Answer this question to find out if your relationship is healthy (or doomed)
Relationship advice on the internet usually comes in two forms: completely useless or so blatant as to be insulting. Then there is the approach of therapist Yasmine Mattar, who comes to the matter with a question. If the relationship ended right this second, would you be okay?
Mattar shared the question in a now-viral video, where she said she often asks clients if they would still be okay if the relationship ended right now. The point is not whether a breakup would hurt. Of course it would. The point is whether you’ll still feel like a whole person when things settle down.
Want to know if your relationship is healthy? Answer this one question.
That was probably why the question took off. It’s simple, but it forces a real answer. A breakup can still ruin your week, your sleep, and your ability to listen to that one specific song. But there’s a difference between heartbreak and losing all sense of who you are without the other person there.
That distinction was what Mattar intended. “A healthy relationship shouldn’t make you feel like you can’t live without someone,” she shared Newsweek. “You can love them deeply, miss them and be heartbroken, but you still have to feel like you exist.” This is because so many people have been raised with a rather skewed idea of love, one where anxiety, obsession and total emotional confusion are seen as passion.
Mattar also said that “feeling like you can’t exist without them is a red flag,” and that’s where people get uncomfortable. Because then you have to consider how much of yourself was packed into the relationship in the first place. She also said that people often confuse emotional dependence with connection. Unfortunately, many of us have that first-hand knowledge.
Her question is so helpful because it gets right to it. If this relationship ended, would you still have your own friends, routines, interests, and sense of direction? Would your life still feel like yours? Or has the relationship become the main source of your stability, identity and emotional air supply?
The wider reaction to Mattar’s video makes it clear that many people are hungry for a more sensible definition of love. A relationship can be deeply important and still leave you with your own center intact. It should be the starting point, not a high achievement.
