Lifestyle: Are you clinging to your lover?

There is nothing like falling in love and the joy of a new relationship. You feel on top of the world and everything around you glows with love. Your only wish at this time is that you will live happily thereafter.

One strategy that some lovers use to hold on to their relationships is by being clingy. A clingy person is one who is totally and emotionally dependent on his or her lover.

Signs that you are clingy

You don’t stop calling or sending love messages to your lover and you are constantly telling your lover how much you love him or her.

You want to spend all your time with your lover and give him or her ‘close marking’; you want to follow him or her everywhere he or she goes or you want to know everywhere she or he goes.

You are curious to analyze your lover’s social media activity.

You are moving too fast in your relationship and putting pressure on your lover to discuss your future plans, including moving in to stay with your lover or performing marriage rites.

Some drag out a relationship that has obviously stopped working but feel they can’t leave someone they love so dearly.

You see nothing but intolerance, abuse, inequality, constant criticism and poor communication.

Again, your emotional needs are never met but you hold on. Indeed, matters of the heart are hard to explain.

Why lovers cling

Some cling for fear of a lover abandoning them, while some have feeling of loss of control, especially if they have history of abuse, trauma or neglect.

Some have mental health issues which make them overly sensitive to every issue in the relationship.

Some cling for economic reasons. A woman who has many needs may cling to a man who provides her with what she needs.

It is also a fact that some love too much and will do everything to keep a relationship. Some also cling for emotional and social fulfilment.

For example, some women identify themselves by their relationships and think a bad lover is better than nobody.

The danger

Being clingy means you don’t trust your lover or relationship and, therefore, you want to know what happens every minute.

You become too accommodating, constantly at the beck and call of your lover. You also become overly dependent on your lover, who may use your sense of insecurity to manipulate you.

You may also end up not doing what your lover wants and how he or she wants it. If you initiate everything and become a ‘one man contractor’ your lover may not initiate anything and may take you for granted.

The clingier you are, the more likely you are to push your lover away.

A study done by Tianya La and Daring Chang showed that lovers who cling have lesser connectedness and, therefore, poor quality of a relationship.

Are you clinging?

If you are clinging, accept that no amount of clinging can hold a mutually fulfilling relationship. Holding on to a lover at all cost is about losing pieces of yourself, values and desires. If you hold on to the wrong person, you never find the right one who accepts and loves you for who you are. You can’t tap into your inner beauty as long as you depend on someone to make you happy.

Clinging keeps you from growing. Therefore, detach yourself and learn to love yourself because who you are is enough.

Never think you will be nothing and your life will be worthless without another. Never deny yourself the right to be loved unconditionally.

Finally, accept that clinging is a question of value. If you value yourself, your lover will do what it takes to value you and clinging will have no place in your relationship.