The Art of Loving Well: Recognizing and Nurturing Healthy Relationships

When we think about a child, a close friend, or a romantic partner, the word "love" probably comes to mind. Instantly, other emotions rush in joy and hope, excitement, trust, and security. Sometimes, there's also sadness and disappointment. Love is perhaps the most universally understood and cherished word, yet despite its central importance in our lives, we’re never explicitly taught how to love.

We build friendships, navigate early romantic relationships, get married, and bring babies home with the expectation that we'll figure it out. But the truth is, we often harm and disrespect the ones we love, sometimes in subtle ways: guilting a friend into spending time with us, sneaking a peek at a partner's texts, or shaming a child for their lack of effort at school. Every one of us will experience unhealthy relationship behaviours, and every one of us will, at times, act in unhealthy ways. It's part of being human.

In its worst form, this harm manifests as abuse and violence. One in three women and one in four men will experience relationship abuse in their lifetime. It's instinctual to think, "That could never happen to me," but unhealthy relationships and abuse are more common than we realize. We often call them different things and ignore the connection. Abuse can sneak up on us, disguised as unhealthy love.

One Love, an organization dedicated to educating people about the signs of abusive relationships, was started by a family whose daughter, Yeardley, was tragically killed by her ex-boyfriend. In hindsight, the warning signs were there, but no one understood what they were seeing. Behaviours dismissed as drama or excessive drinking were actually clear signs of danger. If people had been educated about these signs, Yeardley’s death could have been prevented.

The mission of One Love is to ensure that others have the information Yeardley and her friends didn’t. The organization has three main goals: to give us all a language for discussing a subject that’s often awkward and uncomfortable, to empower friends to help, and to improve our ability to love better. This begins with illuminating the unhealthy signs we frequently miss.

One Love creates content to start conversations with young people. While most of this content is serious, sometimes a lighter touch helps convey the message. One such example is "The Couplets," which highlights five markers of unhealthy love.

The first marker is intensity. Abusive relationships don't start out abusive; they start exciting and exhilarating. There's an intensity of affection and emotion, a rush that feels incredibly good. However, in unhealthy love, this intensity shifts from exciting to overwhelming and suffocating. It might be a new partner saying "I love you" too quickly, showing up everywhere, or texting incessantly. It's important to pay attention to how you’re feeling in the early days of a new relationship. Are you comfortable with the pace? Do you feel you have space to breathe? Practice using your voice to talk about your needs and see if your requests are respected.

The second marker is isolation. Isolation is often missed because new relationships start with a desire to spend lots of time together. But it becomes unhealthy when your partner pulls you away from friends and family. They might belittle your friends or suggest your family is against you. Healthy love includes independence. Maintaining connections to the people and activities you cared about before your relationship is crucial. Make plans with friends and stick to them, and encourage your partner to do the same.

The third marker is extreme jealousy. As the honeymoon period fades, extreme jealousy can creep in. Your partner might demand to know where you are and who you’re with at all times or start following you everywhere, online and off. This jealousy often comes with possessiveness and mistrust, frequent accusations of flirting or cheating, and refusal to believe you when you reassure them. While jealousy is a part of any relationship, extreme jealousy has a threatening, desperate, and angry edge. Love should never feel this way.

The fourth marker is belittling. In unhealthy love, words are used as weapons. Conversations that used to be fun turn mean and embarrassing. Your partner might make fun of you in ways that hurt or tell jokes at your expense. When you express your hurt, they might accuse you of overreacting. A loving partner should build you up, not break you down.

The fifth marker is volatility. Frequent breakups and makeups, high highs and low lows—these are signs of volatility. As tension rises, so does volatility, leading to tearful fights followed by emotional makeups and hateful comments followed by apologies. Over time, this roller coaster can make you lose sight of how unhealthy and dangerous the relationship has become. If your relationship has many of these markers, it might be time to seek help from experts on how to leave safely.

Understanding these signs isn't just about romantic relationships; it can help you evaluate nearly every relationship in your life. You might realize why a friendship is disappointing or why interactions with a certain family member leave you anxious. Understanding is the first step to improvement. While not every unhealthy relationship can be fixed, you can do your part to build healthier relationships daily.

Improving relationship skills isn't rocket science. Open communication, mutual respect, kindness, and patience are things we can practice every day. While practice won't make you perfect, it will make you better. Even those who work in this field aren’t immune to unhealthy behaviours, but the key is to recognize them and strive to do better.

For too long, we've treated relationships as a soft topic. Relationship skills are among the most important and hardest to build. Understanding the signs of unhealthy love can help you avoid the pitfalls that lead to abuse. Practising healthy love can improve every aspect of your life. Love is an instinct and an emotion, but the ability to love better is a skill we can all build and improve over time.