3 Lessons on Toxic Love from Wuthering Heights

Analysing Wuthering Heights is like taking a 101 crash course on love counselling and psychology (can I get an amen from my English majors). Catherine and Heathcliff are without a doubt synonymous with ‘toxic behaviour,’ ‘childhood trauma,’ ‘poor communication skills,’ ’emotional abuse’ and ‘manipulation.’ Sheesh…that was the most depressingly packed sentence I’ve ever written. The irony is that the intense, get-outta-here melodrama of this book makes it more hilarious than heart-breaking. The complete absurdity of how emotions are expressed make you feel so far removed from that world and yet…are they really that unrelatable? From how I see it, girls and boys, women and men fall victim to the same toxic cycles at least at one point in their life. So let’s pick out some traits of toxic love and see if we’ll be laughing so much next time we find ourselves in the dark, dilapidated home of Wuthering Heights.

1. Confusing Passion with Love

Passion. Now that’s a word. Someone once told me that the word passion comes from the Latin word ‘pati’ meaning to suffer. The way we use the word makes that a little paradoxical, doesn’t it? Most of us want a ‘passionate love,’ most of us are encouraged to find our ‘passions,’ most of us oppose ‘passion’ with ‘indifference.’ Who wants indifference? Heathcliff is a perfect embodiment of passion (in it’s etymological sense). Heathcliff suffers with his love for Catherine. He says to her, ‘If he (Edgar, Catherine’s husband) loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn’t love you as much as I do in a single day.’ Swoon-worthy right? Wouldn’t hearing this make you weak at the knees? No one can claim love better, right? Actually no, not right. Need I list the things he does to back up this claim? Actually I will: He marries Catherine’s sister-in-law out of spite and then abuses her; he forces Catherine’s nephew into manual labour, denying him education and he generally just lives to inflict pain on those around her. He can keep his superpower love. From where any sane minded person stands, Edgar’s patience and gentle willingness to put up with Catherine’s crazy personality is a love we can talk about. Doss Catherine deserve it? Hmm.

The problem with passion is that if it comes from an unhealthy place it’s unbalanced with other problematic emotions. Jealousy, hurt and regret for example. You hold onto the person, not out of love but out of fear of being alone, insecurities and so on. Now what is supposed to be an intense love is actually intense pain and intensely displaced emotions. When really, emotions should strive to be at an equilibrium. Of course intense happiness and anger is normal, but if that’s the way the scale tips and turns everyday then there is something that needs addressing.

So instead of striving for a passionate love, how about a healthy, compatible love as a bare minimum?

2. Co-Dependency

Passion and co-dependency have a strong relationship. When I think of the above point I think of the Romantic poets like Byron, Blake and Coleridge and I picture these long-haired drama-queens professing how they’d simply die without art and poetry. Good for you, lads but that is not how to feel in a relationship. Yes, when you are with someone, you need to prioritize them and devote time to them. It is certainly important to feel that you’d prefer a life with them in it. But a life with only them in it? Making them the essence of your being? Hmmm… I’m not sure about that one. Cliffy and Cathy would certainly beg to differ: ‘He’s more myself than I am, whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’

Catherine and Heathcliff’s dependency on each other cross healthy boundaries. Heathcliff bases his existence on avenging his lost love, Catherine. He stays next door her, he marries her sister-in-law and he even tries to matchmake Catherine’s daughter with his son. These are all painfully extreme examples but it also shows the danger of not having a life outside your love interest or not having other things that fulfill you. Similarly, Catherine physically and mentally deteriorates over her tumultuous love for Heathcliff (yes…while married to another man). Edgar, her husband could at least read his books and take a little hiatus from crazy-town, but Catherine…well Catherine can’t exactly escape herself. She intertwined herself with Heathcliff so tightly that his actions affected her to the point of contemplating suicide. That’s more red flags than a Soviet parade.

That’s the trouble with co-dependency. Your happiness, your value, your identity is based off someone else. That someone else is not even in a constant state. They will have good days, bad days, they will be unreasonable, they will be sensitive, overjoyed or subdued. Imagine if the sun always moved while the Earth revolved around it? I’m pretty sure that would mean absolute chaos.

So instead of co-dependency how about co-independency? I believe someone should be in your life to compliment it, make it better. Not to complete it or to enmesh your identity with theirs.

3. Explosive Communication

There is not a problem that can’t be fixed with effective communication. I’m sure we’ve all heard this enough. Which makes me think how Catherine and Heathcliff in all their adulthood did not demonstrate a single moment of mature, calm conversation. Not a single time. I’d love for you to correct me if I’m wrong, but from where I stand their conversations resulted in insults, blame, professed anger, then a begging for forgiveness and then a burst of anger again. I don’t think this looks too different from many relationships across time. It’s normal to be overcome by hurt and intense emotion. It’s a skill to be able to communicate those emotions effectively.

But think how wholesome a relationship is when two people practice taking time to regulate those emotions, making it a principle not to insult each other and above all listening to understand, not to respond. This of course comes with a lot. It comes with not constantly pointing a finger and being insulting, like Heathcliff constantly throwing into Catherine’s face how he betrayed her. It also comes with not being defensive and victimizing yourself like Cathy who basically tells Heathcliff to forgive her for marrying Edgar and get over it.

So instead of explosive communication, how about effective communication? This is difficult and I am definitely part of the cringy Gen Z catogery who believe in getting therapy or any form of guidance.

All in all…

I’m not disputing Catherine and Heathcliff’s love for each other (at least not today). I’m simply pointing out the toxic traits that made it inevitably tragic. As well as how these traits are still so applicable to 21st century relationships. I think this book teaches us that love can be the guise of many things: insecurity, fear of neglect, loneliness, validation. This is a love that takes, not a love that gives. But loving someone knowing your life is already full, knowing that they aren’t consumed by you and you by them, knowing that you can communicate effectively with them– is a love that gives more than it takes. And that’s a lasting love (in my inexperienced opinion). I hope something resonated with you in this reflection. Go out there and love yourself the way you want to be loved!

Discussion Questions

• Do you think Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a healthier depiction of passionate love?
• Are there any other toxic love traits you’ve spotted in the novel?
• Which character do you sympathize most with, Catherine or Heathcliff? Or neither?
• Can you suggest any other books that explore similar love themes?

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