Are you Allowed to have Needs in a Relationship? It Depends...

The fastest way to destroy a relationship is by simply neglecting what it needs to survive. And here's what I say to people who say, Well, you shouldn't really have needs in a relationship. What about respect? What about appreciation? What about reciprocation? If you were dating someone who couldn't care less about appreciating you, right, consistently spoke to you disrespectfully and refused to reciprocate the effort you were putting into that relationship, how do you think you would feel? If you guessed miserable and lonely, you're probably right. And my guess is you would eventually leave that relationship. But why? You had food, water, and shelter, the basic needs for survival. Plus, I thought we should be able to meet our own needs. So why leave? Because they wanted certain things to be present, or else the relationship wouldn't be fulfilling for them. Those are needs. You can call them whatever you want. But if you say they're just wants, but you won't stay in a relationship without them, then you need those to be present in order to stay. And believe it or not, that doesn't make you needy. It just makes you human. We can't enter an intimate partnership with another person and not care about what they specifically need to feel safe, loved, and valued in this relationship. We can't say we love someone, but we don't care about what they need to feel close and connected to us, beyond food and water. The only reason you got into this relationship in the first place was to satisfy one of your needs for companionship. So the question isn't, do we have needs? That's just a semantics issue. Yes, we all have needs, wants, and desires that we wouldn't feel good in a relationship without. Our job is to mutually decide, do I want to learn about, understand, and then prioritize this specific person's needs? Or do I want to find a different relationship? And this is extremely important. Just because we have needs does not mean it's our partner's job to meet them, right? This is never about control or manipulation. We can't have this attitude of, well, I need that. So you better meet it. That's never healthy. What is healthy is asking ourselves, how can I meet this person's need for safety, connection, and intimacy and not feel like I'm violating any of my own boundaries or needs? So let's start out with our first need. If you want your relationship to succeed, you need to trust each other. And I'm not just talking about you trusting that they won't cheat on you. That's the bare minimum. I'm talking about how everything affects our trust together. Every interaction, every conversation, especially every conflict. We are either building trust or we are breaking it. Now, this isn't about perfection. This is about direction. Too many people have no idea that certain behaviors, certain attitudes, certain mindsets strengthen your bond together and protect your connection and other behaviors weaken it. Unfortunately, most relationships die of a death by a thousand paper cuts, right? They didn't set out to fight all the time. They didn't set out to feel completely disconnected from each other. But that outcome could have been predicted simply by looking at the behaviors of one or both partners in the relationship. So here's the question. Does your partner trust you? Maybe they don't think that you would cheat. But do they trust that you'll actually be there when they need you? Do they trust that you'll listen to their pain? Do they feel like they can rely on you? Not perfectly, just consistently. Because everything else we're going to talk about affects this overarching theme. Our major goal is if both of us want this relationship to succeed, what does it look like for you to trust me? How can I show up in the ways that give you comfort and peace and security in this relationship instead of anxiety or fear? Now, I'll agree with you. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do. Your partner still has anxiety or fear. And that might lead to them being more clingy and overbearing, or it might lead to them being hyper-independent and detached from emotion. They both stem from a fear of vulnerability and trusting other people. They both actually create a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we subconsciously believe that people are just going to drop us, when we can't trust people to hold our vulnerability and be a safe place for us, when we believe that we ultimately will be hurt in this relationship, we will always look for ways to prove that theory. So we make assumptions, or we get controlling, or we avoid conflict or communication, or we avoid intimacy altogether, right? We keep things superficial. Why? Because we know this is only going to lead to me being hurt. So I'll either become hyper-vigilant and controlling, which can feel very overbearing and unattractive, or I will detach completely, right? I'll detach emotions. I'll avoid intimacy altogether, which essentially pushes people away and proves your theory that relationships aren't worth the effort. The point is both things need to happen. We need to both be actively working to build trust in our relationship, and we both need to be learning how to actually accept the closeness we're receiving and trust it, which is really difficult when you have a past history of trauma. But it doesn't make it any less necessary, because relationships won't survive if both things aren't happening simultaneously. All right, the next need is for consistent, healthy communication. Now, for the people who immediately roll their eyes, for the people who don't think that communication is a legitimate need, I can guarantee you they are partnered up with someone who does. This isn't about giving someone constant reassurance because they have anxiety. This is simply about consideration and