People say things like "you have to have your own life still" - and to that I disagree. If I want to maintain my "own separate" life I'll stay single. The point of marriage is to start a new combined life with someone else, isn't it? Now, I'm not saying I think a couple ought to spend every single second with one another or that it's wrong to go out with the boys or the girls or whatever.
But I wonder if this insistence that people remain their own separate identities so staunchly may be part of the reason for divorce in our society. Maybe we, as a society, are too individualistic. Maybe we've lost the art of cleaving.
I think there IS a bit of a distancing within culture and the desire to stay just a little more separate. I see this in families too. There is just a "pushing away" of others, in reality, everybody seems really lonely. And when there's clashing, there's no communication, so it's much harder to get along.
I do think, however, that one cannot completely dispense of his or her own personhood when marrying to a certain degree. Yes, I realized, that you "leave and cleave", and that definitely means that you are each other's and that's that. (And not devoted to the parents or to friends or to self anymore, but to the spouse.) But I also think that the person still retains their other roles, to a degree, it is just that their new role of husband or wife requires and deserves their
utmost devotion. You don't stop being someone's sister, and heavens, you wouldn't want to give up the things you enjoy doing. "No more rollerblading, I hate rollerblading, and we're cleaving now, remember? I can't cleave to what I hate." If someone said that to me, I'd say, "don't be such a baby, I'll rollerblade on my own or with the girlfriends." If a woman can retain her own identity in Christ (some people feel differently about this, so this is IMO) and worship Him, then why should she lose her identity as a friend, a sister, etc? I know I'm going extreme here, but some people really do think that you absolutely leave everything else when you marry, and that it IS a whole new life. That would be like saying to your maid-of-honor or your best man, "Nice knowing ya" at the wedding.
I've experienced "person addiction" before, both ways. And that level of attachment is unhealthy.
Clingy, I think, should be defined by each person as they post, so that we know how each person sees it as they use it. Sometimes context doesn't tell enough.
