Codependency is no fun.

Desperately needing another in order for you to feel okay creates a sense of loneliness and insecurity that’s hard to shake.

If you are knee-deep in an unhealthy attachment or codependent relationship, it’s important that you and your SO do the work necessary to love yourselves and be okay without one another in order to be okay together long-term.

So, how do you know if your sense of attachment is healthy or not?

One way is to monitor the emotions you experience when your feelings kick into high gear. If you feel all the positive feels about yourself and your partner, regardless of geography, you’re good to go!

On the other hand, if you start obsessing the minute your SO walks out the door for soccer practice—or, God forbid, for forever—it’s likely time to nurture your relationship with yourself.

Until you do, you’re always going to attract relationships that are doomed from the start.

We can’t give what we don’t have, and we can’t receive what we can’t give.

You desperately need you. You’re lonely for you.

Don’t freak out at goodbye to him, giddy up for hello to you.

Illustration by Shyanne Trutwein.