Love Hurts



"Love hurts, love scars, love wounds and marks any heart not tough or strong enough to take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain..."

- The Everly Brothers/Nazareth/Cher/etc., "Love Hurts" (possible Trope Namer)

""I must love him for all eternity, despite how painful, aching, excruciating it is...""

-, Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Forget life-threatening superheroism, acting Too Dumb to Live, and Tempting Fate. The most dangerous thing any hero can do in any media is... falling in love. Dare to love someone else and you set up yourself and your beloved for a plethora of emotional griefs. Love in Real Life is responsible for vast quantities of anguished poetry and tragic literature; factor in all the crazy stuff that happens on TV, and drama and disaster are practically guaranteed.

About to commit permanently? Look for an Anyone Can Die to put a permanent end to the Will They or Won't They? issue. Forget to say goodbye to your beloved that one time? It'll haunt you for the rest of your life. And let's not forget that becoming emotionally attached to one person leaves you open to the stress caused by the villain abducting your beloved or them even being killed off senselessly just to shape you into the Anti-Hero, or at the very least a Heartbroken Badass. Your love is hurt but alive? Don't You Dare Pity Me! -- they will shove you away. Or perhaps you'd be their Second Love -- if only they didn't think Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids. Love will make your heart go soft and pitter-pattering into the path to be crushed by the cruel forces of fate against Star-Crossed Lovers. Small wonder that so many try to protect their loved ones by dumping them.

If you've got more than one love interest, you've got a headache-inducing Love Triangle or even Love Dodecahedron on your hands. Tread these waters very carefully, lest you be on the receiving end of a Yandere (disambiguation)'s poisonous affections or a Tsundere's Megaton Punch. Pick one lover and you can look forward to either a Thundering Herd of jilted rivals or the silent shattering of many other hearts. All in the name of comedy, you say? Comedy never became as twisted as it does when dealing with lovers crazy enough to beat down your door, glomp you, and refuse to let go. And remembering the love interest anywhere you go makes it worse.

And heaven forbid if your love turns out to be one-sided. You'll become a crazy Love Hungry psycho stalker if you don't choose to nobly sacrifice your love. Sometimes you'll even go all the way into a full-fledged villain with a grudge against humanity because humanity was not kind enough to let you have that one person. Sometimes it's even your own creator who decides that you can't get them because he couldn't get her in real life!

In the right/wrong genre, even when you win, you lose. Little wonder why many a hero has chosen to be a Genre Savvy Celibate Hero.

However, if you do manage to get it right, love can be the purest and most powerful thing in the world.

Counteracted with Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends. Compare Love Makes You Dumb. Contrast Happily Married.

Anime and Manga
""I'll cut you, punch you, toy with you Kick you, be a cocktease, drip stuff on you But that's just how I express my love.""
 * Anemone and Dominic of Eureka Seven. The dangerous drugs she uses to pilot her mech take her Domestic Abuse Tsundere type behavior way beyond the usual fare. Sure, it can be funny at first to watch her beat the stuffing out of him, but as you gradually realize the depths of his devotion, her cruel indifference or abject violence becomes incredibly painful to watch. On Anemone's side,  she delivers a gut-wrenching soliloquy, convinced that she doesn't deserve to live.
 * Dokuro-chan from Bludgeoning Angel Dokurochan is an extremely brutal and literal version of this. The Opening probably puts this best:

