Communicating About Relationship Needs
As a relationship coach, something I hear from clients a lot (and something I admittedly experience in my own life too) is… My partner just isn’t meeting my needs… How do I get them to meet my needs?!
First off: Stop trying to “get” your partner to meet your needs. Instead, make it SAFE for them to meet your needs, and trust that, with time, they will.
Want the longer answer? Let’s dive in…
Should Our Partners Anticipate Our Needs?
First, let’s understand what we actually mean when we talk about wanting our partners to “meet our needs.” Often, what we’re actually referring to here is the desire for our partners to anticipate our needs. In other words, we want them to identify what we need without us directly communicating it, and then take steps to meet that need.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with wanting your partner to anticipate your needs, especially if you’re in a long-term, committed partnership. But your partner is not a mind-reader, no matter how well they know you.
When we expect our partners to just know what we need and when we need it, this can easily turn into things like…
intentional or unintentional manipulation
withholding love or information as a “test”
Instead, we need to learn and practice the skill of communicating our needs openly and honestly and recognize that our partners are not magical needs-fulfilling machines.
Learning to Communicate Your Own Needs In a Relationship
Instead of trying to “get” your partner to meet your needs, it’s your job to…
Practice understanding and meeting your own needs first
Communicate your needs clearly and openly
Make it safe and enjoyable for your partner to meet your needs
Trust your partner to meet your needs when and how they can
Embrace imperfection when needs go unmet
(Remember: The stuff we share here at Healing Embodied is directed toward people in loving, healthy, respectful relationships. If you are in a relationship where your needs are being chronically dismissed, or if there are pervasive patterns of disrespect or mistreatment, please seek support from someone who can help.)
Understanding and meeting your own needs takes practice.
If you’ve been living in chronic anxiety, depression, burnout, or overwhelm (or if you have experienced trauma), you might struggle to understand what your needs actually are. When we have this internal disconnect, we often rely on our partners and other people in our lives to anticipate our needs without us even knowing what those needs are. This, of course, leads to disappointment and frustration for everyone, since no one can truly understand our needs if we don’t understand them first.
First, practice getting curious about what your emotional, physical, and spiritual needs are.
To do this, you might need to pay attention to the types of sensations you’re feeling in your body or the emotions coming up in a specific moment. If feeling into your needs feels confusing at first, don’t worry! It can take practice to develop this skill.
Once you have a general understanding of what you might be needing, ask yourself what it might look like to meet this need yourself.
Practice this over and over and over again until it starts to feel natural, safe, and (dare I say) empowering.
Communicate about your needs clearly and often.
If we want our partners to meet our needs, we need to get really good at clearly communicating those needs in a way that’s kind, caring, and genuine. (Communicating our needs sarcastically or passive aggressively will probably just make matters worse and make our partners less likely to want to support us.)
Take it from me: I used to stand in the kitchen, internally fuming because the garbage was full and my husband hadn’t taken it out. I felt like he should just know that it needed to be done. Back then, I would get really passive aggressive, making comments about how bad the trash smelled or how tired I was, glancing at the trash and then staring pointedly at my husband… But my strategy didn’t work.
Then, one day, I decided to try something different:
I said, “Hey, can you take out the trash, please?”
He immediately said, “Sure!” and took it out.
It takes time and repetition for our partners to learn about our needs, even if we think those needs should be obvious. The more you communicate them with love and calmness, the more likely your partner is to remember and anticipate your needs in the future.
Express appreciation when your partner does meet your needs.
Be honest: How many times have you asked your partner to do something for you, and then when they do it, you catch yourself thinking, “Well, they only did it because I asked them to. I shouldn’t have to say thank you.”
When we think like this, it’s often because we feel resentful and invalidated. What’s beneath these thoughts is a deeper desire for your partner to be able to meet your needs with less prompting.
But responding to our partner’s attempts to meet our needs with criticism and hostility doesn’t reinforce their behavior — It punishes it, and makes it way less likely that they’ll want to meet our needs again in the future.
Meet their attempts (even the imperfect ones) with kindness. Show gratitude. Acknowledge and appreciate what they are doing, not just what they’re falling short on.
When I asked my husband to take out the trash and he immediately stood up and did it, I made eye contact with him when he came back inside and said (genuinely, not sarcastically), “Thanks for doing that, I really appreciate it”. He smiled, and this moment of kindness set the tone for the rest of our evening.
Embrace imperfection when needs go unmet.
Communicating our needs openly and expressing gratitude when they’re met is a great way to create healthy communication in a relationship — But it doesn’t mean that our partners will always be able to meet our needs.
No one is perfect, and everyone has limitations. Your partner will likely still forget things or slip up from time to time. They might even express that they aren’t able to meet certain needs for you all the time — and that’s okay.
Remember that your partner is a human being, not a needs-fulfilling machine. If they don’t meet your needs perfectly every single time, that doesn’t make them a bad partner — it just makes them human.
Understand Your Needs and Build Healthy Communication With Your Partner
If you want more support learning how to tap into your needs and communicate with your partner, reach out to Healing Embodied to find out how our embodiment-based relationship coaches can help. Apply for a free 15-minute clarity call or check out our self-paced courses and group programs.
We look forward to helping you create a deeper relationship with both yourself and your partner.