Love is not measured by how tightly someone holds you when you’re trying to breathe.

There is a kind of holding that is care and a kind that is need, and from inside they can feel similar, especially when intensity is mistaken for depth. If closeness leaves you with less room, less contact with others, and less sense of yourself, the tightness is doing something other than loving you. Real affection generally makes more space rather than less. That is one of the clearer signals available.

Ask whether you have more or fewer possibilities in your life since this relationship became close. Ask whether you can say no without a cost. If the honest answers concern you, that is worth talking about with someone outside the situation.