Clingy is a word that everyone understands. It gives you visions of taking clothing out of the dryer and trying to separate the dryer sheet. Not all of us have a secure attachment style, nor do we all behave the same in a relationship, but when someone is overly clingy, it is usually a symptom of a larger issue. Once more, being with someone who clings too hard, can start to affect your mental health. These are signs that the person you are with might be sticking to you too much like glue and you might want to ask for a little breathing room.
Constant Messaging
At the beginning of a relationship, that ping that comes across with a new message is exciting. Over time, the ping typically becomes a little less because things have progressed. If it was too much at first and now it is full-blown blowing up your phone, that is not healthy. When someone messages you too much throughout the day, it can feel smothering and suffocating. It is nice to check in, but keeping tabs is not healthy at all.
Guilting Your Need for Space
Healthy relationships last when two people have a life together, but they also have lives apart. If you have someone in your life that makes you feel guilty any time you want to do something without them, that is a problem. Making time for one another is important, but so too is finding time for yourself. If you aren’t getting it, it isn’t a healthy way to live.
Needing Constant Reassurance
It is natural to need assurance and validation from the person you are with, but if you feel as if you are becoming more of an emotional support animal who constantly has to feed your owner, that isn’t healthy for anyone. When someone continually seeks proof of your love and constantly asks for declarations of how committed you are, that can be overwhelming. If your actions aren’t enough to calm them, your words aren’t going to be either.
Jealousy of Others
When you are in a relationship, you should want the best for one another. Having a healthy social life and being well-liked is something that should be celebrated by your significant other not envied. If your partner is doing everything they can to control who you can be friends with, how many friends you can have, and dictate your entire social support, that isn’t healthy and it crosses boundaries.
Expecting You to Be On Call
A relationship isn’t a support hotline. Yes, two people should be there for one another in times of need, but if your partner needs you 24/7 that is too much. You aren’t on call and it isn’t your responsibility to drop everything whenever your mate needs something. If your relationship is starting to feel more like a nine-to-five, it is time to quit.
You Are Always Upsetting the Applecart
If you are always walking on eggshells because you are always just a minute away from your mate being upset that can be anxiety-provoking and hard on your mental wellness. When someone becomes angry the minute they don’t get what they want, that is a form of manipulation. Everyone has a different style of communication but if it is punishment for anything they don’t like that you do, that isn’t a good scenario for anyone.
Stalking Your Social Media
Couples often will look at one another’s social media to see what’s being posted, but if you are being liked, commented on, and stalked all the time, that signals that your mate is insecure and clingy. The cornerstone of any good relationship is trust. If they feel the need to follow you on your social media accounts, that means that they don’t, period.
Canceling Plans to be With You
Not only should you spend time with other people besides your mate; they should too. If they cancel plans with the people in their lives continually to follow them around, that isn’t healthy for them either. When your significant other feels as if they can’t miss out on a minute of you to do anything else, that is investing too much time into you and not enough into themselves.
Giving too Much
Who wouldn’t want someone to give up everything for them? Just about anyone. In a healthy relationship, you have to make sacrifices, but if that is all your partner ever does, it can become smothering. There needs to be healthy equity or fairness in a relationship. If they are always giving in, it makes you lose a little respect for them.
Impulsivity
When someone is insecure in a relationship and clinging too hard, they will often make plans for the couple without first checking what the plan is. Assuming that it is just them and you against the world, it never occurs to them that you might have something going on. Likely, you go along with it too, out of fear that it will create conflict. That simply isn’t fair or healthy.
Being Controlling or Critical
When someone is clingy they want to make sure that the person they are with isn’t feeling it too much, meaning they want to take them down a notch. Being insecure makes some people want to make the people they are with the same. They hope that putting their mate down will make them not want something better. Ironically, the person who clings to you because they want to be with you is often their own worst nightmare because they tend to push you away.
They Feel Incomplete Without You
A relationship should be an extra to your life, not your entire life. If the person you are with feels as if you are an extension of them, that is coming too close. Not being able to exist without someone is a sign of codependence. It is even worse when the dependence only flows one way. Two people need to be whole on their own, not just half, or things won’t work.
Pressuring You to Commit
If you have been with someone for a really long time and they start to pressure you to make a decision, that is understandable. If, however, you are with someone and your relationship is nowhere near where you would consider committing to them and they are forcing the issue, that is too much pressure. Insecure people feel as if you have to commit to ensure that you love them. No amount of commitment is going to make them feel secure. Don’t go all-in unless that is what you both want.
Overly Affectionate
Not everyone is good with public displays of affection, and once more, there are varying levels of what individuals are comfortable displaying. When people are too clingy, they like to “mark their territory,” by being overly affectionate even when the occasion and situation might not be appropriate for it. Some things are just better left for behind closed doors and if your mate is going too far, you need to let them know.
Dependence
People who are clingy and insecure tend to be highly emotional to the point where they become difficult to deal with. It is okay to rely on your mate for support, but if you are so dependent on you, you can’t do things on your own, that is not healthy. If someone is depending on you to fulfill them in every way, you can’t. You either have to draw some boundaries or it won’t, can’t, last.
Unwillingness to be Alone
Your clinger probably isn’t just clingy with you. Insecure people tend to never want to be alone. They just don’t like doing things alone. Two people must have outside interests and some space between them. If your mate is becoming more of an appendage than a partner, it might be time to move along.
Possessive
Insecure people are not only jealous; they can become super possessive. It isn’t just that they don’t like you talking to the cute girl at work, they don’t want you to talk to anyone. Possessive people tend to create drama and make-up scenarios that haven’t happened. Accusations begin to become the norm, along with them trying to isolate you. If someone is requiring all of you, all the time, without anyone else in your life, they are manipulating you.
Sulking When you Go it Alone
If you stop making plans because you know that it will lead to too much drama, then that is a sign that you are with someone who is too clingy. Insecure people don’t want to be left behind and fear you doing anything without them. The way that they try to manipulate people is often by sulking or making it miserable when you do go out alone. They don’t tell you not to, they just make sure you don’t want to because the repercussions are too great.
Showing up Anyway
When you do make plans without your mate, and they show up wherever you are, that is an imposition of your space. Sometimes an accidental meet-up because someone was “in the neighborhood,” can lead to a great time with everyone together. But if the meet-up was planned, and not by you, then it is an invasion of your time alone and not cool.
Healthy relationships are formed when two people who are whole on their own combine to make a solid bond. If, however, one is lacking in security and always looking to the other to support, validate, and approve of them, that can be smothering and overwhelming. If you aren't happy, then you need to say so, period. You can't sacrifice your happiness for the security of someone else's.
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