How can i tell my girlfriend she is too clingy without hurting her feelings?

If I were you…I’d just tell her how things were while she was away..honesty is the best policy here. But be gently with her and humble and don’t leave it until you get in an argument and blurt it out then… if you love and want to stay with her then there really should not be any problem…

Ah man!!

So you just want less communication, but still want to be with her? Why not just tell her?
Honestly, with all the gadgets we how nowadays, people can keep tabs on you too easily. I mean, I love that I can text my husband throughout the day, while he works, he doesn’t always respond but it shows him I’m thinking about him and I involve him in my day.
I would be upset if someone told me that I was too clingy. But you have to be honest and tell her you need some space.
Honestly though, if you think its hard just dating someone…then you probably shouldn’t be in a relationship for a while. Take time to yourself and enjoy being single.

funny enough, i recently got married and i’m very affectionate and my wife is just the opposite. she finally sat me down and was honest with me but caring at the same time. so now i know how she is but we learn to meet each other in the middle. just be honest with her but be kind so as not to hurt her feelings. good luck.

You can’t really not hurt her feelings. You can only reduce them as much as possible. If someone told me this, there would be no way I would not be hurt. The best I think you can do is sit down and have a really honest talk about it. Not just you saying “this is how it’s going to be” but finding a compromise that makes you both happy.

This problem will not get better. Tell her you like her very much (or love her, wherever you two are), but constant texting and calling drives you nuts. It’s not about her. it’s not about the relationship. It’s just how you are.

If she can’t take it, then you two are not meant to be.

saying it straight up without any buildup will make it seem like less of a big deal

First, make a decision. Is this relationship worth the effort? Understand that a clingy person is high maintenance and likely always will be.

I Agree with Marina: in fact your problem will just get worse, at an increasing speed.
Text messages will become much more frequent all the time, and sooner or later (but I guess sooner) you will find yourself wasting entire days with your phone in your hand, missing what life should be at 17 years old.

Thanks to all who have answered so far. I wanna shed some light on this situation with an example.
Like, we’ll be texting or something, and i’ll be busy for a little while and wont answer her text for more than 30 minutes. In that time, she would have probably sent me a couple texts asking “where are you?” or “what’s wrong?” And there’s a good chance that she’s also called me to ask what is going on. I personally find it kind of annoying that she gets so worked up that easily. I just want to tell her that i think that is a bit obsessive…

When I first got married (in the olden days before cell phones and lap tops) husband would call me many times a day just to talk. I finally just told him that as much as I loved him, I couldn’t tend to my job duties if I was on the phone all of the time. Our arrangement was that he would have my undivided attention when I got home and we ate dinner together.

If she has girlfriends, suggest maybe her spending a few nights out of the week with them, and you with your guy friends.

If you start to get busy, and can’t text her back, just say so. Do you know she’s really getting all worked up, or do you think maybe you are taking the tone wrong? I sometimes make the same mistake. But just say hey, “sometimes I get busy and I can’t always text back right away”. But what you might want to get into the habit of doing is just letting her know that you’ll talk to her later and you’re about to go do something for a bit so you may not respond right away.

Communication is key though, you need to let her know that it’s bothering you when she seems to get worked up when you don’t respond and so on.

You can’t.

Stay away from co-dependent relationships, that’s all I have to say.

Follow any advice @Marina gives.

Goodness…I’ve been thinking about this (as I was walking through Walmart!)—you know, you HAVE to be able to be honest in a relationship. Now might be a good time to find out if that’s possible. If it’s NOT possible—if you have to walk on eggshells to avoid upsetting her—well, I just don’t see a great future for the relationship….

Do you ever text or call her first? When I was in a long distance relationship, I would have the urge to call or text my boyfriend a lot more often during times when he wasn’t calling or texting me. If I put something out there, I felt that he was obligated to respond, which meant he would be talking to me. If he was calling me first, I was more confident in knowing he was thinking about me.

you cant.

Hey guys, just an update (I don’t assume that people usually do follow-up posts).

I have now been dating this girl for almost 2 years. I’m in college and she’s in high school, but we’re going strong.

What actually ended up happening is, a little more than a year after this was posted, I broke up with her. Mainly because of her clingyness (though it had gotten a little better). I told her that the main reason was that I needed more time for reviving other friendships and finding time for myself. At which point we talked about a few issues with our relationship. I did not, though, say it was over between us, but just said that perhaps in the future, we could date again. We were separated for 3ish months and I asked her out again. 6 months later (now) we are going strong. She is the perfect amount of clingy :P and our relationship is much stronger than ever before. If we hadn’t had the break, idk if we would be going out right now.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope that a few of you might be interested.

Take care
-randomguy

Cool dude