How To Get Your Relationships Needs Met
June 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment
If you can get your relationships needs met, the relationship has a better chance of being long and happy. Not having your needs met is one of the biggest reasons relationships don’t work out. And after a break up, it’s especially important to have your relationships needs met to stay happy and stay together.
The surefire way to get your needs met in a relationship is by making sure the other person knows just what those needs are. You can’t read minds, and you shouldn’t expert your partner to be able to read minds either. He or she wants to make sure your relationships needs are met, so tell them what they are.
At the same time, encourage your partner to tell you the needs he or she feels are important. You might be surprised to learn, if you’ve never had this conversation before, how different your needs might be.
You might feel the need for you partner to tell you he loves you often, so may you do that for him. He no doubt enjoys that, but maybe what he really needs is for you to do quick considerate things to make him feel special. Some people like to be told, and some people like to be shown.
Simply having a discussion about your relationships needs can strengthen the relationship and make it easier for you to keep each other happy. If you’re uncomfortable having such a frank discussion, you should do it anyway. Telling each other your needs is better than hinting or expecting them to be psychic.
You may really need your partner to be more helpful to you. But when it’s time to clean or wash dishes you do them alone, yet again. And instead of simply asking for help or letting him know that it would mean a lot to you if he would do them sometimes or do them with you, you get angry.
You might huff around while you’re doing them, slam a cabinet, or act otherwise put out. This is passive aggressive behavior. You’re trying to manipulate him into helping you by acting that way. It’s much better and healthier to simply ask for help.
Passive aggressive behavior is common in relationships, and it’s a worsening cycle because it doesn’t work. If he does take your hint, it’s only after you’ve acted put upon, angry and resentful. So his doing the dishes might be only to keep you from acting that way.
If you ask for help and explain that it makes you feel good when he wants to help you, then he’s coming at the task from a place of love and helpfulness. He doesn’t feel guilted into doing it, so it’s better for everyone.
This applies to things like showing affection, respecting each other’s feelings, and every aspect of your relationship. When you want something, ask for it, and be prepared to give your partner what he or she asks for to make sure all your relationships needs are met.
You’re Not Meeting My Needs
June 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment
“Sandra wants to end our marriage,” Ted told me in our phone session. “She says that I am not meeting her needs.”
I often hear this in my counseling practice.
How did we get the idea that marriage is about the other person meeting our needs, or about our meeting the other person’s needs? How did we get so far away from personal responsibility for meeting our own needs that we expect others to do it for us? What are these “needs” that Ted was not meeting for Sandra?
“She said that I don’t make her feel good enough about herself, and that I don’t make her feel secure. She tells me that it’s my fault that she doesn’t feel special. She is not happy and blames me for her unhappiness. She’s angry that we don’t have sex very often, and that I’m not often affectionate. I agree that I’m not turned on to her and I don’t feel affection toward her, but I find it hard to feel that way toward her when she is so often angry at me and blaming me. But she believes that the problems are all my fault, and maybe they are.”
“Ted, the problem is that neither of you are taking responsibility for your own feelings. Sandra is making you responsible for her unhappiness, and you think you are responsible for her feelings rather than for your own. If you were to focus on meeting your needs to feel happy, peaceful, and secure, and Sandra were to take responsibility for learning how to make herself feel good about herself, then both of you could begin to meet each other’s need for emotional intimacy and connection. Affection and sexuality would come out of your emotional intimacy, rather than something you have to do to prove to Sandra that you love her.”
“But what if Sandra doesn’t want to take this responsibility for herself? What if she just wants to find someone else to meet her needs?”
“How often has Sandra threatened to leave the marriage?”
“Oh, at least every 6 months.”
“So the chances are it is a manipulation to get you to do what she wants you to do. Instead of giving yourself up to manipulate her, why not start to do your own Inner Bonding work and learn how to take responsibility for your own feelings of adequacy and worth? Since giving yourself up or withdrawing and resisting her control – which is what you have been doing – isn’t working, what do you have to lose by learning how to take responsibility for yourself? You never know – you might feel much more loving toward her even if she doesn’t change if you learn to take loving care of yourself! I know that you believe that your lack of affectionate and sexual feelings for her are because of her anger and blame, but it is really about you giving yourself up and withdrawing. You cannot feel turned on to her when you have given your power away to her and shut down. As you move into your personal power through your Inner Bonding practice, you will likely feel totally differently toward her, regardless of whether or not she changes.”
Ted was willing to do the work he needed to do to learn to stop taking responsibility for Sandra’s happiness and take responsibility for his own. As he stopped care taking Sandra and started to take care of himself, he began to feel much better toward her. He was surprised and delighted to feel warmth toward her that he hadn’t felt since first meeting her. It was challenging for him to let go of his caretaking addiction as his form of trying to have control over getting approval from Sandra, and it didn’t happen all at once. But over time, Ted could see great improvement in their relationship. He found it paradoxical that when he stopped trying to meet Sandra’s “needs,” things got much better!
About the Author: Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” and “Healing Your Aloneness.” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or email her at margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone sessions available.