How To Stop Being Needy and Clingy in a Relationship

There is something uniquely terrible about being lonely for a long time. It’s bad enough that you feel lonely on a regular basis, but it also makes you lose the confidence you had.

After a long time of flying solo, you may also have a hard time making friends. Social skills are like a muscle. You can use it or lose it.

The biggest contributor to losing your social prowess is the onset of neediness. Neediness is one of those issues where you don’t realize how bad you look until you actually watch it from afar.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where men often feel isolated—a feeling that often translates into neediness.

Warning signs of a needy person in a relationship

For a lot of us, neediness is one of those things where “you know it when you see it.” However, there are some key signs that you’re falling into the trap of neediness in a relationship or even when you’re flirting…

• You need the approval of others in order to feel happy. A needy person will often beg others to agree with them, even for the smallest of things. They need to feel like they have someone in their corner and can’t stand the idea of being disliked.

• The idea of being abandoned or left alone freaks you out. Abandonment issues and neediness go hand in hand. Most needy behavior happens because the idea of being alone becomes terrifying.

• People have mentioned that you make them feel smothered. Listen to them, please. Give people space if they ask for it.

• You know you have a jealousy streak. Jealousy can be a natural thing, but it’s not healthy or attractive. When you’re needy, people often notice that you don’t want your date to do anything without you. Why? Because the idea of them finding someone better terrifies you.

• You’re prone to blowing up someone’s phone. Text after text after text…Anything for a reply, right? If this sounds like you, or if you get upset when people don’t constantly text you back, it’s a sign you’re way too needy.

• The person you date is or is going to be your entire social life. If you don’t have friends and a life of your own, you are most likely going to be needy.

Why is neediness bad for relationships?

Neediness is the least attractive quality that a man can have. It’s a sign of insecurity and that you don’t have much to offer a person.

Insecure men tend to be difficult to get along with, primarily because they tend to demand people’s time to an unhealthy level.

It exhausts the people you love.

When you were a boy in school, did you ever have that one annoying kid that would follow you around, wanting to be just like you? Do you remember how awful it was to have him mimic you or tail you everywhere?

Needy behavior is the adult version of that kid—the one who didn’t really have an identity of his own. In both situations, you’re seeing a person who is reliant on everyone else around them to have a sense of self. They need that validation regardless of how uncomfortable it makes others feel.

It’s important to realize what kind of effect needy behavior has on the person who’s being told to deal with needy people. It’s suffocating and places a major burden on them to be your everything—and that’s emotionally exhausting.

It could turn you into someone you don’t want to be.

Many people who are needy lash out abusively if they aren’t constantly being doted on. This is why many people view neediness as a primer for an abusive relationship and actively avoid people who have that instinct. No one wants to deal with that.

When you are needy, people avoid you because they fear you’re going to end up being more trouble than they’re willing to deal with.

Considering how dangerous a person who’s obsessively clingy can be, it’s easy to see why this happens.

Women don’t respect needy men.

No one wants to be around someone who’s constantly at the mercy of others. Those who do, often have bad intentions at heart. Anyone who’s groveling at someone is positioning himself lower than the person around them. It’s hard to respect someone you look down on.

In order for a man to have a decent relationship, he needs to have a partner who respects him. How can you do that if you’re constantly chasing after your partner’s approval and companionship? You simply can’t!

No matter how you look at it, being needy is a good way to torpedo any type of relationship you may want to have.

So, if you want to have a happy relationship, you have to work towards not being needy.

Neediness is a fear-based reaction in most cases.

Neediness is a reaction to fear, primarily the fear of being abandoned, rejected, or losing someone. It’s a worry that you’re not enough or that the person you’re talking to is eventually going to find someone better.

Though it’s not the best reaction to have, it’s definitely one that’s quite natural to have.

People who are needy can have this as a reaction to past or current relationship problems. However, it can also be part of a person’s personality. In many cases, it can be indicative of a personality disorder that is in need of addressing.

It’s important to recognize that your neediness is not always your fault. Many of us have dealt with serious curveballs by bad relationships which leave us in a bad mental state. As a result, many people who suffer from anxiety and trauma often come across as needy in relationships.

How to stop being needy in a relationship?