"Akane: You can stop your feeble attempts to cheer me up now. I've got a broken heart, remember? Ranma: Well, then... Akane: Then what? Ranma: Then you gotta realize that these things happen."
 * Dokuro may not even be in love with Sakura. Read the WMGs for that series.
 * Yasu from Umineko no Naku Koro ni, as quoted above.   also struggles with this, most notably in EP6.
 * Apparently, the main reason for Erika's obsession with the truth and her What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway? tendencies is because of a failed relationship with her boyfriend.
 * Roy/Riza. Even aside from the whole  thing, they have been a massive source of pain for one another. Most of the traumatic events they have gone through would most likely never have taken place if they hadn't met each other (Roy wouldn't even , she wouldn't have   and he wouldn't have  ; she has made it clear she doesn't like being in the army or killing people, but she won't quit as long as he needs her). They're practically the direct (albeit non-intentional) cause of everything in the other's life that makes them suffer, and still they're the very thing that makes the other want to go on living.
 * It got worse when  It was nice of Arakawa to not force Roy to choose between the two options, though when you think about the fact that he was seriously considering   you get a little worried at the lengths Roy would go to to keep his Lieutenant by his side.
 * Pick practically ANY hero in ANY Gundam series. If you don't believe me...
 * Mobile Suit Gundam: Amuro Ray.
 * Zeta Gundam: Kamille Bidan . Oh, and of course his sworn rival Jerid Messa
 * Gundam ZZ: Judau Ashta
 * Victory Gundam : Even though nearly every couple in this series doesn't end well, the main character's crush on she becomes an enemy AND in love with the resident Char Clone too!
 * Roybea Roy, the resident Chivalrous Pervert of Gundam X fame is well aware of this, its the reason why he chases away most of his lovers before he aligns with the Freeden crew.
 * Ennil El happens to fall for The Hero Garrod, who, wanting nothing to do with her, aims a gun in her face, she becomes a Stalker with a Crush who follows the Freeden wanting revenge.
 * Gundam Seed: Kira Yamato . Also Murrue Ramius, whose heart goes on. Twice.
 * Gundam Seed Destiny: Shinn Asuka.
 * Not content to ruin just one couple, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 has destroyed several of them.
 * Flit Asuno from Gundam AGE fell for
 * Among those who got off (relatively) easy are:
 * Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team:
 * Gundam 0080:
 * G Gundam: Domon Kasshu
 * In Gundam X losing Tiffa Adil causes Garrod a Heroic BSOD, it didn't last long.
 * Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (again).
 * Then, pick any hero in any Gundam-inspired series:
 * Space Runaway Ideon: Cosmo suffers a Heroic BSOD discovering that.
 * Neon Genesis Evangelion: This is Gendo's Freudian Excuse.
 * One of the main messages of Neon Genesis Evangelion (with the addendum "...but you need it.")
 * Code Geass: Suzaku, then some fifteen episodes later Lelouch.
 * Ayumi from Honey and Clover has a bad case of unrequited love for Takumi, who sees her more like his sister. A lot of the first season of the anime is devoted to Ayumi's suffering because of this. Takumi in turn has a hard time with his feelings for (older) Rika.
 * In One Piece, "Pirate Empress" Boa Hancock of the Seven Warlords of the Sea has the power to turn anyone who's so much as attracted to her to stone. And then when she herself falls in love, she might die by it.
 * This is actually subverted when Hancock falls in love, given that she has decided to help Luffy rather than bottle her feelings within her, as that was the cause of death for two empresses before her, and almost killed the elder/ex-ex-ex empress herself. Except that even though her feelings are sincere and intense , it's almost depressingly apparent that she doesn't really have a chance with Luffy.
 * In all fairness, she has as much chance as any other woman with Luffy. The ultimate Idiot Hero with a degree in Oblivious to Love.
 * It's also painfully obvious Camie the mermaid has a pretty serious thing for Hatchan, but...well...same reasons as above.
 * Sanji would be the king of this trope if he ever realized none of the women he's encountered  ever showed any interest in him.
 * Depending on how you interpret the relationship, Zoro towards Kuina. When you put the possibility in context with his present lack of interest in sex, it makes his back story even more depressing.
 * Lithuania in Axis Powers Hetalia gets all his fingers broken by his crush, the eccentric Yandere (disambiguation) Belarus. He doesn't seem to mind. Russia, who is both Lithuania's boss and Bela's older brother (and even more of a Yandere (disambiguation) than her), has a very twisted, rather one-sided relationship with Lithuania himself, showing his affections through stalking and abuse.
 * It's known that Allied Forces's Team Dad England has a one-sided crush on someone that has brought him at least 100 years of pain, and widely agreed that it's got to be his former colony America. Despite usually being harsh and drunk, he actually gets moments of being The Woobie when his love interest America shoots him down and sometimes looks like he has fun doing it. And then there's *how* they grew apart...
 * Also, Prussia might have feelings for either North Italy or Hungary. Either way, he's screwed because of their respective romantic ties to Germany (Prussia's younger brother and Italy's boyfriend) and Austria (Hungary's ex-husband and current boyfriend).
 * And if there's the other option of him possibly having feelings for Germany or Austria... yup, still a loss either way.
 * How about Turkey? He's strongly implied in canon to have a crush on Japan who's just as strongly implied to prefer his long-time rival Greece over him. And if the Hetalia Wikis are to be believed, he might have also been in love with Ancient Greece a long time ago and ended up killing her, according to the beta version of the drama CD. And if certain parts of the fandom are to be believed, he's actually in love with either Hungary or Greece, who he has combative relations with and spends 90% of his time fighting with the otherwise easygoing and kind nations. Either way you look at it, he sure gets the short end of the stick when it comes to romance. (Unless he goes for the much younger Iceland, that is.)
 * Good God, Franz from Gankutsuou. His unrequited love for Albert caused him a whole world of pain (and ). Seriously, he had a lot going for him - being rich, having good looks, and having no shortage of beautiful and kind women after him (including his fiance, who loved him initially). But instead, he ends up constantly angsting and sacrificing everything for Albert (who doesn't appreciate any of it until the very last moment).
 * Albert doesn't have it any easier, though. He develops a crush at first sight on the Count, who at first leads him on and then proceeds to . And while we're at it, there's the Count himself: Mercedes' "betrayal" aside,
 * In Chobits,.
 * In Gantz, Kei goes through severe depression multiple times due to his loves dying on him. The first time is when Kishimoto dies (although she never did return his feelings), and subsequent times of him becoming really depressed are caused by his girlfriend Tae (who died but got revived). And since the series is still going on, there's still no guarantee that they'll be able to be together. A Downer Ending is quite possible...
