Has your partner ever accused you of being “needy” or “clingy?” Do you feel the need to be with your partner 24/7? Do you feel parts of your life that make you...You...slipping away as you focus more and more time on your partner?
When you start being clingy or needy in a relationship, it’s likely to be only a matter of time before your partner starts to pull away. And the moment you notice your partner withdrawing or losing interest, you become even more needy and attention-seeking.
It’s a vicious circle. And it almost always gets worse with time, unless you identify what’s going on inside of you and address it proactively.
Give yourself a moment and try to figure out whether this kind of behavior is potentially ruining your relationship and if you are smothering your partner with your neediness. Also, keep in mind that being labeled as “needy” by your partner does not necessarily make it true. Only you can decide for yourself, and you are encouraged to seek out local behavioral health specialists for any support you may need in making your decision.
If you do decide that this is an area you wish to address, have confidence that you can change your needy and clingy behaviors. You can wean yourself away from extreme neediness and grow into a more independent and confident individual.
Here are a few ideas to curb your needy and clingy behaviors and boost your self-esteem.
1. Respect our partner’s need for space. Respect your partner the way you want to be respected. If he needs space, respect his wishes and give him his privacy and space. Asking for space or time doesn’t necessarily mean he is pulling away. Everybody needs to recharge from time to time. He may need more or less recharging time than you do, and that’s OK.
2. Maintain your own separate identity. Independent people understand that everybody needs some time of their own. Every couple needs to spend some time away from each other. It is healthy for your relationship and helps you maintain a sense of self and your own identity. Also, when you are able to spend some time apart from each other comfortably, it can be an indication that both of you are secure in the relationship.
3. Don’t be dependent. Don’t depend on your partner to fulfill all of your needs. Do not expect your partner to save you from the big bad world or take care of your feelings. Continue to fight your own battles and live an independent life, taking responsibility to for your own emotions and choices.
4. Continue to enjoy the activities and hobbies that you don’t share with your partner. Know that you and your partner are not going to enjoy all the same activities. Don’t stop nurturing your skills and interests just because your partner doesn’t enjoy the same things.
For a healthy relationship, it is important to support each other’s interests even if you don’t share them. Sign up for a hobby class, pursue a talent or get involved in organizations. Keep doing things that make you feel like.....You.
5. Be socially active. People tend to be clingy when they expect their partner to meet all of their emotional needs. Fill your need for conversation and companionship from more than one source, instead of waiting for your partner to come and rescue you from feeling lonely and bored. Have a well-rounded life. This can also prevent you from feeling pressured to stay in a bad relationship to avoid being alone.
6. Be confident of your value to your partner. If you are possessive, jealous or insecure in your relationship, take a step back. Being insecure, clingy, protective and mistrusting is a big turn off. It can destroy your partner’s attraction, respect, and love for you. People are usually attracted to emotionally strong and healthy people. Become aware of how you enhance your partner’s life to build your confidence.
7. Do not feel the need to be in constant touch all the time. If you are in constant contact with your partner through chatting, emails, texting or Skyping, you will have nothing to talk about when you see each other at the end of the day. Give each other some space and live your own lives. This can make reconnecting even more gratifying.
8. Relax and stop over-analyzing. It’s been half a day since your significant other last texted you. Don’t start panicking, assuming that your partner is pulling away from you or has stopped caring about you. Stop putting so much pressure on yourself and your partner. Over-analysis and assumptions only lead to wasted energy being spent on worrying.
9. Stop begging and bargaining for your partner’s time. Keeping tabs on how often you get to spend time together will create trouble in your relationship. First, figure out whether you are engaging in a meaningful conversation about how to make a little more time with the person you care about or if you are begging, bargaining or emotionally blackmailing your partner into giving it to you.
Focus more on the quality of time you spend together, not the quantity. Analyze the time the two of you spend with each other. What is stopping you from making the most of the time you do have?
10. Have a purpose in life. When you lack purpose in life, you can tend to turn your partner into your life’s purpose. Your life starts revolving around your partner, and this can be a big turn off for some people. They feel burdened to fulfill all your needs. Think about what your purpose is in life – and there can be more than one purpose. Don’t let it be solely about your relationship.
11. Enjoy some alone time. Being in a relationship should not stop you from enjoying your private time. Relish the time and freedom of your own space. Enjoy your own company. Go out for a movie, go to a spa, take a nap, read, or go for a jog or an evening walk. Enjoying your alone time is essential and also healthy in a relationship.
12. Hang out with your friends without your partner. Do you cancel your plans with your friends at the last minute to spend time with your partner? Do not make the mistake of shrinking your life only to include your significant other. This can be a sign of neediness and clingy behavior.
No matter how close you are to each other, spend some time apart. It’s healthy for a relationship. Hangout with your friends without including your significant other. This will help you maintain balance in your life. Take time to nurture and maintain relationships with your friends.
