I think what everyone's trying to get at here -- and what makes this song so great -- is that it's about the very fine line between love and hate. The opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference, and our narrator certainly isn't indifferent. You don't have murder/suicide fantasies about someone you don't care about. But then, you can only hate someone, really hate them, if you've let them close enough to feel like an inseparable part of you. The irony here is that this song is all about "hope" -- almost every line starts with that word. It's just that hope isn't necessarily a pleasant thing. The narrator literally can't imagine a future without his wife -- that's love -- but then the future he can imagine is pretty horrible. If you've ever put all your emotional eggs in one basket, you'll know what he means.
I think what everyone's trying to get at here -- and what makes this song so great -- is that it's about the very fine line between love and hate. The opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference, and our narrator certainly isn't indifferent. You don't have murder/suicide fantasies about someone you don't care about. But then, you can only hate someone, really hate them, if you've let them close enough to feel like an inseparable part of you. The irony here is that this song is all about "hope" -- almost every line starts with that word. It's just that hope isn't necessarily a pleasant thing. The narrator literally can't imagine a future without his wife -- that's love -- but then the future he can imagine is pretty horrible. If you've ever put all your emotional eggs in one basket, you'll know what he means.