Let’s talk about domestic violence, abuse and hurt.

The justice system should not need a dead body or a battered body before abuse is taken seriously.

I love you not, film by Amancay Tapia 

Abuse is psychological too. When someone puts you down repeatedly, makes you feel afraid or less of a person, insults you, threatens you or deliberately hurts you, that is not love.

The moment you start feeling scared or vulnerable, remember: it is not love. It is abuse.

If you think you love that person, it can be incredibly difficult to leave, but you need to get help and get away from the situation.

Education starts at home and then at school. School provides formal learning, but values are also learned at home. Empathy and respect for other people are learned day by day, not by reading a book or sitting in a physics classroom.

Many women in relationships experience subtle forms of abuse that can be difficult to recognise at first. Constant criticism, humiliation, controlling behaviour and intimidation can gradually affect someone’s confidence and wellbeing.

That is why I believe children should be taught from a young age what a healthy relationship looks like.

The majority of people will have relationships with other human beings at some point in their lives. It is time we told children what is acceptable and what isn’t.

Just as they learn nursery rhymes, the alphabet and colours, they can learn about respect, boundaries and how to treat another person.

Love isn’t simply the mystery that poets have written about for centuries. Love is also something we have to learn how to manage. And love requires respect.

What About Romeo and Juliet?

When I was a high school student, I read Romeo and Juliet. Even as a teenager, I remember thinking that Juliet was a very needy character and that I had trouble identifying with her.

Juliet was 13 in Shakespeare’s play.

She falls in love with Romeo almost immediately, secretly marries him and, when everything goes wrong, the story ends with both of them dead.

We have spent centuries romanticising this as the ultimate love story.

But what are we actually teaching young people when we present it that way?

Fourteen-year-old girls and boys have plenty of time to live, learn, make mistakes, develop friendships and discover who they are. They shouldn’t be taught that dying for love is somehow romantic.

I would never simply offer Romeo and Juliet to my daughter as a beautiful love story without talking about what is actually happening in it.

Shakespeare’s play tells us something about the society in which it was written, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept its idea of romantic love uncritically today.

Women were not allowed to perform professionally on the English stage at the time, so female characters such as Juliet were played by male actors.

Times have changed.

And perhaps the way we talk about love should change too.

We should teach our children that love doesn’t mean possession. It doesn’t mean suffering. It doesn’t mean being frightened of someone. And it certainly doesn’t mean dying for another person.

Love should make you feel safe enough to be yourself.

If it hurts, it isn’t love.