Healthy Relationships

In what kind of love are you?

Romantic love.

Most dating relationships start with romantic love. Everything seems perfect--you feel like you have finally found "the one." It's exciting. You forget about everyone else in the world. You do special things together, buy gifts, write cards and talk on the phone. After you get to know each other better, your relationship starts to fit into your usual life. You may find you have different interests and opinions and try to make the relationship work around these differences. Or you may decide to end the relationship.

Romatic love changes over time--it becomes either nurturing or obsessive. Romance still exists in the relationship, but it is a part, not all, of what you have together.

Nurturing love.

In this type of love, you both wish for the other to grow and be happy. You encourage each other to have friends and enjoy separate activities. You support each other at home, school, or work. You feel comfortable sharing your feelings with each other.

If one partner wants to break up, the other person is upset and may have a hard time dealing with this, but neither feels like their life is over. The partner may be hurt, but will not take the hurt out on the former partner or him or herself.

Obsessive love.

A relationship becomes obsessive if one or both partners believe they cannot live without the other. It is normal to want to be together every minute at the beginning of the relationship. But, if one or both partners continues to feel like they need and only want to be with the other, the relationship is obsessive.

Partners may find themselves doing things--anything--so that they can be together. When they are not together, one or both may feel like they will lose each other or that the other person does not care about them. Not every obsessive relationship is abusive, but relationships like these are at risk for becoming abusive.

This information comes from Reaching and Teaching Teens.