Is your independence a strength—or a shield?You pride yourself on being self-sufficient. You’re the steady one, the capable one, the one who doesn’t "need" anyone to feel complete. But when a relationship starts getting serious, something shifts. The walls go up. The flaws become magnified. You feel a desperate, suffocating urge to pull back, stay busy, or just disappear.If you’ve ever been told you’re "emotionally unavailable" or if you’ve walked away from a...