I was reading a user's comment on Reddit today that said that they love their wife for the fact that they choose to be together for love and friendship, and that they don't *need* eachother, they just want to be together.

You hear that all the time. That if you *need* someone, the relationship will suffer. That a couple should be able to live without one another.

It made me reflect on my own relationships, and how even my most secure relationship has devolved to a state where I feel like I need them in my life. I don't know if I will ever be in a place where I don't feel like I need my romantic partner. I work and work on my insecurities and negative relationship patterns but the reactions are always the same - panic and fear at the idea of being without them.

The only thing I feel like I have control over are my reactions. So even though I feel like the world will implode when I think my partner might leave, I do my best to use coping mechanisms to calm me until the storm passes, in an attempt to preserve the relationship from my negative patterns. But in the grand scheme of things, it feels like my fear of abandonment will always make me latch onto my loved one to the point of codependency.

Does that mean that I can never have a healthy relationship?