You should feel confident in yourself when you’re in a healthy relationship. You ought to experience inspiration, love, and a sense of life. However, it doesn’t follow that you will constantly strive to be your best self when your partner is there. You might experience self-consciousness, anxiety, and clinginess occasionally when you’re in a relationship.
There are ups and downs to clinginess. The occasional need can strengthen your connection by serving as a reminder to your partner of how precious they are to you. But an unhealthy urge can cause tension and jealousy. Additionally, it could make you feel like you’ve lost who you are and suffocate your relationship.
What does being clingy mean to you?
The term “clingy” might remind you of a baby clinging on to his mother. A newborn baby is attached to his caregiver for different needs and cries whenever the caregiver is not around. This gives us the basic idea of the meaning of clingy.
Now if this attachment is carried forward to your adult life, it will impact you and your relationships. You must have come across those clingy boyfriends or girlfriends who are glued to each other. Some of them might be your friends and you find it annoying when they just can’t stop minding their partner’s business. Unaware of your unconscious needs you might not know if you too are clingy. Ask yourself the following questions-
- Do you find yourself carrying the same attachment pattern in other relationships?
- You might be fond of someone’s presence but does not having them around make you feel frustrated?
- You also find it difficult to focus on other things like your work or daily chores. Sometimes you compromise with it as well?
- Do you keep waiting for their call? Jump onto every opportunity to spend time with them?
- Have you also started to avoid other relationships that were previously important in your life, be it friends or family?
Start by understanding your needs
– Is it like I want him/her to spend most of their free-time with me? This comes from the need of wanting to be with him in each and every happy moment of his life. You find it difficult to see him happy where you were not there with him. All these needs can be pressurizing for your partner. Also, it will create a lot of pressure on yourself to act happy around him.
Clingy Partners often compromise with their “me time”, and their needs. They often keep their work aside to be with their partner. This will help you in Identifying your clingy behaviour.
Try to understand the emotions behind it
Now there must be some underlying triggering emotion behind it that drives you to run towards your partner. When jealousy and neediness make you frequently worry about what your spouse is doing when you’re not around. Ask yourself –
- Why do you frequently act like it
- Are there any fears involved?
- Do you fear you might stay unloved?
- Fear of rejection, missing out, FOMO, abandonment, etc?
Confront your insecurities
Confront your insecurities with your best friend or partner. Have that difficult conversation. You might be unsure about it at first but it is only going to make the bond stronger if the person is concerned about your emotional struggles. Yes! It only adds and adds to the relationship. I would suggest you rather have these talks frequently.
Be more lenient and empathetic towards them- Yes! Cut them some slack. The relationship isn’t entirely about your insecurities and they have handled it consciously or unconsciously, just to be nice to you. They are being lenient to you and sometimes they get annoyed by continuously doing this and getting no credit for it. Yet they chose to be with you. This speaks that they’re in this together with you.
Free yourself of anxious attachment patterns. A strong relationship is built on effective communication. It teaches couples how to communicate effectively, handle conflicts amicably, and develop a deeper bond.
You should start learning alternative ways to express your emotions if being needy is damaging your relationship. Instead of using “you” use “I” statements so that they won’t feel the need to defend themselves while talking to you. Talk to your partner.
Consult with a professional therapist
Atlast, consult with a professional therapist if you see this as a pattern in all your relationships. A counselling psychologist might be the best fit for your relationship concerns. Couples counselling can be a huge help in getting rid of toxic clinginess from your relationship. Your therapist will assist you in resolving any communication problems and in talking about any earlier experiences that might have contributed to the mistrust in your relationship.
Consult the relationship experts at Ganeshaspeaks.com. Download the app now.