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 When neediness rears its ugly head, it can cause people to run the other direction.  Love based on neediness usually doesn't come from a healthy place and can often lead to behavior that ends up smothering relationship.

What is Neediness?

Neediness is best characterized by clinging, possessive, or demanding attitudes.  These mindsets manifest themselves in a variety of ways including:

• Getting uncomfortable when you see your partner being friends with or just talking to someone of the opposite sex
• Feeling that just because you make a request of them, they should comply. And if they don't that somehow means that they don't care for you.
• Feeling uncomfortable if your partner spends a lot of time away from you. This may be because of a hobby or spending time with friends.
• Constantly seeking reassurance of the relationship.
• Constantly seeking validation. This could include fishing for compliments, or trying to impress your partner.
• A nagging fear that they will leave you and imagining how bad it would be if they did.

All of these behaviors are founded upon fear. This fear may be a fear of loss, fear of being hurt or some other underlying insecurity.  A needy person is trying to avoid the vulnerability that is inherent to any intimate relationship.  The problem is intimacy requires vulnerability.

Why Do People Get Needy?

Neediness comes about when you take you take someone else on as part of your identity and make your happiness dependent on them. As a general rule, when you make your happiness dependent on something or someone outside of yourself, you are setting yourself up for trouble. You can see this coming into effect by paying attention to the habitual language used to describe the relationship: "He completes me." "I don't know what I would do without her."

Although thoughts like these are quite common for many people, they are rooted in scarcity thinking and fear of loss. What if the relationship were the end? Could you handle it?

The answers to the questions point to the root of the problem. A needy person is afraid about what it would mean if the relationship were to end.  In order to alleviate this fear, you might try to reestablish certainty by engaging in some of the aforementioned behavior.

The problem this (beyond driving your partner away) is that you damage the authenticity in the relationship. In order to cover your fear, you put up walls and engage in manipulative behavior.  You win a superficial level of certainty at the cost of true intimacy.

The Role of Social Conditioning

Social conditioning plays a huge role in the development of neediness in relationships. Watch almost any TV show or movie and you will find a romantic plotline at the center of it.

The problem is they portray an unrealistic picture of relationships - painting the ideal romantic relationship as the ultimate solution to all of your problems.  So when you find yourself in a relationship, you compare that situation to that ideal.

 

There also seems to be social resistance to the idea of people being able to end a relationship mutually.  It's like there is something wrong if a relationship doesn't last forever - it must be someone's fault.  Realistically, however, you will be compatible with some people and not with others.  And this is something you won't find out until you've been dating for a while.

So what does all of this social conditioning have to do with neediness?  With an inaccurate view of relationships, one that idealizes them, it is very easy to fall into a needy mindset to try to attain that ideal. 

The Solution to Neediness

• Develop security from within - Instead of using your relationship as the pillar for your security, use yourself. How do you do this? Begin to build an unflinching sense of self-trust - the knowledge that you can handle absolutely anything that life throws your way. In achieving this state of mind, all the negative experiences of the past actually serve you. They provide the evidence that you can handle anything. If you are reading this, then clearly you have found a way to get through all the difficulties of your past. Similarly, you will be able to handle all of the hardships of the future.
• Become responsible for your own happiness - Be the source of your happiness instead of trying to get it from your partner. How? Focus on building self-esteem, and creating an independently fulfilling life. Make your relationship the cherry on top of your already awesome life.
• Set strong personal boundaries - Communicate clearly to your partner what you expect from him or her and what you are not willing to accept from them. Do so with as much clarity as possible. Make sure that you are getting your desires met and that you stop giving your power away.
• Become invulnerable by becoming vulnerable - When you really put yourself out there because that is what is important to you in a relationship, your vulnerability becomes a strength instead of a weakness. Learn to value authenticity in your relationships more than certainty and security.

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Although neediness in a relationship can be quite ugly at times, it is something that can be let go of with some sustained effort.  What is left when that happens is the opportunity for satisfying, authentic relationship.