Emotional attachment or emotional dependence within a couple is a type of addiction that, over time, can generate suffering and depression. Many people suffer from this disorder and find themselves blocked by the mere possibility of abandonment or loneliness.
The problem is that the happiness of these dependent people, as they understand it, depends absolutely on their partner. However, forms of unhealthy love characterized by emotional dependence can be treated and prevented.
Emotional dependence can occur within the couple or in friendships, family relationships, etc.
Tips to overcome emotional attachment
If the thought of losing your partner mortifies you, you find it difficult to make decisions, you feel that you need that person to be happy, you need to know where they are at all times and your self-esteem suffers, you are surely living a toxic relationship of emotional dependence. The first step is to recognize the problem and confront it.
Strengthen your self-esteem
Insecurity and low self-esteem cause certain people to fall into emotionally dependent relationships. In this way, they feel stronger and more secure. But this is nothing more than a mirage, because your security and self-love cannot depend on something external to you, but has to come from yourself. Therefore, you must learn to love yourself, dedicate more time to yourself, recognize your virtues and be tolerant and understanding of your failures.
Learn to enjoy your solitude
Learning to be alone is not easy, but overcoming emotional attachment requires it. First of all, you should be happy being alone, with no company other than yourself. This requires practice, spending time in solitude, reconciling with oneself. Being aware that happiness is possible being alone, you will have sufficient emotional maturity to be able to share your life with someone in an absolutely independent way from an emotional point of view.
Have your own and defined objectives
Emotional attachment causes people to lack goals other than the joint plans they share with the other person. Joint projects are essential to give meaning to a relationship, but individual projects are also necessary.
Practice assertiveness
Dare to say what you think, always in a respectful way. Learn to say no. Reaffirm your personality to recover your autonomy.
Emotional independence, non-possessiveness and non-addiction, keys to a healthy relationship
As the writer and clinical psychologist Walter Riso points out in his book To love or depend? How to overcome emotional attachment and make love a full and healthy experiencelove is the absence of fear.
However, in certain types of inadequate love relationships, the fear of loss, loneliness or abandonment contaminates the love bond and makes it highly vulnerable. But, in reality, a healthy loving relationship involves emotional independence, non-possessiveness and non-addiction.
“Giving oneself emotionally does not imply disappearing into the other, but rather integrating oneself in a respectful manner. Healthy love is a sum of two, in which no one loses.”
Therefore, you must understand that people are independent, even if you have a relationship, you must avoid possessive relationships. In a case of emotional attachment, it may be advisable for you to distance yourself a little from your partner and rediscover yourself to revive the relationship. In harmony with shared plans, dreams and intimate moments as a couple, have a life of your own and always maintain a healthy level of personal independence.
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