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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 obvious it’s insulting.

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Relationship advice on the internet usually comes in two forms: completely useless or so obvious it’s insulting. Then there’s therapist Yasmine Mattar’s approach, which gets to the point with one 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 whether they’d still be okay if the relationship ended right now. The point isn’t whether a breakup would hurt. Of course it would. The point is whether you’d still feel like a whole person once things calm down. 

@balancedbyyasmine7 Would you be ok if you lost them today? ♬ original sound – Yasmine

Would you be ok if you lost them today?

Want to Know If Your Relationship Is Healthy? Answer This One Question.

That’s 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 is what Mattar was getting at. “A healthy relationship shouldn’t make you feel like you can’t live without someone,” she told Newsweek. “You can love them deeply, miss them, and be heartbroken, but you should still feel like you exist.” That’s because so many people were raised on a pretty warped 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 got wrapped up in the relationship in the first place. She also said people often confuse emotional dependence with connection. Sadly, many of us have that firsthand knowledge. 

Her question is so useful 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 broader response to Mattar’s video makes it clear that a lot of people are hungry for a saner definition of love. A relationship can be deeply important and still leave you with your own center intact. That should be the baseline, not some lofty achievement.

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