respect. You might not care to communicate this much or in this way, but I bet the person you're going to end up with does. This is about coming up with a standard that works for both of you, if that's possible. If you hate texting, no problem, but you need to be offering a solution. Are you calling them more frequently? Are you communicating with them about expectations around when you'll be able to get back to them? Are you just leaving them on read, even though you know that bothers them? You might not care about having deep, intimate conversations about each other's dreams and desires, but they do. Relationships are all about collaboration. I promise you they are bending in this area. They want a lot more than what they're getting. And if you could just meet them in the middle, I promise you they would most likely be happy. This isn't about right or wrong. This is just about consideration and compatibility. Don't be with someone who really values frequent communication if you have no interest in providing that. That's not them being too needy. That's what most people need to feel safe in a relationship. All right, speaking of communication, we might as well bring up conflict. You need to be able to resolve conflict in a safe way if you want your relationships to thrive. Dr. Sue Johnson says, the most important thing in your entire relationship is emotional responsiveness. Now, what that means is, can you provide a safe environment for me to be vulnerable about how I'm feeling? Now, I'm not going to spend a ton of time on conflict because I have other resources that dive deep into that. But whoever brings up conflicts the most, you need to learn how to express your feelings vulnerably and respectfully. I feel like you're a jerk isn't a feeling. I feel like you don't care about me isn't a feeling. We have to learn how to express feelings. Just talk about what happened. Talk about how you're feeling about it. Talk about what you wish would have happened instead. That's it. The reason we get so heated, the reason we lead with passive aggressiveness or get really snippy is because I know you've said it nicely multiple times before and they didn't listen. So, it makes sense that you're ramping up the intensity. But here's what I'll tell both of you. Partner A, don't ramp up. Ramp down. Talk slow, talk soft, and look them in the eyes and say, I don't feel safe to bring things up to you and have confidence that you're actually going to listen and hear me. And that's breaking a lot of the trust in this relationship and affecting our connection and intimacy together. Partner B, you need to learn to listen and seek to understand their perspective or pain. Give them the floor. If they had the courage to bring something up vulnerably, you need to reward that. Listen with the goal of showing them, if this matters to you, it matters to me. So, get curious about what happened. What are they actually feeling? Ask appropriate questions, not to try to trap them, but to try to understand them. Try to see the unmet need under the frustration. That's how you show them that you love them. That's what it means to be emotionally responsive. You can trust that I will respond to your pain with safety and empathy. You can have confidence that you don't have to yell to be heard. You don't have to find the right words so I don't get defensive or feel attacked. You can trust that I care, especially when the stakes are high during conflict. And I can trust that you're not consistently looking out to make me the bad guy. You're regulated before you bring things up. You're not attacking my character and you're not blaming it all on me. You're taking responsibility for your own feelings and not making assumptions. And when you both don't get this right, you have to learn how to repair, right? Ruptures are inevitable. They're going to happen, a lot of them. Repair is a choice. You both have to be willing to put your pride and ego aside and say, I'm sorry. This is what I should have done differently. Can we talk about how my words and actions impacted you? If you want to talk about needs, you need to be able to have hard talks with each other and maintain respect and love for each other. We all get triggered. We all say things we don't mean. But how are you repairing? Can you apologize? Repair means when things are calm, we go back to a moment of disconnection and we talk about it and we take accountability and we try to validate any hurt that we unintentionally caused. That's what leads to closeness and connection. Sweeping it under the rug never does. Validation doesn't mean agreeing with all their details. It simply means your feelings and perspective are worth understanding to me, right? So many people get caught in these fights where one person brings something up and then the other starts arguing instead of actually understanding or they start sharing their feelings about the situation. Will you do the same thing to me? What about my pain? Here's the thing. I'm telling you to give them the floor because they hopefully brought things up respectfully and vulnerably. If you're immediately responding with your feelings, you're essentially telling them to understand and validate the importance of your feelings in this moment, which you just refused to do for them. Do you see the problem? Okay, well, when am I supposed to bring up my feelings then? Any other time. You could have brought them up five minutes ago before they even started this discussion, but you didn't. So own that and give them the floor. And once this conversation is complete, once they fully feel heard and understood and verbalize that back to you, then if they have space, they can take on your perspective or feelings. Otherwise, just bring it up tomorrow. And then I would tell them they need to listen to you. The point I'm trying to make is you both need to have a