 * Ako Izumi of Mahou Sensei Negima. She has a ton of self-esteem issues, and is described as something of a doormat. Then she meets Nagi, he reassures her of her importance, and she falls in love with him. Even after getting Trapped in Another World and sold into slavery, she's able to hang on because she knows that he's there for her.
 * Sagara Sousuke from Full Metal Panic! towards Kaname. His whole Heroic BSOD in TSR was pretty much caused by being torn away from her after he developed an attachment and feelings for her. As  angrily notices, ever since falling in love, he seems to have a lot more conflicting feelings and doubts.
 * And speaking of, he seems to have lost some of his edge and become even more messed up since falling for Sousuke... after all, if he didn't care about Sousuke, he wouldn't have been so very angry in the first place...
 * In regards to Gauron, this is actually brought up and symbolically implied in the novels (though apparently parts of it were lost in the fan translation). Members of Amalgam actually covertly bring up to Sousuke how Gauron was overtaken by "cancer," all while mentioning that he "really really liked Sousuke"... and according to the original wording, a parallel is implied of Kaname being Sousuke's "Gan" (cancer), and Sousuke being Gauron's "Gan". Of course, any possible double meaning was lost to Sousuke. In addition, reading about the overall attitude of Gauron's colleagues when they talk to Sousuke, it seems like it's a well known fact to them that Gauron was way too obsessed with Sousuke.
 * RahXephon: Hey Megumi. What's that, your crush already has a girlfriend who is your best friend? Ouch. Now what about that other guy? Sorry, Oh, and the other other guy?
 * Jigen from Lupin III. His luck with women runs from bad to worse, with them either betraying him, dying, or both.
 * Simon from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. His first love, Cool Big Sis Yoko, was in love with Kamina, and he had a rather painful experience seeing her kiss him. . His Second Love, Nia,  . And whether you interpret the relationship between him and Kamina as Ho Yay or as Heterosexual Life Partners, it is undeniable that.
 * Yoko had it pretty hard too: the event that changed her from a Tsundere to a Cool Big Sis was . Which happend on the very morning of their first kiss right after he promised to.
 * Must have also hurt Kittan badly
 * And there's Viral, who is immortal and can't reproduce... . *sniff*
 * Kenshin Himura and Tomoe Yukishiro. When he was in his Extreme Doormat phase, she was the one that made him start feeling anything at all again. Apparently it was first caring, then love, and finally awful grief. He has his fair share of Love Hurts moments with his second girlfriend Kaoru too, but his story with Tomoe steals the show.
 * It's also a whole Love Hurts deal for Tomoe herself. She lost her Victorious Childhood Friend Akira to Kenshin's sword, went to Kyoto to find him and have revenge, but once she knew Kenshin better she fell for him.
 * Poor Oboro and Gennosuke. They were engaged to bring peace between their two rival ninja clans but genuinely fell in love, only for the truce to be broken and forcing them to choose between their love or the honor of their clans.
 * (Almost) everybody in Itoshiki-sensei's class loves their Zetsubou-sensei. Too bad every single one of them is in some way severely unhinged.
 * Tails and Cosmo from Sonic X were the cutest and sweetest couple ever, but just at the series end,
 * Naruto. Most prominently, the titular character. Being in love with Sakura has caused him so much frustration and pain, it's amazing he's held on to those feelings for all these years. And on the other hand, his love for Sasuke (whether romantic or not) has pretty much torn his heart apart ever since he defected.
 * And Sakura herself hasn't had it easy either because of Sasuke
 * Naruto is RIFE with this, whether romantic or not. There's Hinata, who ; Gaara, who  ; Konan, whose love interest is  ;  ; Kakashi, who learned what friendship and love were when  ; etc.
 * Cowboy Bebop: The tragic love between Spike and Julia.
 * Many all the clients or people they know in Nightmare Inspector are in love with someone, and if they aren't evil, mad, or downright psychopathic from it, they're suffering a good deal.
 * Love, be it platonic, familiar, or romantic, in the When They Cry franchise tends to end in tragedy.
 * Akuyuki and Haru (especially Haru) suffer through so much of this Xam'd: Lost Memories.
 * This is pretty much the lesson learned in Apollo's Song, where a young sociopath with a pathological hatred of love is condemned by the goddess Athena to live through a series of tragic love stories.
 * In Hyakujitsu no Bara, the main characters' relationship is the reason their lives are so miserable and screwed up. Their relationship is also exactly why they're both willing to put up with all the misery as they couldn't stand living without each other.
 * One of Hinagiku's fears in Hayate the Combat Butler is based on this, and it's implied that her fear of heights extends from this. She's afraid of loving someone because her parents left and her older sister has turned to drinking after making sure that Hina doesn't have to deal with the debt and has foster parents, thus she's afraid of loving anyone again, in an effort to keep from getting hurt by them. She may have even turned to her Tsundere personality because of it. Her admitting (to Ayumu) that she does love Hayate has been shown as an effort because of these fears.
 * Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
 * Ranma ½: While many of the romantic hi-jinks are played for comedy, it is obvious that all the girls in Ranma's harem are in love with him. Shampoo is probably the most blatant and forward with her feelings for Ranma, concocting multiple schemes to win his heart while brushing off the similarly strong if not stronger affections that Mousse has for her. Ukyo strives to actually be seen as a "woman" by Ranma, while Konatsu probably wishes for Ukyo to see him as an actual man. Kodachi is difficult to place as she is crazy but she does seem to generally have honest feelings for Ranma. She claims that she knows that he doesn't feel the same way but is determined to keep trying. And that brings us to the Akane. Akane is in love with Ranma. There are just a couple of things that stand in the way of their romance actually going anywhere.
 * Akane also goes through this for years by having a crush on Dr. Tofu, a man who's in love with her sister, Kasumi. It isn't until she's 16 that she finally moves on and develops a crush on Ranma.
 * Ranma ½: While many of the romantic hi-jinks are played for comedy, it is obvious that all the girls in Ranma's harem are in love with him. Shampoo is probably the most blatant and forward with her feelings for Ranma, concocting multiple schemes to win his heart while brushing off the similarly strong if not stronger affections that Mousse has for her. Ukyo strives to actually be seen as a "woman" by Ranma, while Konatsu probably wishes for Ukyo to see him as an actual man. Kodachi is difficult to place as she is crazy but she does seem to generally have honest feelings for Ranma. She claims that she knows that he doesn't feel the same way but is determined to keep trying. And that brings us to the Akane. Akane is in love with Ranma. There are just a couple of things that stand in the way of their romance actually going anywhere.
 * Akane also goes through this for years by having a crush on Dr. Tofu, a man who's in love with her sister, Kasumi. It isn't until she's 16 that she finally moves on and develops a crush on Ranma.


