Good-byes breed a sort of distaste for whomever you say good-bye to; this hurts, you feel, this must not happen again.

Bowen isolates a paradox of parting: the pain of separation can curdle into a brief, defensive aversion toward the person being left. The “distaste” is less a true judgment than a psychological reflex—an attempt to blunt grief by pushing the other away in feeling, so the self can endure the moment of rupture. The thought “this must not happen again” captures the vow people make after an emotionally costly farewell: to avoid future good-byes by avoiding attachment, travel, or intimacy. In Bowen’s hands, the line becomes a miniature study of how love and self-protection collide at the threshold of departure.