desire for your partner to feel heard and understood. You need to learn how to listen to each other. Reflect back what you're hearing. Nod. Look them in the eyes occasionally. Give them verbal and body cues that you're listening. This is important to you. Remember, our goal is that they feel emotionally safe with us. That means that they can speak to us about their inner world and feelings vulnerably and respectfully. And we show up. We care. We listen. We engage. Because when we dismiss or invalidate or get defensive or take everything as an attack, that's disengagement, right? That's breaking trust and safety in the relationship. That just comes from our own wounds. And that goes for them as well. When they lead with criticism and contempt and passive aggressiveness, you both need to advocate for better. Hold yourself and each other accountable. You want to talk about a tough need for men? Dr. John Gottman has studied thousands of marriages and he says in heterosexual relationships, when a man can't accept the influence of his female partner, there's an 81% chance that relationship dies. 81%! You're going to tell me that equality and respect and making sure there's no power imbalances isn't a need in a relationship. You're going to tell me relationships don't need us to both be able to share difficult things and actually listen to each other. Let's just remember our partner is supposed to be our teammate. You picked this person out of everyone in the entire world. You chose this person. And when they tell you something about yourself that you might need to work on, where they give you some legit feedback that could help you, you don't even trust them. What does that say about both you and your relationship with them? Now, of course, that doesn't justify someone being rude and disrespectful and consistently nagging you. Dr. Gottman goes on to express that we should have a 15 to 1 positive comments and signs of affection and appreciation and admiration to our partner. 15 to 1! But we can all agree that relationships need some level of honesty with each other, right? How can we have a relationship where we can't be honest in a respectful way without the other person blowing up, guy or girl? We can't have a trusting, intimate relationship when our egos are so fragile that when they give you some feedback in a loving way, you only take it as an attack. It just doesn't work. We need to be on the same team with each other if we have any chance at this thing succeeding. We have to choose kindness and respect, right? It's a daily choice. We have to choose vulnerability. We have to choose empathy. It's us versus the problem. Never us versus each other. We need to get on the same team about parenting and the domestic labor and the mental load because I've been both the full-time working parent, right? Who brings in all the income. And for the last three years, I've been a stay-at-home dad full-time. They're both extremely difficult and demanding. Stay-at-home dad is definitely harder. So guys, especially, get on the same page with her. Don't let the freaking dishes come between your intimacy together because they will if you let them. Don't think you're entitled to be off the clock when you come home, right? She's not off the clock. She's on overtime. And the good dads and husbands know that they are too. You deserve decompression time for your hard day. So does she. Another need, we need to respect each other's boundaries. That's a vital piece of a healthy, mutually fulfilling relationship. You can't feel safe and valued with someone who couldn't care less about your boundaries. It just simply doesn't work. We should want to know each other's boundaries, right? Because everyone has boundaries, sexual boundaries, conflict boundaries, boundaries around your time and energy. It's extremely essential to truly knowing and loving someone that we understand those. That's what love requires of us, right? We have to be on the lookout for ways we can build and strengthen our bond together. If you don't know the answers to those questions, that's okay. Ask. The first place we should go to when asking, how can I love someone better? Is them. Ask them. And if they don't know, which that's okay if you don't know what you need to feel loved and safe and valued. Ask them what they know doesn't feel good. Because oftentimes people can come up with what doesn't feel good during conflict. What feels disrespectful, right? What feels, what creates distance in the relationship. Start with that. They most likely know what they don't want, how they don't want to be touched or talked to. They probably know what their parents did that they never want to imitate. They probably know what neglect feels like. So start there and work your way backwards. Now I will admit the reason people hesitate to acknowledge needs in a relationship is maybe because people in their past have weaponized that language against them, especially around things like sex. So let's talk about the most controversial need. So is sex a need? No, if you're saying your partner is obligated to have it with you. If you think you're entitled to someone else's body, if you're pressuring them or coercing them or shaming them for not wanting to do something sexual with you. No, they are not obligated to do anything that they aren't comfortable doing. And we should never want someone that we love to be put in that situation. Far too many destructive and abusive men especially have said, hey, I need intimacy and it's your job to meet that. But they were never looking for intimacy. They were looking for control. They meant I get to use your body to feel something. They meant I'm entitled to treat you like an object and that's always wrong. Countless people, the majority of which are women have been traumatized and hurt and abused by people weaponizing these words and forcing or pressuring their partners to do things that they should never have to do. So our words matter when we're having these discussions. And is it also true that sexual intimacy can be a legitimate need for people to feel close and connected and desired in their relationships? 