 * The entire plot, point, story and character motivation of Minami Ozaki's Zetsuai 1989. Period. Heck, even the bystanders get traumatized by the events.
 * In chapter 40 of Rosario + Vampire, it is revealed that.
 * GE - Good Ending has this all over the place with all the girls, but specially Utsumi, the main protagonist.
 * Akise Aru of Mirai Nikki has an unreturned crush on Yukiteru and all his actions of love towards Yukiteru get him is a beheading by Yuno.
 * Rune from Karakuridouji Ultimo has an unreturned crush on Yamato and he doesn't take rejection well. His love for Yamato causes him a lot of heartache.
 * Kagetora and Naoe's relationship in Mirage of Blaze.
 * There's loads of this in D.N.Angel. For example, there's Daisuke's unreturned feelings for Risa who has a crush on Dark who he sees kissing Risa at one point breaking his heart.
 * Harry MacDoogal from Outlaw Star. You've got to feel for him because he has feelings for Melfina and she doesn't share the same feelings for him and he does everything he can to make her love him only to fail and get curb stomped by a massive douchebag with the ability to break his body parts like a bendy straw.
 * Revolutionary Girl Utena is rife with this.
 * The Guts, Griffith, Casca Love Triangle in Berserk.

Comic Books
"Johnny: I like you immensely, Devi. And to prove it, I shall obliterate all of my affection and interest for you. Just like before, but different. I cannot hurt what I do not acknowledge. I don't know of anyone that I love, or of anyone that loves me, but I give you what I can. I give my nothing."
 * One of the many reasons Charlie Brown is The Woobie in the Peanuts strip is his inability to get the Little Red Haired Girl to notice him. A minor case of Creator Breakdown, Schulz admitted that he had his own "Little Red Haired Girl," whom he lost.
 * If this wasn't so funny, it would be depressing: Charlie Brown is to Peppermint Patty as the Little Red Haired Girl is to Charlie Brown, making it an unrequited Love Triangle. Good Grief!
 * Love Rectangle. Marcie also loves Charlie Brown, and would logically be the perfect choice. Too bad her loyalty to Peppermint Patty requires her to aid and abet her "Sir"'s plans.
 * How would Marcie be the "perfect choice" for Charlie Brown? Are you into cute girls with glasses?
 * Indeed, unrequited love is a running theme throughout the comic's run: Linus towards Miss Othmar, Sally towards Linus ("I'm not your sweet baboo!"), Lucy towards Schroeder... the list goes on.
 * Dr Allison Mann in Y: The Last Man angrily denies that love is anything other than a label stuck on a biological process. We later find this apparently cynical attitude comes from Allison being dumped by her first girlfriend (not to mention her parents miserable marriage). Despite this it is clear she still craves love herself.
 * Just about any romance in any Marvel, DC, or other company you care to name wherein the relationship lasted more than 3 years real-time/10 months in-universe and the characters, to this day, are not together. And let's not even go into the ones that -are- together... Examples are just too numerous to list.
 * Notably averted with Ralph (Elongated Man) & Sue Dibny, who were happily married in his second appearance back in the 1960s and even in death were still together.
 * Explored (somewhat) in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, where the main character is very much under the impression that this trope is in full effect (and that is only the tip of the iceberg where his intimacy issues are concerned). He attempts to murder the only person he cares for in an attempt at 'immortalizing the moment' and prevent the relationship going bad (because...somehow murder doesn't count as going bad) and later attempts to apologize for the faux pas with a rather bizarre pre-recorded phone message in which he states his intention to forget about her, lest he attempt to hurt her again.

"Rose: Are you going to hurt me? Kill me? Mess me up? Desire: No more than usually; no; and perhaps a little. But only with love."
 * How we could we forget Rose Walker's great "love hurts" speech to Desire in The Sandman? And of course, this exchange, which sums up Desire's approach to most things but especially love:


 * Scott Pilgrim. No one is safe from that in that comic. Gets to its extremes with Ramona and Knives though. A chapter is even named 'Love Hurts'.

Fairy Tales

 * The original version of The Little Mermaid: The mermaid loves the prince and gives up her voice and family to be with him, but he ends up marrying someone else and she turns into sea foam. But a tacked-on Aesop-fuelled ending gives her an immortal (ie. human) soul anyway. Reputedly fueled by Creator Breakdown.
 * Technically, in the Hans Christian Andersen version, she doesn't get a soul - yet. She get's turned into an air spirit that, after a preset amount of time, will get an immortal soul. As an extra twist, whenever she passes through a house with a well behaved child, she gets a few years knocked off her sentence. Ill behaved children add years. That's right, kids. If you don't eat your vegetables... you're preventing mermaids from going to heaven.

Fan Fiction

 * The Tamers Forever Series uses love as a surgical scalpel to subject the characters to unimaginable suffering.
 * Hunting the Unicorn: Blaine is a Love Martyr who's head over heels for his boyfriend Kurt. Why does love hurt so much? Because Kurt is Blaine's Second Love.
 * Also because Kurt leaves Dalton, but this time we get to see it break Blaine's heart into tiny little pieces because "No-one ever comes back to [him]."
 * It's not just limited to romantic love, since he's vehemently loyal to his estranged, neglectful father.
 * Minako and Shinjiro in Death and Ker get to face just how much love can hurt. Bad enough that Minako died without warning two years prior as a result of a Heroic Sacrifice - worse that she's come back, but only temporarily, and must return to death when her mission is complete, the knowledge of which keeps both of them from feeling able to act on their feelings the way they'd like to. Aigis in the same work has it just as bad; she also loves Minako and blames herself for not being able to protect her two years previously, and since she's a Ridiculously Human Robot she's struggling with the concept of being able to feel human emotions at all.
 * Stars Above: Hoo boy. Quoth one of the villains: "Your love destroyed your world, over and over again until even magic couldn't fix it..."

Film
"J: You know what they say, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. K: (looking horribly cold and restrained) Try it."
 * Davey Jones and Calypso's relationship in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Yeah, that ended well.
 * From the Hellboy movie art book: "When, in 1988, Liz Sherman joined the B.P.R.D., Hellboy fell in love. From then on, he knew the meaning of pain."
 * The only woman James Bond ever married (Action Girl Teresa "Tracy" Di Vincezo) was killed moments afterwards in a botched attempt to assassinate him. In later movies, it shows that even with all his flirting and skirt-chasing that he still mourns her.
 * Men in Black:

"Daniel: [laughing] Aren't you a bit young to be in love? Sam: No. Daniel: Oh. Right. Well, I'm a little relieved! Sam: Why? Daniel: Well, you know, I thought it might be something worse! Sam: Worse than the total agony of being in love? Daniel: ...No, you're right. Yeah, total agony."
 * Love Actually. Daniel knows something has been bothering his stepson for a long time now, and he finally gets it out of him: he's in love with a classmate.


 * Any of Wong Kar-wai 's films, especially In the Mood for Love and 2046.
 * Just use "Love Hurts" as a sub-title for Toy Story 2 and 3.
 * See: Five Hundred Days of Summer.
 * The Sword in the Stone. Three words: heartbroken girl squirrel.
 * The whole point of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World ... in this case love multiplies itself by seven and storms into town on a homicidal rampage.
 * Poor Scott. As one tagline approximately reads: Scott Pilgrim has no trouble finding a girlfriend. It's getting rid of them that proves difficult.
 * But it turns out alright (somewhat).
 * Beauty and the Beast: Goodness, the Beast's heartbreak after the uplifting ballroom scene is palpable. As he lets Belle go to her father at the risk of breaking the curse and spending his life with Belle he starts sobbing and finally breaks into a primal scream of despair as Belle gallops away.

Literature
"Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the greatest misery I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise for all the riches of Barsoom. Such is love, and such are lovers wherever love is known."
 * Medieval Chivalric Romance, anyone?
 * This is far and away one of the oldest, most universally recognized tropes in existence. A perfect example of it is found in the 12th century Persian epic, Layla and Majnun. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy loses mind. It's not a cheerful tale.
 * Edgar Allan Poe was a very firm believer in this. He thought the best theme to write about was the death of a beautiful young woman, often leading to the protagonist's descent into madness.
 * Given the things that happened to women in his life, this isn't really surprising.
 * For those who don't know, tuberculosis pretty much killed every woman he loved . If I remember correctly, it killed his mother when he was young, two women that he was courting, and his wife. It's often speculated that the disease, which involves a great deal of blood loss, was the titular "Red Death" in his short story, "Masque of the Red Death".
 * Yuan, Lord of City Europe in David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series, falls for the wrong woman. Although the stage is set for serious tragedy, he manages to pull out of it.
 * The House of Night has this in spades: vampyre protagonist Zoey ends up falling for three guys simultaneously (ish). It ends badly when Ouch. Poor Zoey.
 * And it gets worse for her: The guy she displays a brief romantic interest in in the fourth book promptly  Zoey has a bit of a Cartwright Curse, it seems...
 * And Then There Were None features two victims who committed their crimes to keep their loved ones when it was those exact deeds that drove them away.
 * In the Warrior Cats series, falling in love is likely to get you broken-hearted, insane, and/or killed. wound up with all three because of her relationship with.
 * Not entirely. Some lucky couples just end up getting their kits killed off. Yes, you heard me, they are the lucky ones.
 * Though The Engineer Trilogy as a whole plays this trope catastrophically straight, there is a scene lampshading it in the second. Miel Ducas, a powerful noble wounded in battle, hallucinates that he is having a conversation with Death. When Death points out that Ducas is not very grateful for having everything a man could ever want, Ducas replies that he is the poorest man in the world because no woman he ever loved returned his affection. Death explains that love is nothing more than a trick meant to override humans' free will in order to reproduce, and that Ducas might as well be upset that he never contracted diphtheria.
 * In Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars, John Carter realizes he fell in Love At First Sight with Dejah Thoris, but then manages to offend her.


 * "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of love: 'avoid, if at all possible.'"
 * Love doesn't hurt every character unlucky enough to experience it in the Indigo series...just most of them.
 * The Duel of Sorcery series...and how. Let's see:
 * Richard and Alec in Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword'', to the point where their relationship is such a mess that neither they nor the reader can figure it out.
 * A recurring theme in sonnets, especially those from the Renaissance.
 * Anna Karenina is 864 long, long pages of Love Hurts.
 * The Great Gatsby could be argued to have love kills, and causes killing. It's arguable because actually being "in love" strongly tends to make the lovers happier - it's the fallout on everyone and everything else around them that actually brings the pain.
 * In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero Lost, Ferdinard speaks eloquently of having suffered torments for the pure love of a chaste maiden.
 * Poor Gilbert Blythe lives this trope for over ten years; he falls in love with classmate Anne Shirley the day she smashed his slate over his head, but the reason for the smashing--him calling her "Carrots" and teasing her for her red hair makes her resent him for many years. When they finally become friends, Gilbert bides his time. He proposes, she turns him down. He proposes again (a couple years later), and she shoots him down again. It takes a near-death experience with typhoid fever for Gil to get his girl.
 * Harry Dresden's romance life is an exercise in pain. Of the women he's bee involved with or who he has strong feelings for/who have strong feelings for him, one, another is  , and another is   Murphy still cares for him, but   And then there's
 * The Picture of Dorian Gray features Basil who has to watch Dorian Gray, the love of his life and his greatest inspiration, descend deeper and deeper into corruption against his wishes and ultimately . And then there's   who

