Date Them till You Hate Them” – What is TikTok’s New Dating Trend Means?

Summary

• “Date Them Till You Hate Them” is a dating trend where couples stay in unhappy relationships until love turns into resentment, believing it makes breakups easier.
• People follow this trend due to fear of confrontation, emotional exhaustion, loneliness, guilt, or difficulty setting healthy boundaries.
• Experts like Shivani Misri Sadhoo believe this approach can damage self-esteem, increase emotional stress, and prevent healthy communication and mature closure.

TikTok’s viral “Date Them Till You Hate Them” trend encourages individuals to stay in relationships until resentment completely replaces love. While social media frames this emotional squatting as an easy breakup hack, renowned marriage counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo breaks down the severe psychological toll of avoiding confrontation, building deep-seated resentment, and intentionally eroding your own self-esteem just to escape a difficult conversation.

Falling in love can feel magical. It truly gives you butterflies in the stomach, sleepless nights, and that beautiful feeling that this is perhaps the best thing that could have happened to you. Those little moments, the late-night conversations, the random smiles, the constant urge to hear their voice or see their face somehow make life feel softer, brighter, and infinitely more beautiful. But not all relationships are as smooth sailing as we imagine them to be.

Sometimes they hit such rough patches that couples no longer feel like staying together. So, they decide to break up. There are various ways couples part with each other. Some end things amicably, while others leave behind heartbreak, resentment, and emotional scars that take years to heal. Irrespective of the way, all breakups are painful. Now the question is if there is a way that can make breakups less painful and resentful?

What if we told you that the new dating trend ‘Date Them Till You Hate Them’ could perhaps be the answer to that question?

Eminent Marriage Counsellor, Shivani Misri Sadhoo, explains what this controversial dating trend really means, why so many people are embracing it, and whether it is emotionally healthy in the long run.

What is the Concept Behind This Dating Trend?

‘Date Them till You Hate Them’ basically allows couples to stay in a relationship even when they know that it is not working anymore. It is somewhat like you are delaying the inevitable. Instead of ending the relationship amicably, they simply continue.

They let the disrespect, neglect, coldness, and constant irritation pile up quietly over time. Slowly and gradually the love that once felt so warm and comforting turns into frustration and resentment. The main idea behind this trend is that people believe it is easier to walk away from someone when love has completely died and been replaced by hatred so that the breakup feels less painful and more like a necessary escape.

Couples Therapist Shivani Misri Sadhoo says, “Love should never be stretched to the point where it turns into resentment. Staying in a relationship only until you begin to hate each other may feel easier in the moment, but it slowly damages your emotional well-being, self-worth, and ability to trust love again. Healthy endings require courage, honest communication, and the maturity to walk away before love becomes bitterness.”

— Shivani Misri Sadhoo, Gottman Recommended Indian Marriage Counsellor | Clinical Psychologist at IBS Hospital, Lajpat Nagar, Delhi

Reasons couples do it

1. Afraid to Confront Their Partner – Sometimes, couples find it difficult to have honest conversations. They simply want to avoid unpleasant situations. Calling it quits is not easy, especially when there is history, attachment, and emotional dependence involved. Breaking up often comes with tears, guilt, arguments, and endless explanations. Many people do not feel emotionally equipped to handle all of that.

So, instead of addressing the real issues directly, they continue staying in the relationship until frustration slowly replaces love. Strangely, it feels easier for them to leave when resentment takes over completely.

2. Absence of Love Makes It Easier to End the Relationship – Walking away from someone you still deeply love is painful. But when affection slowly turns into annoyance or even dislike, leaving starts feeling easier. People subconsciously allow resentment to build because it acts like emotional armour.

3. Emotional Exhaustion – Relationships can sometimes become so tiring that people no longer have the energy left to fix them. They are simply exhausted. Rather than trying to mend it or even try to patch things up, they continue the relationship being emotionally detached until one fine day, they start hating each other, and the relationship ends.

4. A Reason for Justification – Many people carry guilt after ending relationships. So, they wait for enough bad behaviour, disappointment, or neglect to pile up so that the breakup feels reasonable, almost inevitable. It becomes easier to tell themselves, “I had no other choice.”

5. To Fight Against Loneliness – Many a time, a couple breaks up only to reunite again to get rid of loneliness or nostalgia. This dating trend helps couples to lose feelings and forget each other completely. This makes it easier to part with each other with no regrets.

6. Inability to Set Healthy Boundaries – Not everybody knows how to break up gracefully. Some people have a hard time articulating what they really feel. They continue to suppress their emotions, hoping that perhaps things will improve over time.

They know the relationship is making them unhappy, but they don’t speak up clearly. They are afraid to hurt their partner, to let them down, to be judged, and this often stops them from taking action. So, they drag the relationship on and on until the emotional distance is too apparent to ignore and the relationship finally collapses under its own weight.

Why Shouldn’t Couples Do It?

1. Teaches Escapism – One of the most harmful effects of this trend is that it teaches people to escape from problems instead of confronting them. Rather than an honest communication with your partner, you prefer to suffer in silence. So, without any real communication, you do not learn how to resolve conflicts.

2. Ruins Self-esteem – By letting yourself be treated poorly by your partner, you are simply ruining your self-esteem.

3. Lose Time – Despite knowing that the relationship is not working out, partners still continue to stay, hoping that this would ease the pain and discomfort of parting from each other. But, what they fail to understand is that in this way, they lose valuable time which they could have utilised in finding genuine happiness.

4. Causes Emotional Turmoil – It is extremely tough to continue a relationship despite knowing that there is nothing left to it. No matter how hard you try, it will end someday. Yet, they want to suffer the emotional chaos, constant frustration, and growing resentment rather than facing the pain of an honest breakup.

It is evident from the article that while this trend might appear to be an easy fix to avoid the pain of heartbreak, it often creates deeper emotional wounds, lowers your self-esteem, and teaches you to escape the problem rather than solve it. Healthy relationships, even healthy breakups, require honest communication, self-respect, emotional maturity, and the courage to walk away without turning love into bitterness.