Neediness is a lot like a type of emotional cancer. Early detection and prevention are better than having to work back through all your baggage after a serious breakup or rejection.

If you find yourself being needy, it’s time to get back into your masculine power.

There’s a reason why most people don’t associate manliness with neediness. Manliness is about developing that inner strength, that confidence that people need to navigate through this world confidently. That’s part of being a masculine man.

But, what does coming into your masculine power really mean? This means that you need to recognize that you don’t need validation from an outside source. When you start seeking validation through others, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

If you are noticing that you are getting needy, it’s time to address the root cause. You need to start building yourself up and remember who you are. Doing this can mean:

• Start building up your accomplishments. A confident man is a man who has a lot of accomplishments under his belt. If you aren’t already, work on a stellar career, hit the gym, develop alpha male traits, and learn to take pride in the little things.

• Set out to live your best life. There is nothing keeping you from donning some shiny clothes and hitting the club if you’ve been wanting to dance. There’s also nothing stopping you from taking cooking classes or even spending a day at the beach.

• Stop defining your value by whether you’re taken or whether you’re popular. Our society tends to put men on a pedestal when they have a lot of women around them, but this isn’t healthy. You define yourself, not who you’re dating. If people don’t see your value, they are not your people.

• Cut out influences that encourage you to seek exterior validation. Outside validation can feel great in small doses, but that doesn’t mean it’s the healthiest thing in the world for everyone involved. Incidentally, walking away from people who encourage that kind of mentality is one of the easiest ways to banish those thoughts from your mind.

Neediness can be a warning sign in relationships.

Believe it or not, there are some occasions where the wrong relationship can turn you into an insecure, needy mess. This is particularly true when you are the type of person who will stay in a relationship when you’re not able to see how toxic it is.

Neediness often is a reaction to small, subtle gestures that are made to make a man feel less confident than he really is. Ask yourself, after being with your date, do you feel better about yourself or worse?

If you are not normally needy, it may be time to back away from the person whose approval and closeness you are seeking to get. There may be a chance that it’s a symptom of something far worse that’s present in your relationship with them.

Get acquainted with yourself.

The fastest path to being able to end your neediness is to stop comparing yourself to others around you. Or more specifically, you need to learn to enjoy your own company. People who are needy often can’t handle being alone because they don’t really like themselves that much.

The truth is that the person who you are isn’t that bad. You need to learn to get acquainted with who you are.

Ask yourself, what are your passions? How do you want to spend the day? In chasing someone to be with you, you may have forgotten that you need “you” time, too.

Give yourself a purpose that you truly resonate with.

Men do not do well when they don’t have a purpose. A purpose is what turns into a man’s passion and his focal point. It’s what lets men feel like the heroes they want to be, and also gives them the opportunity to be a hero.

One of the biggest traps that tend to be part of modern living is the idea that purpose should be devoted to the typical “white picket fence” lifestyle that people tend to adore. The truth is that chasing status symbols doesn’t really make anyone happy.

When you have a real purpose in life, you stop worrying about whose approval you have. It becomes a silly, childish bullcrap that no longer matters to you. You get your eyes on the prize and that becomes the mission. And honestly? That kind of reframing does wonders for your confidence.

Take time to heal your own wounds.

There is something to be said about the hurt that comes with rejection or feeling like an outsider. A large portion of the crisis that men face is feeling like they are obsolete, lost, or unwanted. It’s a common wound that most people have felt for a variety of different reasons.

It’s not a stretch to say that modern dating can cause trauma, even in the most emotionally strong people. This can mean regaining your self-esteem, taking a break from dating, or even just reassessing what you want out of a relationship.

When you’re feeling needy, it’s not time to focus on other people.

Feeling needy is a sign that you should be focusing on your needs—not the need to keep others around you. It’s a sign that something is intrinsically missing, something you may have lost or forgotten about.

Trying to center yourself can be difficult, especially when you’re surrounded by people who tend to encourage the worst behaviors in you. Having a guide who can help you drop the neediness and align yourself with the masculine side can prove to be the best thing that can happen to you.

The hardest part, of course, isn’t just finding a guide who gets it. It’s finding someone who can help you become the man you want to be. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to seek out that guidance?

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