It’s a typical message I receive in my sessions and it creates significant pain and suffering for that individual.
There are a few parts to this problem.
- Does the persons’ partner want to meet those critical needs?
- Do they know what those needs are?
- Does the person know how to communicate what their needs are in a way their partner can understand and are they actionable?
- Does their partner know why those needs are so important if they have understood what they are.
Some of the challenges of meeting a partner’s needs are in the comprehension and understanding of why meeting the need is important and the potential cost of that need not being met.
Getting these facts through to a partner can be a real problem.
I remember one couple who were struggling with this very problem. She said she wasn’t happy.
He had asked what he could do to help her?
He didn’t understand the problem so he asked her for a list of things he could do to support her.
She gave him her list.
He did everything on her list and she agreed he had complied with her requests, but she still wasn’t happy and was now confused.
In this case, she didn’t know what her real emotional needs were, and her husband ended up in a dead-end with her.
In this situation, she gave him a list of practical needs of what to do around the house to make her life easier.
She never gave him the actions of how to support her emotionally, because she didn’t understand it herself and so couldn’t communicate those needs to help him.
I meet many people who struggle with understanding their own needs so they live in deficit, hoping their partner will some how come across what’s important to them.
This area of relationship connection and growth is critical for the health and longevity of the relationship.
If a persons needs are not met the relationship dies.
If both people’s needs are met in the relationship the couple is going to be consistently happier and more connected.
So it’s critical to accept your partners needs and support them.
If you or your partner are lost in this area it’s important to discover how to get this right because at some point it will need your attention.
