That's (part of) why it should be a separate table to map the relation "Relationship". People can have more than one (polyamory, infidelity), and you could track fields like the start, end, status (e.g. flirting, dating, committed, engaged, married, ended) in there.
Not using it at all would be better, sure, but if you don't have that option for whatever reason, reusing it is the next best thing. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Belching
Things you can ruin to realize it didn't make sense to DIY ( i.imgur.com )
jerk-sock...