Why Love feels like poison

Man is imperfect by nature, and love is the means through which he may attain wholeness. Jung described being in love as the opening of the heart, i.e., to care deeply, to relate with others, and therefore with life itself. Other emotions, like hate or anger, weaken with time and distance; love, if real, deepens.
The tragedy of modernity is that it made what was meant to be felt into something transactional. People started to search for the ‘utility’ in what was supposed to be selfless.
Humans crave companionship, but if it does not reveal what is hidden inside you or inspire you to do better, it becomes merely a means for validation and dependency, seeking possession, becoming toxic, and leading to chaos.
In true love, the soul envelops the body, said Nietzsche. You begin to see the light in another person. You see the rare and exceptional qualities the person has that are concealed beneath the surface, and you get a glimpse of who they truly are.
All this, however beautiful it may sound, in practice, is really painful. Sometimes people are terrified of being seen; therefore, out of impulse or past experiences, they are wired to push away the ones they love. The moment something/someone genuine and beautiful arrives, they sabotage it themselves because deep down they have a belief that they don’t deserve happiness, therefore reinforcing the loop of despair and suffering. This eventually leads to a nihilistic belief that the world is terrible and people are just there to get them. We mistake numbness for detachment and escapism for enjoyment.
The Truth is that we close ourselves off to the world because we are afraid of rejection consciously, but more than that, of acceptance unconsciously. Because a person who genuinely loves you would not enable anything that can harm you, and this demands a change, which can be painful. This is why love feels like poison, which is partly right, but actually something inside is dying as a necessary consequence of the transformation towards your higher self.
Love and Truth are the only real antidote to long-term misery.
Truth reveals, and love heals, by breaking your heart until it opens up completely.
People become afraid of vulnerability; they seem to forget that the right person will not be repelled by their insecurities or trauma but will love them despite. That is the essential coming together of two souls, not opposites but reflections of each other, not contradictory but complementary: the anima and the animus.
So, it seems that the real question is not whether love hurts, but whether it is worth it. If even a moment of genuine happiness can lighten up a lifetime, then maybe it was never a question at all.
Or as the dreamer concludes in White Nights- “A whole minute of bliss! Is that not enough for a lifetime?”