Are you one of those people that are super clingy in your relationship? If you are, you need to figure out what is going on with you and why you are acting that way. Are you clingy or do you feel that you are needy or possessive?
If you feel that you are one of those things, you might be doing this:
- Going too fast into your relationships.
- Being jealous of people in your partners life.
- Always messaging your partner over and over.
- Looking at your partners social media account.
- Not spending time with family and friends.
People might realize that they have negative behavior, but they also might not admit that they are being clingy.
Even though you want to love your partner, if you are suffocating them, it can be unhealthy. Do you feel that the only person that is bringing life to you is your partner? If so, this can be a huge problem.
Being clingy is a big sign that you have had trauma in your past. This could be emotional trauma or other trauma, but it leaves you feeling like you have to have someone to praise you or someone to boost your self-esteem.
If you keep denying that you fall into this, you are just never going to be able to improve yourself. You must learn to accept that you are acting needy and clingy and then you can change the way you are acting.
Identifying Your Clinginess
First, you have to recognize that you are being clingy. You have to take responsibility for your actions. There is nothing to be ashamed about if you are acting this way and if you can identify the behavior, chances are that you can fix it.
You need to figure out which behaviors you fall into and some of them include:
- Always wanting to go where your partner goes.
- Getting angry when they do stuff without you.
- Ask questions that seem like you are investigating them.
- Always looking at their social media.
- Getting upset if they don’t text you right back.
- Assuming bad things if they don’t get with you.
- Staying away from other people just to be with your partner.
- Having no hobbies.
- Having no passions in life.
- Getting jealous of people around your partner even friends and co-workers.
- Giving up your happiness for your partner.
Once you are able to identify with your behavior, you can change how you are acting.
Free Your Partner
When you are being clingy, you are holding on too tightly to someone because you think that it means you won’t lose them.
The truth is, the more that you do this, the less chances that there will be that you will be able to keep them. You have to pay attention to what you are doing and if you let them go and they come back, they are yours but if they don’t come back, they were never yours anyways.
Setting someone free doesn’t mean that you end the relationship, it means that you learn to trust them with things such as:
- To not text you each time you text them.
- Not to worry about who they are with.
- To not try to overpower them.
- Keep their social media private.
- Understand that they are not being threatening to you.
- To not stay in touch with people from his past life because you are jealous.
Everyone can agree that when things start changing and you get less clingy, things will be better.
Trusting Your Partner
One of the most important things that you can do is to learn to trust your partner. When you trust someone with all of your heart then you know that you are safe, and you don’t have to be anxious in the relationship.
If your partner did something to make you not trust them, you have to learn to trust them all over again. Or, if your life caused you not to be able to trust people, you have to open yourself up.
Lacking trust in your relationship has to be talked about. You need to have a conversation with each other and figure out what you can do to reassure each other and to show trust. You need to set some boundaries so that you can move on without being clingy.
Your partner needs to know what they did to cause you not to trust them and you need to make a future plan as to how you will handle it.
Problems with Being Clingy
Clinginess does not make you closer to your partner and all it does is causes them to want to go away form you. If you are motivated and you want to be close, being clingy will not help you.
Your partner will get aggravated with you and will want to do other things to get away from you. Your partner will always feel pressured by you and you will suffocate them.
They will more than likely try to escape from you because you are too clingy. This can cause your whole relationship to be ruined.
You have to have your own dreams and goals and do something for yourself and not always for your partner.
Boundaries
Make sure that you set boundaries. Face whatever is going on in your life and find out why you feel that you are being clingy.
Your partner will want to have time with their friends and family members and live their life besides you.
Allow them to be with other people sometimes and to still be with you as your boyfriend. Set rules such as:
- They call you once a day.
- They spend at least 2 days a week with you.
- They no longer have to share their social media account with you.
Setting small boundaries will help you to know that you can be in a relationship without being with them all the time.
Let Them Grow
When you are in love, you sometimes forget about who you are, and you end up giving up your life for someone.
You will end up having resentment and you will see that you no longer have interests. Let them spend time with their friends and you spend time with yours.
If you want to stop being clingy, do not make them feel guilty for spending time with other people.
Put Your Phone Down
Stop being on your phone all the time. Stop texting them and stop calling them. You need to not be so clingy that you need to talk to them 24/7.
Allow your partner to focus on their day and their career. Stop sending texts and emails constantly. You do not have to text all day to know that your partner is there for you.
Also, stop getting on social media and checking what they are doing. If your partner left the house in the morning, let them go to work and do their thing. Do not call them at work and do not spend all day looking to see if they are talking to you or not.
Check out things that you can do in your life and call other people. If you are being excessive, step back. This includes sending messages or videos or other things.
Find out how often you are in touch with your partner and pull back some. It is unhealthy that you are clingy and that you are telling them how much you miss them when they have only been gone a few hours.
Stay Busy
Find things to keep you busy. Get a hobby or take a class. Allow your life to center around you and not them.
Go out for a walk or go to the gym. Spend time with family and friends that you used to hang out with. Do not reject them and push them away. Invite them over or out to eat.
Go on a mini vacation or go out on the town for the day without your partner.
Other things you can do is to meditate and be mindful of what is going on in your spirit being.
