In my 40 years of working with clients in psychotherapy, I have discovered that it is a conflict of “intimacy pattern” that is at the heart of many relationship struggles.  A person’s intimacy is a distinctive pattern of behavior, thoughts, and emotions that emerges when he or she becomes involved in a close relationship.  To a certain degree, most of us fall into one of two primary, categories: “clingers” or “stingers”.  Those I call “clingers” share characteristics with April and crave closeness. Because of their strong desire for deep closeness, extreme clingers often lose their sense of self in their quest to become one with another person.  Those I call “stingers” are like Michael and strive to avoid the entanglements of intimacy.

Extreme stingers, often distance themselves from potential partners or end up pushing them away.  When a stinger and a clinger enter into a long-term relationship together, after a period of time the stinger will often feel smothered or crowded and experience a desperate need for personal space, while the clinger will often feel rejected and perceive such a partner as cold, uncaring, and distant.

The Clinger

As soon as her husband and children leave the house in the morning, Susan picks up the phone.  She feels anxious about being alone, so she chats with friends and family members throughout the day to avoid feeling isolated.  Susan loves to talk.  She is also a sympathetic listener, which makes her a popular confidant.  Her children bask in her affectionate and devoted attention.

Despite what many would consider a fulfilling life with family and friends, Susan rarely feels peaceful.  Sometimes she gets so caught up in the lives of others that she forgets her own needs,  however, when her husband Al comes home, her needs rush to the surface.

After the usual exchanges about their day during dinner, Al retreats behind his newspaper.  Even though they conversed briefly while eating, Susan feels neglected and needs more.  She wonders, “Why doesn’t he want to spend time with me?  Something must be wrong with me.”  She attempts to be affectionate and initiate conversation, but her husband seems to be absorbed by the news, adding to her feelings of rejection.

Some nights, Susan begs him to put away his activities and focus his attention on her; other nights, her emotions dissolve into feelings of unmanageable frustration, because he does not provide the affection and deep conversation she so desperately craves.  When Al rolls over after his usual quick kiss goodnight, she wonders if he is having an affair.  Night after night, she has difficulty falling asleep, as she fights her insecurity and fear of abandonment.

Above all else, the need to be close to a partner, to share the deepest parts of oneself with him or her, to be part of a devoted, lasting companionship motivates clingers like Susan. They actively seek close relationships and affection. For them, physical and emotional intimacy is the essence of living.  Clingers focus on creating intimacy, sometimes crowding and overwhelming their partners.  The more extreme the clinger, the more frequent the expression of affection and the more likely that such expression will spill into inappropriate boundary violations (e.g. expressing affection physically when the partner does not wish it).

 The more extreme clingers feel painfully isolated and incomplete without closeness. When they lack intimacy and affection, they feel empty and depressed.  These feelings debilitate clingers’ motivation to pursue their life goals and often undermine their self-esteem.  

Some clingers try to satisfy their need for closeness by creating networks of friends.  Clingers often have closer friendships than stingers, not necessarily more friends, but deeper relationships with them because they share more intimately about themselves. They also devote much time and energy into cultivating and maintaining their friendships, and thus build a strong system of social support. If an intimate relationship fractures, clingers usually have an extensive supporting and nurturing network.  Extreme clingers, however, are likely to waste a lot of time and energy socializing with people who are truly not good for them. In this way, they undermine their ability to accomplish more valuable goals in life.

 Other clingers may bury themselves in their work as a way of coping with being alone.  Despite these efforts, clingers without a romantic partner may still struggle with feelings of isolation and incompleteness.

Many clingers have highly developed interpersonal skills and are sensitive, thoughtful, generous, and kind.  They are often emotionally supportive of others and are thanked for being integral to others’ successes.  When these qualities do not divert into constant neediness and demands, clingers can make appealing romantic partners.  It is unfortunate for such clingers, however, that their efforts to create and maintain a harmonious life for their partners often leave them with little energy for their own personal growth and the accomplishment of other life goals.

Settling for Less

Clingers often believe that a romantic relationship will make all the pieces of their life fall magically into place.  Such clingers imagine that they will pursue other life goals once they begin a serious relationship.  However, it is more often the case that clingers who are in a relationship keep postponing their aspirations year after year, allowing their careers or interests to take a back seat to the needs of their partner.  Since clingers feel they need to hang onto their partner above all else, they often allow him or her to make all decisions.  In this way they avoid “rocking the boat” such that they may maintain a secure relationship.

