suspicious, suggestible and anxious people, the ambivalence of feelings will bring discomfort, fear, doubts. If this happens, you need to seek help from a psychologist.

Sign up for an online consultation if you have low self-esteem, you do not feel confident, you have difficulty making decisions, you have a fear of the future. These may be symptoms of ambivalence. Our psychologists will help you get out of a difficult situation, resolve your concern and save your nervous system. nine0003

Ambivalent approach in different areas

Psychology and psychiatry divide ambivalent feelings into several categories, in fact, dividing them into areas of life:

Types of ambivalence	Characteristic
nine0002 Emotional ambivalence	Duality of emotions, feelings and thinking. Most often manifested in romantic relationships and affection. Sexual ambivalence can also fall into this category.
Volitional duality	Also referred to as "ambitency". When a person has opposite goals and cannot decide. nine0003
Intellectual duality	A person has several diverse ideas and he cannot decide which one to implement.
Social ambivalence	Double behavior based on the generally accepted "rules" and "laws" of a single group of people. For example, if a person attends church, but claims to not believe in God. nine0003

Causes of the ambivalent state

Experts agree that several factors can provoke ambivalent experiences and similar behavior:

alcohol and drug addiction
use of psychotropic drugs
depression
low self-esteem
infantilism
severe stress
episodes of violence and abusive relationships
excessive criticism

Many factors influencing the duality of adult behavior arise in childhood and are fixed in the subconscious.

The dual nature of the personality does not give anything good both to the person himself and to those around him. Doubts, discomfort, fear, as consequences of ambivalence, lead to neuroses. nine0238
In psychiatry, ambivalence is not an independent mental disorder. It often manifests itself in various mental illnesses:

schizophrenia

OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)

psychoses

various phobias

panic attacks

Book an online consultation if you or your child has experienced severe stress or depression. Our psychologists will consult over the phone and help you find the cause of a mental disorder, tell you how to increase self-esteem, learn how to make decisions and avoid serious health problems. nine0003
Status correction

Since ambivalence is the cause of more serious mental disorders, it means that it must be treated based on the disease that caused such a condition. Only a specialized doctor, a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist, can determine what kind of mental disorder has “overtaken” the patient. Self-diagnosis of the pathology of the psyche will not work.

The specialist takes into account the individual characteristics of each person, collects an anamnesis, conducts a conversation and prescribes, as a rule, complex therapy. nine0003
Of the drugs, antipsychotics, antidepressants, tranquilizers, sedatives, hypnotics and drugs from the group of nootropics are prescribed.

In addition to drug treatment, therapy with a psychologist also helps ambivalent people. These can be personal conversations, group therapy sessions, special trainings and courses.

Important! A constant feeling of anxiety, worries, a depressive mood prevent a person from making informed and informed decisions. Therefore, it is necessary to get out of such a state as soon as possible so that it does not lead to mental disorders and ambivalence. nine0003
FAQ

What does ambivalence mean?

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We gave the definition of this concept at the very beginning of the article - this is a dual feeling, a contradiction of experiences, sensations and emotions in relation to any object (person, object, phenomenon).

What are the reasons for the development of duality in children?

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Dual behavior in children develops due to a lack of parental love, care, and attention. Also, parents who are overprotective or overly demanding, children grow up with an ambivalent attitude. nine0003
Is obsessive attachment and hatred an ambivalence?

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Yes, if such emotions arise in relation to one person, then these are dual feelings. Consult a psychologist to correct your behavior.

How does duality manifest itself in behavior?

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A person does not act as he voices, he is contradictory, confused, conflicting, neurotic, apathetic, inhibited. nine0003
Why is duality dangerous?

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It can lead to alcohol, drug and tobacco addictions, severe stress, somatic disorders and mental illness, as well as hobbies for various occult practices and hobbies.

Expert opinion

The meaning of ambivalence is contradiction and duality. Normally, almost every person experiences such sensations in relation to one object or event. If the feeling of duality is temporary, then there is nothing to worry about. But if the opposite emotions interfere with your normal life, bring anxiety, affect your psycho-emotional health, then you need to seek help from a psychologist. nine0003
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Article author

Albina Monakhova clinical psychologist nine0003
Experience 17 years

Consultations 1439

Articles 292

Specialist in clinical psychology.
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