13. Get busy doing things. Improve your skills – take a class that helps you improve the skills you already possess. Love cooking? Enroll in a cooking class. If you are good at picking up languages, learn French or German. Apart from enhancing your skills, learning something new will also boost your self-esteem. It will keep you too occupied to be needy or clingy.
14. Speak up for yourself. Do not give up on your own needs and feelings. Do not compromise your desires and interests just because you have to care for the other person or you are scared to lose her. A healthy relationship has space for the needs and wants of both people involved. Hopefully, your partner is as interested in your needs as you are in theirs.
15. Plan for your future, irrespective of your significant other. Work towards accomplishing your personal and career goals. Spend some time working on short-term and long-term goals that are not dependent on your partner or your relationship.
16. Love yourself. Build strong self-love by taking care of yourself. Be comfortable spending time with yourself and appreciate who you are.
By taking good care of yourself, you will be in a much better place to care your partner too!
This is so good! a lot of good skills and practices, but I think there a reason why people are needy, and this is due to our belief system. what we believe about ourselves causes us to act needy. So loving yourself witch is addressed at the end should be the first step 🙂
Dear Aaran
Thank you so much for your input. It’s absolutely necessary to love yourself; if you don’t love yourself, you cant expect others to love you. You really need to realize your self-worth and strive to be a better person each day.
-Team FabHow
I was being needy without realizing it. I keot thinking she might have lost interest in me to the point that watched relationship advice videos. I confronted my girl about it, then she told me to stop being needy. I felt that she might start pulling away so I searched up tips. Reading this hit me in every angle, it made me realize what i did wrong and what to do. Worth my time.
-16yr old boy trying to be a man
My girlfriend recently broke up with me due to this behavior. I’m 29 years old and it was my first real relationship. We fell in love and spoke about marriage. I never knew I’d act the way I did during our 10 months together. I always chalked it up as “this is what love is” or “if she loved me, she’d want to spend the same amount of time with me”. I’d text her all the time, and if an hour went by without a response I’d get annoyed. I’d also whine every time she went out for a girls night. It was too late before I noticed I was actually being needy. I could feel the frustration emit from her from just being in my presence. The day I tried to talk to her about this, and actually take fault with my behavior, she blew up on me and couldn’t even see I was trying to apologize for my neediness, and was just trying to talk about it. I discovered the source to my neediness was insecurities with my personality. I was determined to change that behavior, but she wouldn’t believe me. I’ve never felt heart break before, and that just about killed me. I really thought she’d be my bride one day. I truly loved her with all my heart. She said she still loved me, but there was somebody else better out there for me. Is there any way to get through to her? Anyway to convince her to give me a second chance?
Try to show her what she is missing. If she really loved you shed love your flaws and traits. Yes okay maybe a bit much sometimes but she isn’t the one if she will just leave you like that.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for about 5 years now, and in the beginning our relationship was everything I imagined how thee perfect relationship should be(emotionally wise). Sure we had things placed in front of us that we both had to overcome, but I feel like those obstocles only made our relationship stronger. Eventually, I started getting jealous… or maybe the whole time I was jealous only because I was/am afraid I to lose him. Then that jealousy turned into neediness, whining, and being annoying. This article is great for seeing how I should be, but my only question is how do I take the first step to change and become it? Sorry if I’m not very clear…
I’ve come to my own realization that i myself am clingy and a but too needy of my boyfriend, but ive been neglecting to actually take notice of it and openly talk about it. Reading this really opened my eyes more to realize that if i dont stop I in the end will just lose.
My boyfriend loves me and I know that but my mind over analyzes everything.
Thank you so much for this content cause without it. And me not seeking it I really wouldve messed a lot up.
Hi Heather
Thank you for writing to us.
First of all, please don’t beat yourself up. Starting with the first step to change, remember that, your boyfriend or any relationship for that matter is just a part of your life. they shouldn’t be your life. I hope you get my point here.
Try to have a social life apart from what you share with your partner. This will give you a chance to know yourself better and prevent you from seeking constant attention from your boyfriend and hence, all that whining and neediness.
Just go out there, love yourself for who you are and spend time with your friends/binge watch in your free time/focus on work etc etc.
Secondly, if you guys have a really good bond, it is best to communicate how you feel to your partner (provided he/she is mature enough to understand your point).
And lastly, have faith in your relationship. A tiny bit of jealousy n possessiveness is fine, but anything greater than that just works the opposite.
I hope I was able to help!!
Feel free to get back in touch.
I’ve been with my partner for almost 6 years.