100%. It's not an either or it's a both and. This is where nuance comes into play in this discussion around needs because intimacy is a completely legitimate need in a relationship. But intimacy doesn't mean the bedroom. That's where culture got that wrong. And especially men, we need to realize that most of us are starting from a deficit. You weren't taught vulnerability. You were taught how to avoid it. You weren't taught the value of closeness and connection. You were taught the value of independence. It was modeled for you that the only person you can rely on is you. But I'm just warning you. Don't tell me that you want your partner to be intimate with you sexually, but you're neglecting all the other forms of intimacy. It just doesn't work that way. Intimacy is about feeling known, right? Intimacy is about feeling close to someone that you can actually be vulnerable sharing your inner world with them because we all have an inner world. We all have desires, thoughts, fears, things that make us feel more connected and things that make us feel more distant in a relationship. Intimacy means we can be a safe place for each other to share those things because we actually want to know and connect with each other. Intimacy is about remembering the little things that help people feel loved the most. It's not the grand gestures. It's you remembering how they take their coffee, right? It's you paying attention. It's you being considerate and getting them some water when you get up to get some. It's cooking their favorite meal just because. It's all those little things that over time done consistently create a strong bond with someone. Emotional intimacy, as we said before, is us learning how to be a safe place for them to share their feelings and fears because the truth is it takes a massive amount of courage and vulnerability to actually do that. So we need to learn how to hold space for those that we love when they do. Intimacy is about them feeling secure in knowing that they can trust us with their heart. It's about encouraging their vulnerability and honesty about what they're struggling with, what they're hoping for, what they need in this relationship, how they like to feel loved and prioritized the most. Emotional intimacy is about having the courage to actually ask them, how do you feel in this relationship? Is there anything else that I can do to help you feel more connected or loved? Are you gonna tell me that that's not needed for a relationship to thrive? Because maybe that's the argument. I know I keep harping this point and it's too late in the video to be doing this, but you're right. You don't need to do any of this stuff unless you actually want your relationship to thrive. In which case, try having a successful relationship without emotional intimacy. Try having one without friendship or mutual respect or equality or honesty. I've tried it. It doesn't work. I've dated self-centered and narcissistic people who have no interest or capability in any of those things. And the relationship dies. Not because they have a problem. They're fine with the way things are because you're staying and they're giving the bare minimum. But it feels hollow and lonely to you. It wasn't just, oh, this would be nice. This is just a want. It was, I can't feel good in this relationship and I don't know why. This was why. And most of the time when someone is talking about their need for physical and sexual intimacy, it's not really about the bedroom. That's a small part of it, but it's mainly just about feeling desired. It's about feeling pursued like they were when they were dating. It's about feeling wanted. Those are still legitimate needs in a long-term relationship. It's about you experiencing something with someone that you don't want to experience with anyone else. I want to touch you and be touched in a way that's only reserved for us. I want to be affectionate with each other in a unique way that we're not affectionate with other people, right? Sexual intimacy is meant to be an overflow of that safety and connection that's already established in the relationship. Sex is the result, not the cause of intimacy, right? And we can label these as just wants, but I still get messages from men and women who know the pain of feeling like they would do anything for their partner. They want to meet any and all needs, wants, and desires that that person has in the relationship. They're loyal to them. They love them. But their partner isn't affectionate with them. They have little to no desire for them sexually and that just really hurts. Personally, I don't think that there's anything wrong with sexual affection and sexual intimacy being something that you need in a relationship to feel like it's a fulfilling relationship for you. And it's also not wrong if the other person couldn't care less about those. And that's the difference in this argument. This isn't about right or wrong. It's simply about you understanding what you need to feel good in a relationship and what your partner needs. Because if I understand your need for sexual intimacy, but I have no interest in that, then I need to evaluate if this is actually a good match for us. And that actually brings up a really important point. If we're labeling something as a need in a relationship and it's not being met, does that mean the relationship is doomed? No. Terry Real has an amazing quote where he says, are enough of my needs being met to grieve the ones that aren't? And that's a perfect way to put it. Because our partner will not meet all of our needs in this relationship. They can't. And