Wuthering Heights

I am struck by the difference in my reaction to Heathcliff compared to when I read it as a teenager.
As a matter of fact, I find it quite astonishing that I was so sympathetic to him then. And I wonder exactly what accounts for the difference.
Perhaps as the youngest of five children who were not at all nice to each other growing up, I identified with the torment that Hindley Earnshaw put him through. Although, again, I cannot see it now as any kind of justification for his behavior as an adult. As a matter of fact, it now strikes me as inexcusable/pathological.
I'm pretty sure that as a dour, emotionally overcharged adolescent (and hopeless romantic) I loved the story for its overarching passion.
I hope it's a sign of maturity, but now I find his and Catherine's attachment to each other pathological as well. Can that kind of desperate need be called love? Even if it leads to the other's destruction?
I think not.