When you've turned into a needy mess...

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

...How do you get your own life and confidence back? Are there things that you do, that you've found helpful, when you've realised you've been acting quite clingey and over-emotional in your relationship?

I'm in a lovely lovely relationship and everything is great! But I've been fed up about myself/my life lately and gone all clingey and needy with my OH. And of course it all then turns into a spiral, and gets worse.

How do you get you back? What works?

I took some time to remember the things I liked to do, separate to everyone else. Sounds a bit trivial, but it helped me remember me (rather than the me that was part of a couple). Turned out there was quite a bit, and I'd not been doing any of it as I'd been so involved with him. Doing the odd thing helped me reconnect and as a by product give him (and us) space

That's a great idea! Yes, predictably I've let all my hobbies slide and that's probably why I've been so clingey.

I've also got a million lovely friends I should be seeing more.

Why did I let this happen?! Why did I let my own life slide just because I got a man?? I could seriously slap myself.

If you really like them it's pretty easy! I don't think it's always true, but in the end I became a bit suspicious of the heady kind of relationship that made me forget myself. The passion, excitement, all the rest of it was pretty damn cool, but kind of came to think that the guy should be more interested in me than to let me get subsumed into him or us. Maybe that's putting too much on the guy though

Most empowering thing I ever did was go abroad for a diving holiday on my own. Admittedly my hand was pushed, was so peed off at everything relationship wise, but if you can do anything just for you it feels pretty incredible. And is probably quite sexy

How long have you been together?

Are you living together?

Why do you think you're clingy? How does it manifest as a problem?

Thanks, both of you. :) We've been together 3 years, saving up to get married, don't live together yet. I've recently moved back to my hometown and we've been trying to buy a house but keep getting mucked around and gazumped.

There's no real problem... I just hate how clingey and needy I feel I've become. Earlier in the relationship I was stronger, more involved in my own life, and just liked myself more. OH is a lovely partner, there aren't any issues (and if I told him I felt I was clingey, he'd probably say I wasn't!) but I just feel bleurghhhh.

I'm divorced, and really developed "last man on earth" syndrome with my now-ExH. I never want to do that again. As soon as I feel I've put all my eggs in one bastard (to quote Dorothy Parker), I start inventing problems and reasons to worry. :-S

I just need to rediscover me so I don't lean on my OH so much.

Part of the problem might be that I've put on 12lbs in weight since I moved. 12lbs! That's really making me feel bad about myself - none of my nice clothes fit, and I feel flabby and shapeless.

Plus I'm in a new area where I haven't got the same amount of friends as I did in my old town. Plus the house-buying stress and uncertainty is making me depressed - I just feel so out of control of it. Can't make any plans at all, as soon as we think we've found somewhere, a problem drops from the sky and we're back to square one.

PLUS I'm living with my parents, so I don't have my own space or my usual routine. It's all adding up. I don't feel I'm "me" anymore. I can't even choose what I eat. Mum and dad eat really heavy, stodgy, old-fashioned meals and I have given in and started eating those (hence the 12lbs).

Sorry for such a moany post!

You know what you need to do...see your friends and do the stuff you enjoy. You will feel better. Xx

I think I should:

1. Start going to the gym every day. It's "my" space and it'll cheer me up.

1. Make more effort to connect with the friends I have here, and make more effort to see the friends back in my old town.

1. Follow a structured diet plan. Stop giving in to the stodge! I have a great diet I can do, I just need more discipline.

1. See the good bits of my current situation. I'm surrounded by family, I have built-in babysitters, it's so not a bad place to be.

1. Take vitamins, and go to bed earlier.

1. Give the house-buying one more month. We have found a great place, we just need to find out what's happening with the house they're trying to buy.

1. Join a local group connected to my interests, and make friends through that. Also keep making an effort with the mums at the new school.

1. Keep doing beauty treatments. REALLY SHALLOW, but liking my reflection in the mirror cheers me up.

That's enough to be going on with, I think...!

Thanks, LF!

just a thought - did you have a happy childhood? going 'back home' can cause old feelings (about oneself for example) to reemerge. it may be a sort of emotional flashback (not as dramatic as that but can't think of a better way of putting it) if for example you felt needy or subsumed as a child.

it could be feelings that belong to another time and you're trying to pin the tail on the donkey looking for causes in the present.

I do think it is natural to become closer and somewhat more reliant on each other as a relationship progresses.

But as there are other issues that are not making you feel good about yourself, do work on those. It sounds like you have a good plan. :)

I think you have a good plan. I think you will start to feel better quickly when you take all your focus off him and start focusing on you and on your life.

I turn needy and clingy in relationship too. I've ruined several with it. My mother was a martyr to my father and ran around after him all her life, and I notice that I have a tendency to model the behaviour in my own relationships. Being needy is a huge turn off and I hate myself for it, so now I am trying, like you, to be aware of what I am doing and keep inteest and focus on my own activities. I am so much happier and my relationships are better when I do.