Cue the internet.
Within hours, the comments rolled in. Obsessed. Cringe. Enmeshed. And the favorite buzzword of every armchair therapist with a TikTok account: codependent.
Two years is an eternity in celebrity time. They had a high-risk pregnancy, a terrifying fetal surgery, a new baby, a blended family the size of a small school, and a public goldfish bowl they couldn’t drain. They stepped away. Now they’re back. Still glued together.
I want to make a case for what you’re actually looking at.
In my office on a Tuesday afternoon, I watch couples diagnose themselves with whatever pop-psychology term went viral that week. They sit down on my couch, convinced they’re broken because they miss their partner when she’s at a work dinner, or because he gets quiet when she doesn’t text back for three hours.
Here’s what’s actually happening underneath every interaction you have with the person you love. Your nervous system is running a quiet background program, and it’s asking only two questions. Are you there for me? Am I enough for you?
That program doesn’t switch off when you grow up. It doesn’t switch off when you become a CEO, a rockstar drummer, or a reality TV icon. Attachment is the best theory we have of what love actually is, and the core of it is simple. We need to be emotionally bonded from the cradle to the grave.
