Love can inspire transcendence and a yearning to melt with your partner profoundly. However, that longing can quickly slip into overwhelming neediness if you begin to prioritize the relationship above all else. “Merging” in relationships generates physical and emotional closeness, but taken to its extreme, it can veer into what people sometimes refer to as being “clingy” or “clinginess.”

What Being "Clingy" Really Means In Relationships & How To Handle It.
What does it mean to be clingy?
Clinginess is an act of resisting separation by holding tight or grasping onto something. In romantic relationships, the term is often used to describe someone who needs reassurance from their partners in a heavy-handed, frenzied, or even compulsive manner. It often looks like someone who asks for repeated promises in the relationship, yet even after their partner goes out of their way to demonstrate their love and commitment, the “clingy” person remains skeptical of how the other person is really feeling.
“Clingy behavior comes from a person’s desire to fulfill their unmet needs, whether it be emotional, physical, spiritual, or mental,” couples’ therapist Beverley Andre, LMFT, tells mbg. “The person is experiencing fear and anxiety that is attached to a belief they won’t get their needs met, so they cling even harder to a person or situation to prevent the risk of this happening.”
Notably, the word “clingy” tends to have a strong negative connotation, according to couples’ therapist Aparna Sagaram, LMFT. “It’s more helpful to use the term ‘anxious attachment.’ This means you worry about the other person losing interest or leaving you, so you need constant reassurance.” The anxious attachment style is one of four attachment styles a person can have, according to the psychology framework known as attachment theory.
Clinginess often gets a bad rap, but oftentimes, people who are exhibiting clingy behavior may not be aware of how they’re coming off. The terror of abandonment overrides their ability to stay cool since they are more focused on soothing their insecurities. Patterns will commonly manifest in behaviors such as incessantly texting your S.O. throughout the day to check in, excessively monitoring their social media accounts to see what they’re up to, and making early effusive professions of love (which may ring hollow in certain moments) to secure a closer connection.
Where the behavior comes from.
Clinging actually serves as a unique tell that a person likely has a dysregulated relationship to their attachment system. In other words, as both Sagaram and Andre explain, attachment issues are the underlying reason behind their relational anxiety.
“Attachment develops in infancy between parent and child. How a parent responds to their child impacts attachment style,” Sagaram adds. “If a child is unsure how a parent will react or the parent is inconsistent with responses, the child is likely going to develop an anxious attachment. Your attachment style to caregivers is most likely the same attachment style you will develop with a romantic partner.”
If there wasn’t an early opportunity for you to fortify trust with a caregiver, it becomes harder, later on, to nurture emotionally safe relationships and feel like your needs can be expressed and attended to. As an adult, you may then externalize that internal angst toward your partner and what they can do to remedy your insecurities.
“Attachment styles are a factor when understanding why some people are clingier than others,” Andre explains. “Someone with a secure attachment style will have healthier boundaries and most likely not see their partner’s independence threateningly, as compared to someone with an anxious attachment style who leans more toward clingy behavior when it comes to separation. The need for independence would most likely be perceived as a lack of investment in the relationship, or [a belief] this is an indicator the relationship is ending.”
Common examples of clingy behavior:
1. Demanding reassurance again and again
Clingy partners ask for reassurance constantly and yet still feel persistent doubt. That might sound like:
- “I don’t believe you love me. How do you know that you do?”
- “Do you think I’m attractive?”
- “Are you sure?”
- “Will you ever leave me?”
- “I don’t deserve you.”
- “I love you so much, I would do anything for you. Would you do anything for me?”
- “Can you tell me again?”
Your partner can say and do all the right things, but it won’t calm your fears in a meaningful, long-term way since you don’t totally believe them. You might pose the same questions again a few weeks later or when you’re feeling particularly apprehensive about your S.O. and their affections. To solidify the relationship, you may accelerate I-love-yous and want to forcibly take big, tangible steps in the relationship (maybe even before the relationship is ready for it) so you can feel confident about their feelings and your future together.
2. Hypervigilance and surveillance
Overbearing behaviors may also show up in the form of checking your partner’s social media, asking to share phone passwords because you don’t trust them, and at its worst, snooping through their phone without their permission. You might also ask them to share locations but then never want to turn it off to ensure they’re doing what they say they’re doing.
Since you’ve likely emptied your life of most things besides your relationship, you might also use your extra free time to stalk their exes online or forensically go through their comments, likes, and followers. (There’s also a tendency to bring past baggage into the present relationship.)