Sometime back, not long ago, I used to think that being clingy was a sign of love.

I used to believe that if I am clingy, it means that I love them and they will love me back.

It took me a while to realize that it was my traumatic response and all it did was push the other party away.

We have lists in our heads of what love looks like.

I do not just mean in romantic relationships but in all relations be it friendship, work relations, school relations and even family relations.

We constantly think that being clingy will come off as loving and caring to the other party.

Well, on a scale of 1-10, 8 people will agree that it does not. Matter of fact it does quite the opposite.

As human beings it is in our nature to seek freedom. Whenever that is not given to us, we subconsciously look for a way out.

Clinginess results into over-sensitivity.

Being over sensitive to almost every little thing our spouse does robs them of their freedom.

Yes, we are human beings, we are bound to be sensitive to other people’s actions.

But, it is not everything that requires our reaction.

People make mistakes on a daily basis, pointing it out every-time it happens will make them to lose their peace of mind.

Because around you, they will have to walk around egg-shells with the fear of being scolded and complained to.

And no one wants that.

I do not think that one wakes up one day and becomes clingy.

I really do not think so.

What I think is that it is a habit we have picked up as we have grown through-out the years interacting with different people.

Maybe at one time an important figure in our lives left us.

It hurt us.

So we developed a fear of losing people.

That made us to become overly-attached to the people we love afraid that they too might leave.

We want them to talk to us every second of the day, we want to be with them every minute, we question their social circles, and we even hack into their phones / social media accounts.

Since we are scared of being left, we do all of this to check for any signs of them leaving.

Like a self-fulfilled prophecy, they do end up leaving, don’t they?

We need to understand that people have lives of their own.

They have friends that require their attention, they have siblings, they have parents/guardians, and they have colleagues that need their time as well.

As a spouse you are only an addittive to that existing circle.

Get me clear on this one, you are definitely not their whole universe.

We need to learn that in our spouses’/ friends’ lives we are ordinary human beings.

We need to stop thinking that we are some kind of special entity in their lives.

If we stop thinking like that, our desire to be treated as special will decline.

At the same time, we need to work on our tendency of offering people especially our spouse special front row seats in our lives.

The only person you will be with for the rest of your life through thick and thin is you.

Offer yourself a special front row seat.

Every-one else is ordinary in your life.

Just because you love them, it does not make them the VIP’s of your life.

Putting yourself first is not selfish.

It is self-love.

If you love yourself enough to accept what happened in the past to be in the past.

That it was not your fault, you will be able to understand that people make mistakes, just like you yourself do.

It is not your duty to question and be sensitive to all that they do.

Love others, after you have loved yourself.