What makes a wife clingy?

[Convert1]

In my opinion, clingy means that one is dependent on the other for all social interaction, reassurance, validation, and makes the other person their sole communicator, sole source of self-esteem and outlook on life. That makes for a stifling existence and backfires in that the other person avoids you.

Being appropriately close to your husband is another thing entirely. The posters here are talking about appropriate relationships with spouses.
Clinginess means one person can’t begin to cope without the other one around, or can’t make a simply decision by oneself.

Being clingy is unhealthy dependency. It’s disordered, not like a good marriage where people are appropriately “together”.

:yup: Agree. I always equate “clingy” to desperate and insecure. The desire to be together as much as possible, is an entirely different dynamic.

 

[underacloud]

What’s so wrong with clinging?

Genesis 2:24
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Sure, a spouse can become too clingy, but that’s really up to the couple to determine what’s healthy and what’s stifling for the other. Physical affection is one way that spouses can express love and intimacy towards each other. It is by no means the only way, but for some couples it is more prominent than for others.

 

[pianistclare]

Well, I’m not sure about the secular definition. But I have heard from single people the lines “I broke up with her because she was too clingy.” So I personally took clingy as something bad the first time I heard of it.

There’s no such thing as a “secular” definition.

 

[Allegra]

To me, the term “clingy” either indicates a person who is very insecure and afraid to be anywhere without company. My sister used to be this way as a tween/teen. She would refuse to go anywhere by herself, even from class to another. She would literally take a Saturday detention from too many tardies on her grade card than walk down the hall without her “posse”. Once, we were at Silver Dollar City and she paid good money to have one of those candles made using her hand as the mold. She accidently left it at the counter in the store, and she was adamant that she would rather just leave it behind than cross the street by herself to get it while the rest of us looked at another shop. She was that terrified to be alone! Or rather, she didn’t want to be seen in public by herself. Another time I was giving her a ride somewhere and she begged me to stop at Walgreens for some IB Profin because she was in such pain. When we got there, she would not go into the store unless I went with her. She was always obsessed with her friends and called each one for hours every night, terrified that they were somewhere having fun without her. Nothing distressed her more than finding out that two of her friends did something together without her. That obnoxious time period in her life is what I think of when I hear the word “clingy”.