Hell Hath No Fury: Love, Rage, and In Between
I found myself deleting everything I had written down for this entry. Three or four times, even. I erased and erased until the white page stared back at me, blank and smug.
I didn’t want to give this person the satisfaction of letting him live in my words, in my hands. Especially when I know he’s expecting me to do exactly that.
Although I want to go silent and delay him any pleasure, I also owe it to this little project of mine— and those who pay any attention to it— to be brutally honest.
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” — William Congreve, The Mourning Bride
Before this blog or digital journal or very public diary, I relied on other sources to unleash my swirling, spiraling thoughts. With this new place to funnel questions and ideas, I wonder where the line is. What can be said, where I can take this.
My goal for this website was to be for women entering their twenties who may feel shy to these conversations, or may feel like they need to quiet themselves instead of joining in.
After the first romance to truly impact me, I embraced a loudness I had initially been embarrassed by. Not a loud voice, but rather a loud pride for femininity and sexuality. I scoured online for books, shows, movies, articles, TED talks, YouTube videos— anything— that could explain this urge to embrace a liberated self.
It was working, too. I read Lillian Fishman’s Acts of Service, Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation, Jessica Gross’ Hysteria, Megan Nolan’s Acts of Desperation, Lily King’s Writers and Lovers, and several self-help pieces (a low point). Watched The Edge of Seventeen (2016), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), Lady Bird (2017), Worst Person in the World (2021). Hyper-Fixated on Fleabag (2016).
Desperate to feel related to, I consumed and consumed until my needs seemed a less lonely place. Until the filter I once ran each musing through fell away.
I fell in love with remorseless women. The kind to be unabashedly themselves in any setting.
Except, I saw myself running from honesty with this entry. I felt almost embarrassed by my hurt. Embarrassed to find myself in this position of betrayal.
When you begin the deep dive into breakup advice online, you get told how “unattractive” you become to men when you prove yourself the emotional wreck they assumed you’d be. How “pathetic” they see you when you admit to them their absence kills you.
But how human is it, to sit here with my heart in my stomach and to know I have loved.
Sometimes, that is what should be taught—the beauty of emotion; instead of playing games, worrying about the ‘push and pull method,’ or revenge. We don’t have to constantly be conscious of putting walls up.
The supposed “best” way to act after a breakup is to go off the grid. You are meant to never show them emotion, never beg. You shouldn’t post pictures of yourself with targeted songs or drunk call him a dozen times.
To get over someone & to get them back both require the same strategy: doing nothing to get their attention.
I get ignoring this advice and becoming the “crazy ex.” I hold the title with honor. Two years ago, I spammed through every possible form of contact (including Xbox), begging and pleading. Showed up to his house, work, and football game. Successfully did the whole “guy I told him not to worry about” thing. I was a classic Nutcase.
Long story short, going a little insane and wanting revenge happens. I’m considered great at it. It’s honestly refreshing as a woman— letting your rage free.
Rage isn’t the opposite of femininity— it’s an extension of it. There’s something sacred about fury when it comes loose.
It's not that I wanted to hurt him. It’s that I wanted him to not hurt me. That’s what made me mad.
"Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” — William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Men do react more to an uncaring persona. It works to be distant, to bruise their towering ego. It works to make them chase, to be elusive, to let them question. I’m just exhausted.
The truth is, I’d rather show him the unsent letters collecting dust on my shelves, with lipstick pressed to a signature. To share the countless hours of music compiled in playlists, named after his green eyes. To confess I cared.
I’d prefer a monologue outside his window. A speaker blaring Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. A reminder of the rain we had escaped in my car, where we each claimed the drops falling along the glass and watched them race. Remind him how it felt to just smile at each other silently. When thoughts of how happy I was overwhelmed me as I sat there and memorized his face.
“Remind.” That’s the funny thing about all these romantic notions: you think of them as a way to jog their memory, as a way to get them to remember you.
Yet the closure comes from them never having forgotten.
They know who you are, what you bring, and what it is like to be with you. They chose to leave and disrespect you anyway.
The hurt of this persists ferociously. You will ask yourself “Why?” a hundred times and the answer may never find its way to you.
So now– well. Now he and I hate each other. Even though he promised me he never could. Or at least, we’re pretending to. Hate is just love’s rotten twin.
“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” — John Milton, Paradise Lost
Indifference is meant to be their antonym, their rival. For the obsessive and passionate roots of love and hatred cross over often, the line between them thin and blurry. When we attempt to make the other react, it’s proof of emotion. The ultimate win would be to not show I notice him at all.
But how can I?
Going from skin to skin with someone, reading their most vulnerable writings and vice versa, learning their entire life story— to furious eye contact across a crowded room. From listening to their heartbeat as you lay across their chest, saying “I love you,” making promises— to cruelty lacing their hollow smile.
I’m so frustrated and angry right now. At how he managed to turn everything he once told me into a lie; at how our tearful goodbye was sullied so callously by his actions.
Time will pass, though (as it does, as it always will) and the hatred will fall away. The remnants of love it shields will, at some point, fall away, too.
To be burned by the sun you worshiped— there’s a kind of poetry in that. So I filled in the blank page. I’ll let him live here. But nowhere else.
The brain and heart become both friend and foe in heartbreak. Where one protects you, the other is the unbearably painful reminder you are alive. If you’ve loved someone who forgot how to love you back, I hope you know this rage isn’t shameful. It’s proof you felt deeply.
