A 2021 study found that clingy behavior is the biggest turn-off in romantic relationships. The survey of over 1,400 young adults in their twenties and thirties reported 78 difficulties they've experienced in relationships.
It makes you depend on other people for your happiness.
Sure, some people might find it cute you want to spend every waking hour with them and talking to them, but in reality you might be hurting yourself more than you know. Being clingy makes you more dependent on someone, making it harder to break away from them.
While clingy tendencies may have been “ok” in your previous relationship, being overly needy is generally considered a toxic dating habit.
What Is Being Clingy? First, it's important to define clinginess. It's not just immaturity, though a person's emotional intelligence and maturity level definitely factor into how clingy they are. Clinginess is also not the same thing as spending a lot of time around your partner or wanting to see them all the time.
Being a bit clingy is fine if it's reasonable, healthy, and compatible with the person you're dating. It's okay when the both of you acknowledge that healthy balance between finding comfort or solace in your partner but still have time to meet the needs of their personal interest.
Clingy Behavior in the Context of
Taking into account the causes of clinginess, it becomes clear that this behavior is often the result of attachment trauma – not receiving the closeness, comfort, and security a child needs to feel safe.
What Does it Mean to Be Clingy? To be clingy is to stay highly close or dependent on someone for emotional support and a sense of security. Clingy people may feel desperate to latch onto their friend or partner and depend on them for constant check-ins, updates, and responsiveness to all needs.
“Often, it can be due to feelings of insecurity, self-doubt or anxiety about the future,” she said. “A lack of confidence in relationships can also contribute to clinginess.
A lot of babies and toddlers go through a clingy stage. It mostly happens when they are between 10 and 18 months but it can start as early as six months old. Here we talk about what separation anxiety is and how to deal with it.
Dependent personality disorder usually starts during childhood or by the age of 29. People with DPD have an overwhelming need to have others take care of them. Often, a person with DPD relies on people close to them for their emotional or physical needs. Others may describe them as needy or clingy.
Clinginess can take a turn toward controlling behavior if power and wanting to gain the upper hand enters the picture. You may want your partner to fulfill specific expectations, and if they don't, it can intensify thoughts that they aren't doing what you need because they don't love you enough.
What is a clingy girlfriend? A clingy girlfriend will struggle to give you space to be an independent person outside of the relationship. She'll constantly seek your attention, and the amount of it she gets from you will have a profound impact on her mood, happiness, and state of mind.
Clinginess is a natural reaction for children experiencing separation anxiety, or fear of being separated from a person they trust. Separation anxiety tends to be strongest from ages 9 to 18 months and usually improves by the time a child is 3. These stages correspond to phases of young child development.
'Clingy' is a term often used to describe someone who does not have clear boundaries and tends to get over-attached emotionally or even physically. If your boyfriend is overly possessive, jealous (even of your non-romantic relationships), and irrationally insecure about your whereabouts, he is clingy.
Needing to be in constant communication with your significant other could be a sign of clinginess. You might find yourself texting them all the time to see what they're up to or worry when you haven't heard back from them in a while.
A little baby, they let anyone hold them, but after 7 months they might freak out if someone else does.” That clinginess typically peaks at 8 to 10 months and begins to subside by age 2 or 2 1/2, Franklin says.
Acting clingy
An individual might hold on to a relationship even though it consistently makes them feel frightened or unloved. Moreover, relational trauma can also lead people to feel and act clingy even when they're in a loving, stable relationship. This may occur with no obvious reasons for being insecure.
Being needy is often a sign of low self-esteem. When you are insecure, you quickly attach yourself to your partner. This often leads to moving too fast sexually and maybe even moving in together after only a couple of weeks.
When it came to how many consecutive texts were considered "needy," both people in long-distance relationships and not in long-distance relationships said that about six texts hit the mark. That number was about the same for the women and men surveyed.
The clingy periods come at 5, 8, 12, 19, 26, 37, 46, 55, 64 and 75 weeks. The onsets may vary by a week or two, but you can be sure of their occurrence.
In early childhood, crying, tantrums, or clinginess—all the hallmarks of separation anxiety—are healthy reactions to separation and a normal stage of development. It can begin before a child's first birthday and may reoccur until the age of four.