Very much wishing for union initially hugged by partner (7)
I believe the answer is:
awfully
'very much' is the definition.
'wishing for union initially hugged by partner' is the wordplay.
'initially' says to take the initial letters.
'hugged by' indicates putting letters inside (I've seen this in other clues).
'partner' becomes 'ally' (I've seen this in other clues**).
The initial letters of 'wishing for union' is 'wfu'.
'wfu' placed within 'ally' is 'AWFULLY'.
(Other definitions for awfully that I've seen before include "Jolly" , "Terribly" , "A lot" , "Very much" , "In a terrible manner" .)