I need to stop being so clingy and needy…. But with my depression and anxiety he’s the only thing that makes me feel the light inside that I used to feel all the time.. I can tell he is losing interest with me. He never wants to talk about things that are on our minds. If I try to he will just burst like a balloon and then change the subject. He just came back from “boys weekend” from Friday to Sunday night and I missed him so much. But he didn’t miss me at all…. He got home and started to play his xbox immediately…. I asked for a kiss while he was watching anime and he didn’t even acknowledge that I was there. I feel so worthlessness and ashamed for being so clingy. I’m not worthy of love and attention. He deserves better.
Go to seek help for your depression and anxiety. Also change something about your physical appearance. Rather it is weight,hair,color style etc. Gain a meaningful relationship with whatever religion you choose. Go out with the girls. Or have sometime to yourself away from home. Start gaining interest in other things besides him. If the love is real he will appreciate the change
Louis,
This is coming from a guy. You wanting to hang out with him after he was gone all weekend does not make you needy or clingy. Him not giving you attention or wanting to spend time with you is not a good sign. Something is wrong. Let him be while you go on a self-discovery journey. Who is Lous without the relationship? What are some of the fun things you have missed out on because of your relationship? Hangout with your girlfriends, have a night out, treat yourself, and take care of your physical and emotional well-being. He will come around. Give him all the attention he wants when is come around. Until then, you do you.
He should spend time with and you should not have to ask for it. You are not needy.
Good luck!
Hey Louis
Every relationship has its ups and downs. As you tell me it’s been 6 years so probably you guys must be knowing each other inside out. People usually think there is nothing new to talk about left apart from your day to day activities. This is somehow true as well, but you both got to make an effort to keep the spark going.
Maybe he doesn’t give you the extra attention as he regards you as an equal, self-sufficient woman. He won’t sympathize with you every time, making you fight your own battles.
And please don’t feel bad about yourself, I am just trying to see his side of the story too, which may or may not be correct. I feel he is at fault too for not giving you the attention every partner deserves from his/her counterpart, and every action having a reaction makes things worse. Best is to talk to him, telling him that you feel being ignored, and see how he handles it.
Hope this helps!!
I never really had female friends and I still don’t, most of my friends were guys who had a crush on me and when I rejected their offers they moved on so I never really had a social circle per say. I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost 7months now and in the beginning it was lovely he’d come visit me at my college residence( not in the dorm), he did that everyday but I never went to his place. Sometime after my first visit, he started slacking (to me) he didn’t use to be so mindful of time( where he lives has a curfew kind of thing) and of course he got into trouble for returning late a lot of times but he didn’t tell me the extent of the trouble but after visiting I found out about it and I started making him return at least on time sometimes earlier.. Anyway things started degenerating from there, he stopped coming everyday and even when he did come he was so much more aware of the time. Some days he would complain that he was too tired to come and it made me think he had started to lose interest in me but I didn’t talk about it but my outlook would change then I started visiting him and when we’re together everything is fine. A lot has happened and personally I feel we don’t spend time together, well were classmates but we rarely sit with each other and we leave school together but I still feel like we should do dates together, he should organize a hangout for us but he has never done any of these. At this point now, I coerce him to come visit because he didn’t like my roommate and wasn’t comfortable with her but I think they’ve started to get along ..i complained about all these, how he doesn’t take me out, he doesn’t go to church with me, he rarely comes to visit.. I hate nagging but I knew I had become a broken record, cause I couldn’t stop complaining.. To me wanting to hangout with me (he hangs out with his guys on a steady) and doing stuff together was what showed me that he loved me, with all my complaining he didn’t change.. Recently we had some class events and he didn’t get involved, reading this post and one other about self love, I realize I was possessive.. I wanted him to do things with me in public that he didn’t do before cause I wanted everyone to see that ” I was the girl” you know and I saw myself begin to doubt his love, question my self esteem, ask myself why he didn’t want to spend time together with me? He seemed to be free with other people(females and males alike) and talking easily with them but couldn’t do that with me and I demanded more and more attention, we would fight and make up continuously and I realized the more I demanded the less he gave.. I have always being a jealous person even to my female friends and I told him that so I expected him to be less accommodating to other females but he just spoke to me the same way he did to them, nothing to make me feel special and this started to frustrate me. The nagging increased and I got tired and frustrated of repeating the same things over and over.. We took pics as a class and some cliques were taking pics and I expected him to come take a pic with me but he didn’t and when I chatted him about it, all he could say was “you know I don’t like taking pics” fast-forward to2 days later, he posted a pic of him and one of his guys at the swimming pool I couldn’t help but talk about it but he didn’t see that he did something wrong..he seems to place everyone else above me but still wants me to believe he loves me but it feels like I almost always need an assurance of his love and I know am not that insecure..these are just a few