Columns & Shadows Healthy Relationship Model

I co-created the Columns & Shadows model with friend / sex educator / curriculum writer extraordinaire Karen Rayne. We put our heads together to help sex educators answer a question a lot of students struggle with: what makes a relationship healthy or unhealthy?

Here’s a quote from article I wrote to introduce the Columns & Shadows Model:

“It’s hard to define what a healthy relationship looks like because we all navigate relationships differently. Relationships are generally seen through the lenses of our gender as well as our sexuality, but there are many other aspects of our identity that are going to inform what we see as good or bad, desirable or detestable, healthy or unhealthy.”

Some of My Fav Stats

Calculated using a mix of methods (and generally underrepresented due to limitations), here's what Columns & Shadows Healthy Relationship Model looks like by the numbers: