Can healthy relationships have “intensity”?

[Mixxes]

So recently I got into a debate with a friend about whether having “intensity” in a relationship is indicative of an unhealthy relationship and whether you can be “obsessed” with someone and have a healthy relationship. My belief is that obsession and healthy love cannot exist in the same space but they disagree. They say that it’s normal to constantly think about your partner and have extreme intense feelings for them; that intensity in healthy relationships can exist. As an org that educates others in healthy relationships, what do you think? Can healthy relationships be obsessive and intense? Or does that not exist in healthy relationships?

[Mo]

Well, I think there's an important line to draw between intense feelings and obsessive ones. You can have very strong feelings for someone and think about them all the time without that being unhealthy; however, it certainly can get to a point where it's unhealthy. I'm hesitant to lay out some specific line of where X is acceptable intensity and Y is not, but I don't think intensity has to be a problem. Is there a specific situation you you discussing, or was this just a general "is it possible?" sort of conversation?

[Mixxes]

It was more so a discussion we were having, not really about a particular situation. But the conversation sprouted from this reel that mentioned a person not having a “spark” because they’re not constantly thinking about the person they’re dating and that person is not constantly occupying their mind and they don’t always want to be with them. Then the creator of the video said this comes from having an anxious attachment style and the fact that they don’t have that “spark” is a good thing because it means their partner is fulfilling their needs and aren’t constantly preoccupied with trying to meet them. So then my friend said that it’s possible to have that intensity and “spark” and it be a healthy relationship. But I tended to disagree, especially because all of the relationships I’ve been in that were “intense” were abusive.

[Sam W]

Hi Mixxes,

Honestly, that reel sounds like it's trying to collapse a lot of things into one, and it's sort of missing the part where there can be a lot of diversity within healthy relationships (also, a lack of a spark is generally about chemistry or attraction, not attachment styles). I actually wonder if the spark people are describing is what the research refers to as New Relationship Energy (NRE), where the first few months of a relationship can be very intense and and almost rose-colored as you get to know the other person. But I will say that, even in cases where there's a huge amount of spark, I'd say the vast majority of people don't think about their partner every waking moment and want to be with them every single moment, so that first person was actually experiencing it.

As far as whether that spark/NRE is a warning sign, that really depends on how it fits in with the other behaviors and patterns in the relationship. Someone who thinks their partner is the most awesome wonderful amazing human and wants to shower them with gifts and someone who's deliberately lovebombing a partner to get them very attached very quickly can look the same and maybe even have the same intensity. So you have to look to their behavior overall to see if those actions are a red flag. Does that make sense?