Live Action TV

 * The new Battlestar Galactica series loves this:
 * Lee/Kara - AND HOW.  - when she's already dating his baby brother, whose death she accidentally has a hand in. They become good friends and later survive the end of their homeworlds together, but the memory of the dead baby brother, and their guilt, keeps them apart and in Just Friends mode until  . When Lee finally admits his love to Kara and gets her to do the same,  .  . Suffice it to say, Ron Moore is one of the few people who knows how to inflict more pain on a couple than Joss Whedon.
 * Adama/Roslin -- Oh, jesus. And how. Let's see, they
 * Chief/Boomer.
 * John/Aeryn in Farscape. They make out. They fight alongside each other. They're tortured. They try to kill each other. They have sex. They murder people to get back to each other. They fight. They make out. They blow up a bunch of bad guys. . I just saved you four seasons of awesome TV.
 * D'Argo and Chiana are just as much fun!
 * Falling in love with the bad guy/girl, of course, is always a bad idea. Just ask Ace Lightning, who had to go and fall in love at the end of the series.
 * Pretty much every relationship in Supernatural. The Winchesters are crazy and clingy, Bobby had to kill his wife, Ellen lost her husband because John was an idiot, Sam's girlfriends tend to die horribly and Dean blurted out everything to his one-time girlfriend only to have her think that he was a lunatic and that she should break up with him.
 * Quite literally in House, when House's hopeless love for his ex Stacy causes the pain in his leg to increase. Of course, when Wilson points out that this is the reason House is having more pain, House wacks him with his cane and replies: "Awww, you miss Stacy too?" when Wilson keels over.
 * There is also a Season One episode titled "Love Hurts," in which Cameron blackmails House into going on a date with her and House responds by shooting her feelings for him down. Hard.
 * Kamen Rider, at least in the new generation, is as fond of this trope as it's fond of Anyone Can Die. On the rare occasions where a love interest to a major character is still alive by season's end, the relationship between them will likely have ended instead.
 * Highlander the Series: According to Word of God, Duncan MacLeod has had "four great loves" in his life. All four are dead, and not of natural causes. In one flashback, a gypsy curses him, saying that he will "bury many women but marry none" - but his bad luck seemed to have started even before that..
 * Oz's Tobias Beecher loses his wife (she commits suicide), and later falls for Chris Keller, who it turns out was working for Schillinger, and they both subsequently break both his arms and legs. Busmalis even Lampshades this after the incident. Though Keller arguably feels guilty afterwards, he spends the rest of the series trying to make it up to Beecher, both failing and succeeding at various points.
 * Torchwood:
 * Doctor Who. All of the Doctor's companions "break his hearts".
 * And he broke Martha's. That was exactly why she decided to stop traveling with him
 * Sadly, this was the course that Robin Hood decided to take. Only two couples get a happy ending: Will Scarlett/Djaq and John/Beatrice (who were only guest stars). All the other couples: Robin/Marian, Guy/Marian, Robin/Isabella, Robin/Kate, Much/Kate, Allan/Djaq, John/Alice, and any slash pairing you can think of, ended badly. VERY badly. Though Robin/Marian did get a  scene.
 * Marcus over Ivanova in Babylon 5, going so far as to
 * Naomi from Skins lives in blind terror of this trope, constantly running away from her love of Emily until she can't handle it any more; and even when they eventually get together, she's still so scared of getting her heart broken that.
 * Joss Whedon must HATE happiness. Pick anything written by Joss Whedon. The only exception is Simon and Kaylee, and that's just because they didn't get together until the end of the movie
 * Buffy sleeps with Angel? He loses his soul and starts killing her friends, and then she has to send him to literal hell.
 * Willow and Oz are actually happy together? Oh no! We better
 * Giles has a nice grown-up relationship that's started to go somewhere?
 * Xander and Anya about to tie the knot?
 * Willow and Tara get back together?
 * Xander and Anya rekindle their love in the final season?
 * Then there's Joyce. In five years she dates a and  - then she starts dating and enjoying it and
 * Hooray! Angel and Cordy are going to have DINNER! Oh, ok Angel, we need to
 * Wesley and Fred couple up?
 * The only happy marriage in the Firefly 'verse?
 * Poor, poor Spike...
 * Dollhouse. Topher and Bennett. So freaking adorab
 * This could be the theme for Gossip Girl. If he's a nice guy, he'll sleep with someone else. If he's a redeemed jerk, turns out he's just a jerk. If he's your true love, he'll whore you out. If he seems perfect, he's sleeping with his stepmother or conning you out of your money or about to blackmail you into being his mistress. Love is pain, rich kids.
 * The titular character in Merlin (played by Sam Neill) goes through this several times in his relationship with Nimue. After he meets her for the first time, . When he gets around that,   When there is finally a good king on the throne and he thinks he can spend time with her,  . Then, years later, he thinks that they can finally, finally be together away from the rest of the world, but   Unsuprisingly, the aged Merlin in the present says almost these exact words when telling his story.
 * His BBC counterpart wasn't much luckier. The only girl he ever loved, Freya, ended up
 * Art Kanji-Daemon is probably the Trope Codifier at how much love hurts him through all his life.
 * Bo and Lauren Any one who watches Lost Girl will know this couple is a good definition of this trope. Bo and Lauren want each other from the first time they meet, but they can't even kiss because if they do Bo will lose control and drain Lauren of her life force, Bo gains control and gets together with Lauren... but only for one night because Bo learns that Lauren was with her to distract long enough to stop Bo from killing someone (even though they would have gotten together on their own as Lauren explains) and Bo refuses to talk to Lauren for the next few episodes unless it is work related. Then in the season finale just before Bo goes to fight her mother Lauren gives her a kiss which Bo responds to.
 * Season 2 Bo and Lauren get closer again eventually shacking up in the 6th episode only for Lauren to return to the Ashes compound and Bo finds out that Lauren has a girlfriend in a Coma, they move past this a few eps later and even kiss its all going well then Laurens girlfriend wakes up. this season is not even finished yet and there will be at least a 3rd season.

Music

 * The probable Trope Namer is an old country standard the Everly Brothers played. Famously, Nazareth gave it an epic metal treatment. From the sound of the singer's voice, love really hurts.
 * Incubus' aptly titled song "Love Hurts", although it could be considered a subversion; the chorus is, "Love hurts, but sometimes it's a good hurt and it feels like I'm alive".
 * Sing with me...Love, love will tear us apart again...
 * "Please Don't Leave Me" by Pink. WAY more so in the video of the song, where - when the guy tries to leave - she goes totally Stephen King on him.
 * "... that's the pain that cuts a straight line down through the heart, we call it love ..." - Hedwig and The Angry Inch
 * Aerosmith, "Falling in Love (Is Hard On The Knees)".
 * "Love Stinks" by J. Geils Band.
 * Baby, don't hurt me... no more... (Haddaway.)
 * Leonard Cohen's famous "Hallelujah" is mostly about this, although the overall idea seems to be that it's worth it anyway as long as you know what to expect.
 * "Running Water" by DJ Shog featuring Irma Derby: "Love's like hot running water, once it runs through your fingers, painful in every way..."
 * "Love Bites" by Def Leppard. Describes love as an addiction.
 * Half the Rumours album by Fleetwood Mac are songs about how bitter falling out of love can be. "Never Going Back Again," "Go Your Own Way," and "Gold Dust Woman" in particular. The crowner is "The Chain," an anger-filled tune ("Damn your love, damn your lies") and is the only song on the album credited to all five members.
 * XTC's "I'm the Man Who Murdered Love" depicts the title character as a highly Sympathetic Murderer.
 * "To Love Somebody", originally by The Bee Gees.
 * "It's a Heartache", originally by Bonnie Tyler (and Juice Newton).
 * "Too Much Love Will Kill You" by Brian May.
 * "Fool for Your Loving" by Whitesnake.

Opera

 * Pick an Opera, any opera.
 * Aida by Giuseppe Verdi is a good example. Aida, an Ethiopian princess in hiding, falls in love with and is loved by Radames, the general of the Egyptian army. Her mistress, the Pharaoh's daughter is her canny rival. After Radames saves her father, the king of Ethiopia, from certain death after being captured in battle, he brow beats her into fullfiling her "duty" as an Ethiopian to get Radames to reveal the Egyptian's troops' positions, sentencing him to death and dooming them to live apart. It's a "Happily Ever After" ending though; Aida sneaks into the tomb where Radames has been buried alive so they can slowly die together. So yes, the Deus Angst Machina is as integral a part of Opera as humor is to Comedy.

