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Falling in love is such a powerful experience. You meet someone you connect with, and for the first time (in a long time) you feel exceptionally seen and loved. The problems usually crop up a few months or years down the road, when your infatuation has turned into an intensity or a pressure that’s crushing.

Placing all your happiness squarely on the shoulders of your relationship, you stop caring for yourself and being there radically for yourself.

Instead, you look at your partner to make you happy. You expect your relationship to solve the pain and the emptiness that you feel. You become dependent on your partner — in more ways than one.

But neither your partner nor the life you share can ever be enough to give you the full sense of life and love that you really seek as a human.

Rather than depending on your partner alone for healing, love, and fulfillment, you must opt to find those things within yourself. Don’t crush your relationship from a fear of being fully who you are on your own.

Are you too dependent on your partner? Look for these potential signs.

Are you too dependent on your partner? There are some undeniable signs that you’ve crossed the line. Don’t lose yourself in someone else. Be aware when you’re putting too much pressure on yourself, your relationship, and your partner. Ignore these obvious behaviors (and beliefs) at your own peril.

Lacking independence

Is there a total lack of independence in your life? Think about it. Can you go out and do things by yourself? Do you go out into the world and experience it on your own? Or are you totally reliant on your partner for a living?

Look at all the different layers: mental, emotional, practical, and financial. Is your other half the root of all these things in your life? That’s a major red flag. True happiness is reached through independently navigating our lives — even with the company of an intimate companion. Without the freedom to explore and experience this world through your own lens, you will end up unfulfilled and unhappy.

Missing in meaning

One of the worst mistakes you can make is centering your happiness on your relationship, and it’s a mistake so many people make. They think that having a relationship is the source of all happiness. Instead of building a rich inner world or the skills to thrive in life, they chase a relationship with someone else and expect that person to fix all the hurt they’ve experienced up to that point.

That’s not how life works. If you make your relationship the center of all your happiness in this life, you will end up disappointed every single time. There is no surer or swifter way to pile your partner and your relationship with a crushing pressure that will make everyone involved miserable and unable to fully explore who they are or what they want.

Compulsive check-ins

Check-in on your partner all the time. You see it too often to count. One partner or spouse goes out for the day (or night), and the other sits at home constantly asking for an update. Where are you? Who are you with? How is it going? Compulsive check-ins aren’t a sign of love. They’re a sign of insecurity and a person who is far too dependent on their partner.

You should be able to live comfortably without your partner, and you should be able to trust that they are being safe and trustworthy no matter what they’re doing or who they’re with.

Lack of novel experiences

On a scale of 1–10, how often would you say you go out into the world and experience new things? How often do you meet new people? Read new books? Go to new places entirely on your own? Having new experiences is how we grow as human beings. It’s how we take control of our emotions and the beliefs that we build through life.

If you’re locking yourself away and focusing only on one person all the time, you’re selling yourself out and missing out on many of the things that would otherwise bring joy, beauty, and enlightenment into your life.

Icing out family and friends

It’s never a good sign when couples start icing out their family and friends. Are you shutting out the people who have loved you and lifted you up to this point? Have you turned your back on friends just so you could turn inward and focus all your energy on your new love interest?

This isolation isn’t healthy, and it forces you and your partner to be too dependent on one another in every single way.

We need our outside relationships to make our romantic relationships hold value and joy. How will you fully appreciate all that your partner brings to your life when you have nothing else feeding into the light and vitality that your existence is supposed to be?

Failure to stay present

Would you say that you need your partner or spouse physically near you to “feel happy”? If so, it’s a big red flag. Your partner shouldn’t have to be physically present 24/7 for you to feel safe or loved by them. Being constantly present shouldn’t dictate your happiness.

Our relationships aren’t meant to be the center of our joy. They are meant to contribute to it. That means that even when our partners are gone (temporarily or permanently), we should be able to find happiness.

When you are entirely too dependent on your partner, that’s not how the dynamic works out. Instead, you end up demanding your partner’s presence at all times and it stresses both of you out to the max.

Blanket decision-making

What happens when it’s time for you to make a big decision in your life? If you only make decisions based on what your partner tells you to do, then you could be looking at an over-reliance on them. You should be able to choose your path for yourself.

It’s one thing to ask for advice; it’s another thing to only act once you’ve been told to do so by someone else. Trusting yourself more than that is imperative. Anything less leaves you at risk of being taken advantage of by abusers who want to manipulate you and strip your life of the things you’ve worked hard to build.

Why do some people become over-dependent on their partners?

More often than not, we learn how to be too dependent on our partners over time and through our experiences. Some of those experiences happen early, with bad examples set in childhood and through our peers. Others, though, are experiences that result from warped attachment styles and toxic personality flaws.

• Increased Insecurity: Those without a healthy amount of self-esteem are more likely to become too dependent on their partners. Believing they don’t have what it takes to handle their own lives, people with low self-esteem can get into the habit of letting others control or actively shift their life paths.
• Wrong lessons: Many of our relationship behaviors come from the examples we get in childhood and from our peers. Watching what they do (or don’t do), we learn similar ways of behaving and reacting to the stresses of a romantic partnership.
• Warped attachment: Attachment styles have a lot to do with the relationship behaviors that manifest in us. If you have an insecure attachment style, you can find yourself being clingier or more dependent than someone with a secure or even avoidant style of attachment.
• Toxic personalities: Toxic personality types — such as narcissists — can easily become too dependent on their partners. Unable to self-soothe and expect other people to be responsible for them, they get into the habit of forcing everyone around them to carry the burden of their lives (and pain).

Knowing why we are too dependent is important because it enables us to take action and find solutions. Once you know why things aren’t working out on your end, clearer pathways present themselves. You can change your motivations, get aligned with your values, and change the way you behave and react in relation to your partner or spouse.

How to find your independence again…

Instead of seeking a partner to “complete” you, find a partner who complements you. Happiness is an inside-out job. Just as a bobble decorates a tree to complete our Christmas dream, so should our relationships be a bright addition to the overall beauty and happiness of our lives.

Don’t make your relationship or your partner the center of your life. Make it a part of your life. Keep feeding your passions and your interests outside of your relationship. Pursue the paths that fill you up. Make sure you maintain deep connections to friends and family in the real world.

Humans are multifaceted creatures, and we have complex and nuanced needs that require a variety of streams to feed. Feed your own heart and happiness by creating a life that is entirely your own. Include a partner who complements that life, who builds you up, and allows you to feel safe, celebrated, and valued in the process.

Bacon, I., McKay, E., Reynolds, F. et al. The Lived Experience of Codependency: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Int J Ment Health Addiction 18, 754–771 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-9983-8