Clingers often settle for unsatisfactory relationships, craving contact and connection intensely, and they feel that a hurtful relationship is still better than no relationship at all.  When they suffer from low self-esteem along with a deep-seated fear of loneliness, clingers are likely to seek the immediate gratification of having someone, anyone, nearby.  Believing they are fortunate to have a romantic relationship, they sometimes lack the initiative to insist on a more satisfying one. Clingers commonly make the mistake of trying to improve their relationships by giving more and more of themselves.  Unfortunately, for example, when they are involved with a stinger, this sincere attempt at connection may make the clash of intimacy patterns greater. 

A clinger’s insecurity may also manifest itself in attempts to be in control in the relationship.  In this way, the clinger tries to preserve a sense of self-worth, unconsciously compensating for feelings of dependency and vulnerability by attempting to take charge of the couple’s interactions.  However, the clinger’s tendency to want to spend a lot of time with a partner is not necessarily an attempt to control; it can be a way of expressing interest, caring or love.  In any case, such behavior often makes the stinger want to run in the opposite direction. 

Extreme Clingers

For many stingers, however, an evening of solitude at home may feel like a rare treat, whereas for an extreme clinger it can be a very difficult experience.  Indeed, fear of being alone sometimes drives clingers to obsession or addiction.  For extreme clingers, the need to merge is so overwhelming that they are unable to accommodate their partner’s need for space.  One extreme clinger went so far as to keep a small chair next to the toilet so that he could be with his spouse during the one time when most people expect complete privacy!

On the dance floor, an extreme clinger may make up for a lack of intimacy by dancing too close and lingering too long with a partner.  In this circumstance, clinger becomes so deeply intimate that their dance partner becomes overwhelmed with the situation.  This clinger smothers the partner to the point that the partner retreats, sensing the inappropriateness of the situation.  The clinger then feels rejected and doesn’t understand what he or she did. 

You can observe clinger-stinger dynamics on any dance floor, be it at a nightclub or at a wedding.  You can notice how physically close the partners are and how long they stay together, both of which may correlate with their ability to sustain intimacy.  The clinger is often very concerned with how other people perceive his or her dancing and whether he or she is accepted by others.  This can really hamper the experience of dancing and is something important for clingers to work on.  It is not easy to pretend that one not is a clinger, even if one tries to hide it.

Extreme clingers are easily manipulated because they are emotionally dependent on their partners.  They may also become intensely jealous, imagining the loved one to be unfaithful.  The fears and obsessions of a “pathological” clinger may drive them to stalk, injure, or even kill the one they love.  Some relationships end when the partner must acquire a restraining order in order to protect themselves from harm of a pathological clinger. 

Examples of extreme, pathological clingers are often depicted in popular films.  In Fatal Attraction, the “other woman,” Alex Forrest (played by Glenn Close), will not let go of Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas), the married man who wants to end their brief affair.  She spends her days following him, becoming so obsessed that when he tries to distance himself from her, she endeavors to murder him.

A similar pattern is seen in Sleeping with the Enemy, where Martin Burney (Patrick Bergin), a clinger, is an obsessively abusive husband.  His wife, Laura Burney (Julia Roberts), lives in constant fear of his violence and waits for a chance to escape.  Finally, she fakes her own death and flees to a new town with a new identity.  When Martin finds out that his wife is not dead, he stops at nothing to find her and attempts to kill her. 

The manipulations of an extreme clinger are humorously portrayed in the movie The Cable Guy.  Chip (Jim Carrey), the cable guy, is obsessed with Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick), a man whose cable he has recently installed.  As he concludes his work at Steven’s house, Chip casually asks him to make plans with him for the next day as if they were already friends.  Steven, because he is a nice guy, goes out with Chip and tries to be friendly to appease him.  In another scene, Steven checks his messages to discover that the cable guy has called him at least four times in the span of a few hours.  Because Steven doesn’t call him back right away, Chip jealously cuts his cable.  In order to get his cable reinstalled, Steven has to agree to hang out with Chip the next night.

References:

The Cable Guy. Dir. Ben Stiller. Perf. Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick. Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1996.

Fatal Attraction. Dir. Adrian Lyne. Perf. Glenn Close and Michael Douglas. Paramount Pictures, 1987.

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