Theater
"Stone: Whoever said 'Time heals all wounds' never knew anyone like Bobbi."
 * Romeo and Juliet and every imitator. Entire dissertations could be written on how both would have lived longer, happier lives if Romeo had decided to stay in and mope, Juliet had told him she wanted at least three dates before considering marriage, or the friar's advice to Juliet had been to take up her father's offer of being kicked out of the house so she could run away with Romeo easily, rather than telling her to fake her death.
 * Phantom of the Opera is based around this trope with a Stalker with a Crush and Mad Artist with a Compelling Voice and a Torture Cellar (who often becomes the Draco in Leather Pants) proving that Love Makes You Evil and Stalking Is Love in a Love Triangle with a Damsel in Distress and her childhood sweetheart. He chooses in the end to let his beloved be happy, giving us a Bittersweet Ending.
 * Cyrano De Bergerac centers around a Love Triangle between three perfectly honorable, admirable people who all like and respect each other, two rivals who try as hard as they can to make the girl happy instead of fighting over her, and the original Playing Cyrano plot that isn't revealed until death has taken too many members out of the picture for anyone to be happy.
 * A fact of life for Fiyero, Elphaba AND Glinda in Wicked (and Boq and Nessarose for that matter). Elphaba even comments on it during Defying Gravity 'Well if that's love/it comes at much to high a cost'
 * City of Angels:

"The price of love is loss But still we pay. We love anyway."
 * Next to Normal:

Video Games
"This is love. When someone drags you from the wreckage when you have given in, ready to just lie there and die. This is love. When someone, no matter what the cost, shows you there is hope, a choice, that you can put down your gun. This is love. Love hurts. - Max's narration in a cutscene in Max Payne 2, just before"
 * Max Payne 2


 * Hell, Max's first line in the game says it all: "They were all dead: Love Kills"
 * Odin Sphere: The entire plot is full of this. Only a few characters actually get happy endings, assuming you didn't muck it up and get the bad ending, in which case it turns into a Kill'Em All.
 * The plot isn't just full of it. The plot exists because of it. The only things that don't seem to be linked to love is a war over control of a MacGuffin, and even that was originally caused by this.
 * The unjustified execution of her fiancee led Aribeth de Tylmarande to insanity and an eventual Face Heel Turn. The picture in the slideshow between chapters 1 and 2 with her crouched under the tree crying her eyes out sums this trope up very effectively.
 * Persona 3's Yukari and Aigis.  Yukari tries to move on, but is inevitably brought back to the dormitory where fond memories of our hero visit her. She's also jealous of Aigis, who . Aigis is so saddened by the , she wished she could return to being a mere machine, which
 * Persona 4 could also be considered as having an example of this. Even if you have a love interest (or several) you will still
 * Persona 2: Eternal Punishment plot is started because Tatsuya, who was supposed to forget his memories of Maya from Innocent Sin, couldn't let her go and creates a Temporal Paradox because of it, allowing the Big Bad from the previous game to repeat the events.
 * Metal Gear Solid. There is maybe one successful romance in this series that does not put the characters and gamer through hell first. Meryl and Snake . Raiden and Rose  . The Boss and The Sorrow  . Naked Snake and EVA  . And Otacon?  . Yes, this game is very cynical, whatever gave you that idea?
 * Is it any wonder Kojima averted this hard in Zone of the Enders? There, only one "pair" ends badly (in this world, at least).
 * Kojima played this straight again in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, damning Gabriel and Marie right before the beginning of the story.
 * Planescape: Torment: It's not the only thing that hurts. But boy does it hurt. See also: Deionarra.
 * Good God, Utawarerumono with Hakuoro and... well, everyone pretty much. Eruruw is apparently physically unable to confess He doesn't pick up on Karura's rather blatant overtures. Touka just weirds him out. Which is understandable. Urtoriy can't be in a relationship with anyone apparently  Oh, and the ill girl kind of gets what she wanted  For the hurting part on his side,  hurt so much that  On a possibly positive note, there's an implication at the end  Oh, and Kamua probably didn't love him so she's okay.
 * Fate/stay night: The ending of the Fate route exhibits this to a certain extent., and although
 * The Heaven's Feel Normal End, however, takes this trope Up to Eleven.
 * Final Fantasy VI has this with Locke and Rachel, where  Damn....
 * "Final Fantasy VII":
 * In Final Fantasy IX, Sir Fratley, the love of Freya's life leaves on a journey of epic training. When she doesn't hear of him for some time, she embarks on the world to find him. During the events of the game, she eventually runs into him but he is suffering from amnesia and doesn't remember her. Ouch.
 * In the game's ending, his memory
 * In Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden, resident Badass Samurai Sanger Zonvolt gets this. The woman he deeply cared for (not to the point of open romance, but deep, deep loyalty and affection) was turned into a monster he and the Preventers had to kill, and the poor bastard not only gets to watch her die, but his only comfort in the end of the game is cry over her grave. Alpha 2 gives him a Roaring Rampage of Revenge when Kukuru tries to off Sophia Nate (woman he cares for).
 * He's a little better off in the OG Timeline, only now it's Wodan Ymir who gets screwed, which (long story) is pretty much the same thing.
 * Mega Man X 4 has finally included the option of playing as Ascended Extra and major fan-favorite Zero, along with his own story. The bad part? In Zero's story, he has to fight and kill Iris, his own girlfriend, who wants to seek revenge on Zero for killing her brother. The Narm that came with the game's horrible voice acting ruined one of the truly heartwrenching moments in the series.
 * The original Japanese voice acting did a much better job in powering the said Tear Jerker moment.
 * Note that she doesn't even want to kill him, instead attacking him because she can't forgive him for killing her brother, but can't bring herself to move on from his death. Essentially, she's choosing Suicide by Cop, and it breaks Zero.
 * Oichi in Sengoku Basara is this in spades. Thanks to her love with Nagamasa and her care about her brother, who happens to be an Obviously Evil Complete Monster, she's in for tons and tons of tragedy, starting from seeing her lover die in front of her, then delusionally thinking that Nagamasa wants everyone dead, then she kills off all her family and then gets herself killed.
 * In Breath of Fire IV, this was essentially what fuels the Hex Cannon/Carronade. The closer the sacrifice was to the intended target, the stronger the hex will be. This was what near the end.
 * Cray spent much of the game searching for Princess Elina, Nina's sister and his love interest.
 * In Brutal Legend, a female voice cites a sad poem about a girl whose heart is broken and is compelled to drown in the Sea of Black Tears.
 * Got played straight and exaggerated in King's Quest IV. Edgar, Lolotte's homely "son" Edgar has developed a fondness for Rosella, and pulls a Heel Face Turn to free her from a prison. Rosella escapes, takes Cupid's love arrows and shoots Lolotte. The evil fairy is so overcome with sheer pain she shrieks "It HURTS!" before  . Edgar is rewarded for his heroism by Genesta , and he asks Rosella to stay with him. Rosella has to refuse his offer and get back to Daventry, presumably leaving him alone and somewhat heartbroken. At least, until the seventh game...

