By Serena Gomez |Staff Writer|

“I love you,” the three words and eight letters that so many people yearn to hear.

Love to many is an emotion and to others a state of mind that every human strives to have and is afraid to lose.

However, what they fail to realize is that there are two different types of love: healthy and unhealthy.

A healthy love is filled with support, faith, and care.

An unhealthy love is the exact opposite; it is consumed by jealousy, control, and obsessiveness—it is tainted.

“On average, 20 people per minute are victims of physical violence by an intimate partner in the United States,” according to the Center for Disease Control.

“When someone says they’ve fallen in love with you, it can be hard to tell if they love you in a healthy way, or if their love is tainted,” stated psychologist Kevin D. Arnold.

There are some relationships where a significant other will give gifts to make up for something they did when they hurt their partner.

Some relationships are based on one person’s wants and needs rather than reciprocity.

Do not mistake control for caring.

If someone truly cares they will trust you to be your own individual self and will not force you to do things you do not want to do.

It is imperative to be strong by letting go of obsessive and abusive relationships.

It is hard to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy love. It is even harder to leave someone you have been with and known for so long, but you need to think about yourself first.

Instead of looking for another to love or be in a relationship with, focus on yourself as an individual.

Millennials feel as if their only purpose in life is to have a significant other. It does not matter who the other person is or how much you know about them.

When it comes to love, millennials seem to look for the wrong aspects of a relationship.

Instead of thinking about how compatible they are with another person, the majority think about: what kind of car does the other have? Do they have abs? Will we look cute together when taking pictures?

Just refer to the many dating apps available. Why are most of them filled with many pictures and shorter bios?

Thriving in a healthy, loving relationship is what makes living in this world filled with hatred and negativity, worth every single bad moment.

Healthy love is such a beautiful emotion. There is not one person in this world that could honestly say they would never want to be in love.

“Healthy love is a choice. It is something you give as a gift. It has conditions that shape the self and strengthen the other,” stated licensed marriage and family therapist John Kim.

Everyone wants to know that there is someone else in the world that wholeheartedly cares about them and who they are.

Love is a good feeling to have; just be careful who you end up with.

“Love is patient, love is kind, love means slowly losing your mind,” stated Kevin Doyle in my favorite movie “27 Dresses.”

Do not go crazy over a person that does not want you for your true self. Be with the one that would not change who you are, but wants to complement their individuality with yours.