Title: Be Mine: Dealing With Possessiveness in a Relationship | Psychology Today
Headings: Be Mine: Dealing With Possessiveness in a Relationship
Lisa Firestone Ph.D.
Be Mine: Dealing With Possessiveness in a Relationship
Create a more equal and trusting relationship.

Content: This negative self-concept can lead us to act out all kinds of jealous or insecure behaviors with our partner. We may start giving them the cold shoulder in hopes they’ll show interest in our feelings. We may act victimized and wounded by any comment or action that we can construe as disregarding or rejecting. We may outright scold our partner or make rules about where they can and can’t go, what they can and can’t do. All of these behavior patterns have a lot more to do with us than our partner. And most of them have deep roots in our past. As children, we developed strategies or defenses in an effort to protect ourselves from difficult or painful conditions. These early experiences shaped our expectations about relationships and the defenses we formed then still play out in our lives today. That is why making sense of our own past and exploring our early attachment patterns can be very helpful in understanding our feelings of possessiveness as adults. For example, if we experienced an anxious attachment pattern growing up, we may have felt a lot of uncertainty around getting our needs met and felt like we had to cling to our parents to make them take care of us – in essence, to survive.