Find new hobbies and other things that you like to do. Stop neglecting things that you love and learn to do them again.
Physical Clinginess
Body language says a lot and if you are being physically clingy, this is a problem too. Give your partner room and do not over contact them. Allow them to date you a couple times a week and spend time with other people in between.
If you live with your partner, go to different parts of your home. You can go to your bedroom and take time away from your partner or let them watch television in the living room while you do other things.
Social Network
Make sure that you have friends besides your partner. Talk to other people and make new friends if you don’t have many.
Try to do some of these things:
- Eat a meal with some friends.
- Go to a club.
- Take a class.
- Go for a girls night out.
- Visit your parents or your siblings.
- Ask someone to meet for coffee.
Take the Relationship Slow
If you are in a new relationship and you are clingy, it will not last long. Do not be afraid of breaking up and give the relationship time to grow.
Take things slow and relax and enjoy your time together without being overbearing.
Stop Babying Him
Sometimes when people have children, they feel that they have to spend every second of their day with their child. This can cause there to be clinginess for them when they become an adult.
Now is the time that you have to look at your partner and know that they are an adult. Stop babying them and let them meet their own needs.
If they need your help, that is something different and then you should help them but stop being pushy and trying to do everything for them.
Self-Esteem
You need to build up your self esteem because this is one thing that causes people to be clingy and needy. If you have a partner, you don’t need them to validate you. If you lack confidence in your life, figure out how to do things to build that up.
Find a purpose in your life, help someone, or do things to make yourself happy.
Work on Anxiety and Jealousy
Being a jealous person can be hard in a relationship. It can cause you to sabotage the relationship before it even gets good.
Enjoy being with your partner and stop worrying that they are going to leave you. You have your own identity, and you don’t need them to tell you who you are.
No matter what issues you have, you need to work through them so that you can be healthy in your mind and your relationship.
Be Self-Reliant
No matter what is going on in your life, you have to learn to be self-reliant and take care of yourself.
You don’t need someone to take care of you and you won’t be incomplete if they aren’t in your life. Think about what you need from yourself and learn to be responsible to make yourself happy.
Stop Controlling
Never control your partner. This is part of being clingy and you have to work on these behaviors. You cannot control the relationship and everything that goes on.
They are their own person, and you will never change that no matter what you do. Accept who they are and accept that everyone makes mistakes.
Learn to Be Alone
Being alone is okay. It is okay for you to allow your partner some alone time as well. If this causes you to be anxious and stressed, you need to step back and see why that is happening.
Learn to be yourself and learn to like being alone. Do what you do to stay busy and spend more time alone until you like it. Eat something fun or watch a movie that you have wanted to see.
This will help you to grow and be a better person.
Attachment Style
Attachment theory is an emotional attachment and there are different styles such as:
- Secure Attachment Style: someone that loves to display their affection.
- Anxious Attachment style: Have trouble being alone.
- Avoidant Attachment style: Someone that is unable to be intimate and has commitment issues.
If you are trying to figure out what attachment style you have, take a test online and see what kind of style you have.
If you are super clingy in your relationship, you are anxious and have anxious attachment style. Whatever you are passionate about, focus on that and learn to work on opening up to others.
Remember that you have to work things through and make a change.
What Do You Need?
Figure out what you need in your life and why you are being clingy? If a person is clingy, it can be because of financial reasons or it can be because they have challenges in their life.
There are different physical things that can cause people to lose their job or to need a part time job or break from working. If this happens, you have to know that this is just temporary, and things will get better.
If you fix your finances, will it help you to be less clingy? Figure out why you aren’t earning money and why you aren’t doing things to make your finances better.
Your partner should not have to suffer with your clinginess just because you are suffering in your finances.
Find Your Self-Worth
You have to learn to figure out your self-worth without your partner having to tell you. Learn to be more confident and learn to figure out how to know that you are worth more than you are giving yourself credit for.
Define yourself as someone good and do not define yourself by your relationship. Here are some things that you can do:
- Spend more time with family and friends.
- Travel on your own.
- Take a class.
- Start a hobby.
- Volunteer to help others.
Make a Space
Create a space between you and your partner and this can help you to have more love for each other. Try a no contact for a few days so that you can get used to allowing things to happen naturally.
Here are some things you can do:
- Limit your contact: stop texting and calling all the time. Let them have time away from you.
- Spend time alone even if you live together. Try to not contact them for a few hours so that they can have a break.
- Make a “do not disturb” sign and do not bother each other until the sign comes down.
- Do it on your own: take a class, go to a movie, or even go to a mini vacation without someone.
- Take nights out to go with your friends and your family without taking your partner with you. You will be surprised at how excited people are to spend time with you.
Talk to a Therapist
If you feel that you cannot change, talk to someone that can help you. Therapy can help you to figure out why you are being clingy and can help you work through the issues that you have.
Insecurity is something that can cause clingy behavior. If you have been betrayed, this can be one reason that you are so clingy and that you show this behavior.
Talking to someone can help you to work through that and to make your situation better.
Results
Figure out what attachment style you have and then you will be able to figure out how to make your life better and the life of your partner better. Your relationship will no longer make your partner feel suffocated.
Let your partner be who you attracted them to in the first place and do not change for the worse but only change for the better.