Web Comics

 * MAG-ISA - The message is, "Love hurts...but you need it."
 * In Sluggy Freelance, Torg's crush on Zoe earns him quite a bit of this as the series goes on, best summed up in the Mind Screw arc "Wayang Kulit".
 * He gets off easy compared to Oasis, who has literally died multiple times because of her unrequited love for Torg.
 * While Lia and Fiona, from YU+ME: dream, don't have any easy time at first, this is nothing compared to when the major Drama Bomb hits. This seems to be intentional, as the author/artist explains here.
 * "What can hurt more than a concrete enema?"
 * Digger. Ed's backstory. Dear God, Ed's backstory. And through it all he never, ever stopped loving. Oh, Ed.
 * No Rest for The Wicked
 * The Beast is crazily obsessed with Beauty and rages, insane with jealousy, when she's late returning.
 * Prince Ricardo, being Minor Flaw Major Overreaction embodied, goes around breaking hearts as quickly as he can rescue princesses -- and is none too happy himself.
 * Claire and King Gareth appear to have been Happily Married, but he went to war. Now they are separated; Claire won't explain what happened to her child, and refuses to meet him because she feels too guilty; and Gareth signed a peace treaty because he was too heartbroken over the news of his wife.
 * In Sinfest, Slick gives a graphic demonstration of the priciple.
 * And Monique rejects honesty as a means for love because of this.

Web Original

 * In The Antithesis, love is a perpetual curse on most characters, whose personalities and ideas of affection become tainted through life experiences pertaining to love. Alezair's love for Leid repeatedly condemns him to fits of rage, insanity and substance abuse, and at one point his devotion for her nearly ends his existence entirely.
 * Comes up a lot in Survival of the Fittest because Anyone Can Die (and usually will), the most prominent examples include:
 * Bryan Calvert goes through the death of, whom he'd been protecting for almost the entire game.
 * Adam Dodd's girlfriend Amanda Jones is killed in his absence, setting him off on a path of revenge going after her murderer.
 * Ricky Callahan similarly safeguards his girlfriend Whitney Acosta for most of v2.
 * Sean O'Cann, after recently coming out of the closet and engaging in a thoroughly romantic relationship, gets this treatment, with his boyfriend Andy Walker biting the dust not long after the game began. Cruelly, they'd met each other prior to this and become separated, leading to Andy's death.
 * Billy (Doctor Horrible) spends the entirety of Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog painfully infatuated with Penny, only for

Western Animation
""Sometimes love hurts, Pud'n, and I love you a lot.""
 * Teen Titans: Just when things were looking up for Beast Boy in the last season, culminating in him
 * According to the spin-off comic,.
 * Also lets not forget that whole thing with Malchior betraying Raven in "Spellbound" after she fell in love with him.
 * True for both The Hero and Worthy Opponent on Avatar: The Last Airbender: Aang is told he will have to let go of his love for Katara to ever master the Avatar State, and after becoming disillusioned with his life in the Fire Nation, the one thing Zuko has to leave behind that he still cares about is his New Old Flame Mai. See, they're Not So Different.
 * And then there's Sokka who had
 * At Chowder episode At Your Service, Panini threw some tacks to the running Tall Legged Chowder, and when he is trapped in the middle of the tacks, he stated that Love Hurts.
 * Taken to its logical extreme in an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. When Pud'n wishes on a Jackass Genie skull for a pet bunny that will love him, he gets a literal interpretation of this trope.

"June: I'm sorry she had to leave, Henbud. Henry: I'm not. She was killing me!"
 * The Ka Blam! episode "A Nut in Every Bite" had Henry falling for Mr. Stockdale's visiting granddaughter, Dawn, but he only seemed to be able to charm her by hurting himself. (It's probably also worth noting that June wasn't exactly happy with this.) After Dawn leaves:


 * In Happy Tree Friends, every single episode featuring a romantic relationship ends in tears (and often, blood as well). The only characters who have survived an episode unharmed and together are Cuddles and Giggles in I Nub You, and they weren't the stars of that episode.
 * Three words: Total. Drama. Island.
 * Trent develops a relationship with Gwen, only for Heather to screw it over through a Xanatos Roulette and after he and Gwen manage to patch things up. Come Total Drama Action, he gets jealous over her getting closer to Duncan, which leads to his obsession with the number nine and  Ouch.
 * Tyler and Lindsay fall in love, only for Lindsay to forget who Tyler is until Season 3.
 * Alejandro confesses his love for Heather in the final episode of Season 3,
 * Courtney becomes an Official Couple with Duncan in Season 1. They dance a very painful Masochism Tango throughout all of Season 2, and the relationship
 * Cody really likes Gwen, but she doesn't like him back. And meanwhile, Sierra really, really likes him, but he doesn't like her back. Ow.
 * Harold harbors yet more one-sided love for LeShawna.
 * Owen
 * And finally, Gwen. Poor, poor Gwen. Jesus Christ.

Real Life

 * Linguistic examples:
 * In Swedish, Norwegian and Danish the word "gift" (pronounced "yift") means both "married" and "poison", one wonders if this was made so on purpose...
 * In Japanese, "Ai" means love but it can also mean "grief/sorrow" when written differently.
 * The Japanese got it from Chinese, where the exact same thing happens: save for the tones, the words for the two concepts are homophones.
 * In Russian, "брак" ("brak") means, among other things, both "marriage" and "spoilage/defect."
 * In English, apparently, "to wed" (Or some form of marriage word) comes from the same roots as "gamble".
 * In Spanish, "Cazar" is "to hunt" and "Casar" is "to wed." In Latin America and some parts of Spain, the pronunciation is identical.
 * In Portuguese, "Caçar" is "to hunt" and "Casar" is "to wed.", so it's pretty much as above.
 * In Danish the words for heart (hjerte) and for pain (smerte) rhymes, which is sometimes used as a proverb.
 * In German the word "Leidenschaft" which means "passion" belongs to the root word "leid" which means "suffering".
 * For that matter, "passion" itself ultimately descends from the Latin passio, "suffering."
 * As if we need to say it: Truth in Television.