The difference between healthy and unhealthy love

So when you think about a child,
a close friend, or a romantic partner,

the word "love" probably comes to mind,

and instantly other emotions rush in:

joy and hope,

excitement, trust and security,

and yes, sometimes
sadness and disappointment.

There might not be
a word in the dictionary

that more of us
are connected to than love.

Yet, given its central
importance in our lives,

isn't it interesting that we're never
explicitly taught how to love?

We build friendships,

navigate early romantic relationships,

get married and bring babies
home from the hospital

with the expectation
that we'll figure it out.

But the truth is, we often harm
and disrespect the ones we love.

It can be subtle things
like guilting a friend

into spending time with you

or sneaking a peak
at your partner's texts

or shaming a child
for their lack of effort at school.

100 percent of us will be
on the receiving end

of unhealthy relationship behaviors,

and 100 percent of us
will do unhealthy things.

It's part of being human.

In its worst form, the harm
we inflict on loved ones

shows up as abuse and violence,

and relationship abuse

is something that one in three women
and one in four men

will experience in their lifetime.

Now, if you're like most people,
when you hear those stats,

you'll go, oh, no no no,
that would never happen to me.

It's instinctual to move away
from the words "abuse" and "violence,"

to think that they happen
to someone else somewhere else.

But the truth is, unhealthy relationships
and abuse are all around us.

We just call them different things
and ignore the connection.

Abuse sneaks up on us
disguised in unhealthy love.

I work for an organization called One Love

started by a family whose daughter
Yeardley was killed by her ex-boyfriend.

This was a tragedy no one saw coming,

but when they looked back,

they realized the warning signs were there

just no one understood
what they were seeing.

Called crazy or drama
or too much drinking,

his actions weren't understood
to be what they really were,

which was clear signs of danger.

Her family realized that if anyone
had been educated about these signs,

her death could have been prevented.

So today we're on a mission
to make sure that others

have the information
that Yeardley and her friends didn't.

We have three main goals:

give all of us a language
for talking about a subject

that's quite awkward
and uncomfortable to discuss;

empower a whole frontline,
namely friends, to help;

and, in the process, improve
all of our ability to love better.

To do this, it's always important
to start by illuminating

the unhealthy signs
that we frequently miss,

and our work really focuses
on creating content

to start conversations with young people.

As you'd expect, most of our content is
pretty serious, given the subject at hand,

but today I'm going to use
one of our more light-hearted

yet still thought-provoking pieces,

the Couplets,

to illuminate five markers
of unhealthy love.

The first is intensity.

(Video) Blue: I haven't
seen you in a couple days.

I've missed you.

Orange: Aww, I've missed you too.
(#thatslove)

Blue: I haven't seen you in five minutes.
It feels like a lifetime.

What have you been doing
without me for five whole minutes?

Orange: It's been three minutes.
(#thatsnotlove)

Katie Hood: Anybody recognize that?
I don't know. I do.

Abusive relationships
don't start out abusive.

They start out exciting and exhilarating.

There's an intensity
of affection and emotion,

a rush.

It feels really good.

You feel so lucky,
like you've hit the jackpot.

But in unhealthy love,
these feelings shift over time

from exciting to overwhelming
and maybe a little bit suffocating.

You feel it in your gut.

Maybe it's when your
new boyfriend or girlfriend

says I love you faster
than you were ready for

or starts showing up everywhere,
texting and calling a lot.

Maybe they're impatient
when you're slow to respond,

even though they know
you had other things going on that day.

It's important to remember that it's not
how a relationship starts that matters,

it's how it evolves.

It's important in the early days
of a new relationship

to pay attention to how you're feeling.

Are you comfortable
with the pace of intimacy?

Do you feel like you have space
and room to breathe?

It's also really important
to start practicing using your voice

to talk about your own needs.

Are your requests respected?

A second marker is isolation.

(Video) Orange 2: Want to hang out later?

Orange 1: Me and my boyfriend
always have Monday Funday.

Orange 2: Awww. (#thatslove)

Orange 2: Want to hang out later?

Orange 1: Me and my boyfriend
always have Monday Funday.

Orange 2: Tomorrow?
Orange 1: It's our Tuesday Snooze Day.

Orange 2: Wednesday?
Orange 1: No Friends Day.

(#thatsnotlove)

KH: If you ask me, isolation
is one of the most frequently missed

and misunderstood signs of unhealthy love.

Why?

Well, because every new relationship
starts out with this intense desire

to spend time together,

it's easy to miss when something shifts.

Isolation creeps in when
your new boyfriend or girlfriend

starts pulling you away
from your friends and family,

your support system,

and tethering you more tightly to them.

They might say things like,

"Why do you hang out with them?
They're such losers"

about your best friends,

or, "They want us to break up.
They're totally against us"

about your family.

Isolation is about sowing seeds of doubt

about everyone from
your pre-relationship life.

Healthy love includes independence,

two people who love spending time together

but who stay connected to the people
and activities they cared about before.

While at first you might spend
every waking minute together,

over time maintaining independence is key.

You do this by making plans with friends
and sticking to them

and encouraging your partner
to do the same.

A third marker of unhealthy love
is extreme jealousy.

(Video) Blue 2: What are you
so happy about?

Blue 1: She just started
following me on Instagram!

(#thatslove)

Blue 2: What are you so nervous about?

Blue 1: She, she just started
following me, like, everywhere.

(#thatsnotlove)

KH: As the honeymoon period
begins to fade,

extreme jealousy can creep in.

Your partner might become more demanding,

needing to know where you are
and who you're with all the time,

or they might start following you
everywhere online and off.

Extreme jealousy also brings with it
possessiveness and mistrust,

frequent accusations of flirting
with other people or cheating,

and refusal to listen to you
when you tell them

they have nothing to worry about
and that you only love them.

Jealousy is a part
of any human relationship,

but extreme jealousy is different.

There's a threatening, desperate,
and angry edge to it.

Love shouldn't feel like this.

A fourth marker is belittling.