I believe that independence is a neutral quality that can be beneficial in some situations and detrimental in others. Of course, this could come from growing up with a father who was always chastising me for being "too dependent" because although I could stay home alone for eight days when I was thirteen and he was in Cuba, I didn't particularly enjoy it and would rather have had him home with me, especially over holidays like Christmas when I was feeling alone and abandoned because my father didn't even seem to notice, much les care, that my first Christmas after being kicked out of the house by my mom might be painful for me.

According to my father, my independence (which included self-sufficiency at age thirteen - I got up in the morning, got myself ready, made breakfast, walked to school, walked home from school, had a snack, did my homework, did the part-time work he brought home for me from his business so I could earn some extra money and make myself useful, and amused myself until he got home from work around seven or eight) was never enough. It was just expected that I would be able to take care of myself physically, and it annoyed him that I wasn't able to fully take care of myself emotionally.

So to me, independence has been necessary for survival, but not necessarily a positive trait since it led to me just bottling up strong emotions which would then manifest themselves in other ways because I didn't want to bother people or ask them for help. I think a healthy "dependence" (I hate this word, but it's technically correct) is probably what I would be looking for with new T - where I can "depend" on her to be there when I need her, and if I felt secure about that, I would be able to be mostly "independent" without needing to bottle up my emotions because I would have someone it was safe to express them with.