sometimes not enough of our core needs are being met for us to feel good in this relationship. Other times they are. You have to decide. Is it worth it to grieve the needs that they aren't capable of meeting? Because this relationship is still fulfilling to me as a whole. The key point that I can't overstate is am I taking my needs, wants and desires and forcing them onto my partner? Or am I simply learning about what I need in a relationship to feel safe and secure and loved and then communicating that and collaborating with my partner on whether we can build that kind of relationship together. Sometimes we can. Sometimes we can't. Here's what it looks like when someone forces their needs onto their partner. Because we know we need to trust each other, right? But what if you're dating someone and they said, hey, I can't trust you unless you share your location with me at all times. Or I need to go through your phone every night just to make sure that you're not hiding anything. Now, if you refused and you said no, they might say you don't care about the relationship because you refuse to honor their needs. Even though what that person is actually doing is weaponizing their needs against you. Or what if someone said, hey, I need constant reassurance from you in order not to feel anxious or spiral. So you need to text me every hour that you're at work. Now, it might be true. They do need reassurance not to get anxious, but that's not their partner's responsibility to meet that need. And lastly, I want to talk to anyone who's listening who might disagree with me and say, you should just be able to meet all your own needs. Some people have this view that needs equal neediness. If you need something from someone else, that means you're relying too much on them. You're too dependent on someone else. And from their perspective, that's unhealthy. I understand what they're saying. Sometimes we are relying too heavily on our partner to meet all of our needs. And oftentimes that is said by someone who's hyper independent. They learned early on, you can't rely on anyone for anything. They were possibly neglected emotionally or physically as children. And so, of course, it makes sense that they've learned to cope through independence and avoidance of actual intimacy or closeness. These are often people who really struggle with identifying, expressing, or even seeing the importance of talking about feelings and emotions, right? Because what's the point? Every time they've been vulnerable in the past, it's just led to them being hurt. So that's why they have their walls up. But what happens is they end up being self-centered people, not because they're intentionally hurtful, but because that's the best way to protect themselves. But when they get into relationships, they have no real capacity or desire to connect with someone on a deeper level. They have no ability to meet someone's normal and natural need for emotional intimacy because they've never experienced that before. So without realizing it, they're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? They don't actually trust that relationships are worth the effort because they keep falling apart, but they keep falling apart because they're actually terrified to explore and put in the effort to building an emotional connection with someone because subconsciously vulnerability has always just led to more pain. So yes, sometimes it's a combination. We shouldn't be only relying on our partner to meet our needs. And in a relationship, we have an opportunity and a privilege to meet the needs that we can. That's what builds our bond together. That's what builds trust. That's what creates closeness. No, I don't have to meet my wife's needs, but I choose to out of love because that's what love does, right? Love serves and sacrifices. Love honors. Love leans in. Love can have hard conversations and still maintain kindness and respect. Love considers the other. Love also sticks up for yourself and advocates for your own needs and sets healthy boundaries and holds people accountable to hurtful behavior. And I didn't get love right for the first few years of our marriage, but I've spent the rest of the time figuring it out and things are so much better. And I want to say one more thing. If you're independent, I can fully respect your need for independence and autonomy in your relationship. That's really important for you not to feel smothered. I fully support that. If you are intentionally looking to strengthen your bond with your partner and you aren't being self-centered, right? You're not being avoidant. I would strongly encourage your partner to prioritize your desire for independence. That doesn't mean shirking responsibility or neglecting anyone. It just means doing some stuff alone. Some people recharge their batteries through emotional connection with another person. Other people recharge their batteries through independence. Whichever one you are, you're probably going to date or marry the opposite. All I'm saying is, let's both be aware of those things because it's our job to love people in the way that they experience it the most, right? At the end of the day, we don't need to be so divided on this topic. If we love someone, we should want them to feel good in that relationship. Let's not get so caught up in semantics that we miss the forest through the trees. We all have a different idea of what needs to be present in order for this relationship to feel fulfilling for both of us. It's not about right or wrong. It's certainly not about pressuring anyone to conform to your way of thinking. It's simply about seeking to truly know your partner and how they experience love and connection the most. I believe relationships only work when we're both putting in that type of work. So thank you so much for watching and I can't wait to see you in the next one.