Relationships exist on a spectrum, from healthy to unhealthy to abusive — and everywhere in between. It can be hard to determine where your relationship falls, especially if you haven’t dated a lot.

Dating abuse is a pattern of destructive behaviors used to exert power and control over a dating partner. While we define dating violence as a pattern, that doesn’t mean the first instance of abuse is not dating violence. It just recognizes that dating violence usually involves a series of abusive behaviors over a course of time.¹