things but I got tired of nagging, he got tired of my nagging and when I asked that we take a break (of course before I found out I’m being clingy and needy), he said “okay”..i don’t know the purpose of a relationship if you’re supposed to be 100% whole in the relationship.. And the Two posts I read seem to say that so I’m wondering should I end things with him because I love him but I can’t see myself not being needy in a relationship and it’s relationship is not supposed to fulfil my emotional needs why let myself be tied down in one? I don’t believe just loving a person is enough, I have to be getting something out of the relationship.. Is my belief wrong? How then do I correct it? Plus I feel he is not interested in fighting for this relationship with the way he just said “okay” and hasn’t talked to me for the past 2 days.. I felt like I would die but I knew we needed the time out so I didn’t try to initiate any conversation (I told him to think about the relationship and if he wanted to continue it, why he chose me and all that because I thought he was completely at fault for everything) cause I was even amazed he could stand the nagging for so long..some of my friends believe he doesn’t love me with his attitude and all but there are times I know without doubt that he does but he just doesn’t do the conventional things that say “I love you” and there are moments when I’m frustrated.. Are my friends right or am I clinging to a false belief cause I don’t want to lose him.. I was scared of losing him some few days back and I’ve never felt that way in a relationship before and I knew it was only a matter of time before he sensed my fear and it makes him lose complete respect for me.. Or maybe he has.. I need some serious help here..this piece is a long one flowing from the the past to present and sometime intertwining both so forgive any grammatical errors
I’ve been in a relationship for about 5/6 months. A lot of pressure built up quickly and when we first had an “argument” it made it very hard to try and solve things it also opened us up to the pressure that was built! We had a massive talk about the whole situation and I realised I was being to needy like my life was pretty much the relationship and it wasn’t for her, after the talk it was about a week later and we was talking and she said the pressure felt like it had been lifted which was great!! But recently I’ve started to feel I’m going back to the clingy side of me the needy one
But after reasing this I realise what I need to do and how I need to do it! Withbme there’s a big problem of overthinking but the last month I have really tried to work on it!
Thanks for this it helps a lot ❤️
I lost my second marriage as a result of I being needy. (My first marriage I left due to emotional abuse.) I was unaware of how needy I was and still am to a lesser degree as a person until it was pointed out to me, by an older friend. My husband and I together as well as myself individually had gone for counseling for my symptoms without any of the counselors being able to come to the diagnosis of I being needy. For instance, several times I called him up several times within a ten – fifteen minute time frame because he wasn’t answering my phone calls. I thought he was angry at me, when he instead he stated he was in the shower. Finally, my estranged husband could not handle my neediness to the point that he stated to me numerous times that he felt as if he was a prisoner.
Hi Beth
We are so sorry about what happened. We can only imagine what you have been through. Sometimes we fail to understand our actions, which are actually a sign of something deeper.
It is great to see that you now know the cause of your behavior and you are accepting it. Half the battle is won once you accept the problem.
We request you to seek professional help along with the tips stated above, and start on afresh in life.
If you need any assistance from us, please let us know.
-Team FabHow
I am friends with a girl with whom I’m in love. we have been friends for 2 years now. She knows about my feelings but for some reason she is taking things ridiculously slow and says she is not ready for a relationship. Although we are getting closer day by day, (because of my efforts not hers). I can’t stop being needy and insecure. I know she likes me, but I don’t think I can say she is IN LOVE WITH me. I’ve been practicing the tips here for a while, but the big issue is I often think to myself “I’m doing all this out of the fear of losing her, I’m trying not to be needy out of my need for her. Isn’t trying not to be needy for her sake still being needy?”
I have read all the stories here and replies. I’m going through the same thing with my partner until she broke up calling me needy. Is it okay to take a step back from her and utilize what I have learnt here about being needy then go back to her after a while? I really don’t want to lose her…
Hi, I’m in a long distance relationship with my boyfriend for 3 years now. To give a bit of a background, i moved to Holland(he was living in Belgium) to do my studies to be closer to him. After a year, however,after he finished his studies he decided to move to Germany instead of coming to live together. After that I started overthinking that and thought he chose to move to his best friend instead of me. That made me enter the vicious circle of neediness and asking him for time, being insecure, jealous and even hated his best friend. Anyhow, it got as bad as I couldn’t make any friends or any time for anything because I was thinking any second he might want to talk to me or play a video game together and I just couldn’t miss that chance. Right now I have a miserable life, with trouble focusing on my studies, crying at least 3 times a week(and he knows and we talk about it and we fight about it, because he is a healthy person and is independent unlike me) . I dont know how to change,i don’t know how to stop being jealous of the people that hang out with him just because they can and I can’t because I live too far, i want to change so bad because I know he loves me and suffers a lot because of me being needy but I just don’t know how to. I can’t go out , make friends,have a hobby because I’m afraid I will lose any moment he could have free and me not being there to take it…what should I do..?