Getting Your Needs Met

[John Bendix]

I have been reading alot of posts lately in which getting your needs met keeps popping up. I guess my question is, what does that exactly mean?

 

What are some of the needs in a relationship that may meeting?

 

Do the needs vary from person to person in catergories such as physical, emotional, mental, financial, and so on?

 

Does it mean that the other partner's purpose in the intimate relationships is there to meet my needs?

 

If these needs are not met, what should I do about it?

 

If someone tells you, in one way or another, that you are not meeting their needs, what do you do?

[Gingerstar]

you';re both suppoosed to meet each others needs. meaning emotionally, physically, mentally and so on. if someone tells you you're not meeting their needs you start meeting them. And if you think you already are, then ask them what they mean.

[Aschleigh]

What are your needs?

 

I need safety, security, love, attention, respect, commitment.

If I weren't getting these I would say I was not getting them and ask my SO to work on helping me get them. I would go to counseling and communicate more .

I would also ask myself what needs are legitimate for my partner to help fulfill and what needs to I need to work on getting on my own.

Read the Book Getting the Love you want by Harville Hendrix. It is the best relationship book ever written basically.

[John Bendix]

So, one of the prerequisites to being in an intimate relationship is being able to meet the other person's needs.

 

Some people say that meaningful communication is the cornerstone of any relationship. So, you really have to communicate what your needs are to that other partner. Well, some people expect you to know what their needs are without having to tell you. This seems to be a breakdown in communication because we all lack the power of telepathy.

 

In a long term relationship, do these needs change? It seems that they do and then it is expected to keep up with these changes.

 

What number of needs (%) not being taken care of by the other partner does it take to end a relationship?

[NowandZen]

For the most part, it has to do with EMOTIONAL needs. I'm going to try to list the categories from memory:

 

Sexual Fulfillment

Affection

Admiration

Conversation

Domestic Support

Family Committment

Financial Support

Recreational Companionship

Honesty and Openness

Physical Attractiveness

 

These needs vary in importance from person to person. It is said that if your top 5 are NOT met, then the relationship is likely in serious trouble.

 

This is described well in His Needs, Her Needs by Willard Harley.

 

Obviously, you have to communicate your needs. Not just what they are, but HOW you want them filled. If affection is a great need, but you don't like the WAY your spouse gives it, then you need to tell him or her how you would like it. Lots of people don't do this, because they don't think they should have to, but it makes more sense than living with resentment for years because you didn't talk about it.

 

A common mistake is thinking that YOUR emotional needs are the same as your spouse. If you have a high need for admiration, you may think admiring your spouse is meeting her needs, but it isn't if it's not a high need for her. Once again, you have to talk about what they are.

 

Also, your spouse may reject your attempts to meet her needs, or refuse to meet yours, if your relationship has a lot of love busters. Love busters are likely another thread.

[John Bendix]

But it seems that if you have alot of needs then you are considered "needy". That seems to be a relationship buster, too.

 

What is the balance of having to have someone take care of what I need emotionally and being too needy? Having emotional needs would seem to mean that I was necessarily missing something. As though there was something that I was lacking and "needed" in order to be complete. If I was not lacking anything emotional speaking, then I would have no need to be fufilled.

[NowandZen]

But it seems that if you have alot of needs then you are considered "needy". That seems to be a relationship buster, too.

 

What is the balance of having to have someone take care of what I need emotionally and being too needy? Having emotional needs would seem to mean that I was necessarily missing something. As though there was something that I was lacking and "needed" in order to be complete. If I was not lacking anything emotional speaking, then I would have no need to be fufilled.

 

Look at it this way. If you are completely self contained, and can meet all of your needs personally, what NEED do you have for a relationship? And if you are that independent, maybe it isn't fair to be in a relationship.

 

Ask yourself WHY you WANT to be in a relationship. What do you expect to get out of it?

 

Meeting needs of others is service, and service is the highest calling.

 

Having needs doesn't make you incomplete, it makes you human.

 

When are you too needy? It really depends on the person. If I have to spend EVERY free minute with my wife, that 's too needy for her. At the same time, if we are best friends, we WANT to spend a lot of time together. Why does she want to spend time with me? Because I meet her needs. Same with me. Yes, it's problematic if you have a high need for admiration, and your spouse doesn't give it to you. It probably makes you seem needy. When you care about a person though, you care about meeting their needs.

[John Bendix]

If what your saying is true (and it makes alot sense), is this the part that makes relationships so fragile and hard to maitain?

 

In modern Western Civilization, with its technological advances, it seems that basic physical needs (food, shelter, clothing, and so on, are much more easily fulfilled. Without these to concentrate on so vigoriusly for survival reasons, have our egoic emotional needs been brought to the forefront of our wants and desires? Is this a reason for the failing of so many intimate relationships today?

 

Since our emotions are reactions to our thoughts (and already experienced emotions in feedback), we can perceive our needs as not being fulfilled. I do not see how someone else can be held responsible for what I perceive to be lacking emotionally. Are we bot responsible for the emotions that we have. It is not what someone does, feels about us, or says or thinks about us, that causes our emotions but it is our reaction to these stimuli.

 

Not meeting my needs seems to be a self inflicted dilema which can cause us to feel unfulfilled. When it it comes to a intimate relationship, it seems that the more self reliant you are, the less you actually need that other person. It seems to me to be more important to experience the connection that the two of you have than how they give you what you perceive that you lack.

[NowandZen]

I don't think I am looking at this from the same angle. In any relationship, there has to be something that binds you together. A common goal. Yes, when all there was to life was survival, a good mate was a hunter or gatherer or cook.

 

The reason relationships are hard, IMO is because we forget the basic rule of an intimate relationship; care and protection. IMO, when you care, you WANT to meet the needs of your SO.

 

You are correct in saying that we are responsible for our own emotions. If I am unhappy, that is not my wife's fault.

 

I do see a relationship as almost a third entity, however. There is me, her and the relationship. How do we make the relationship happy? By meeting the needs of the other person.

 

Look at it this way - to be in a relationship means that the relationship itself is a positive experience for both. Instead of seeing it from a poverty mentality, i.e. what is lacking, I see it as what the relationship PROVIDES to me and to her. Not only are my needs being met, but I get a chance to meet hers, and in that I am practicing my highest calling. By meeting the needs of someone I love, I have the opportunity to view service to others as an experience I enjoy, not a duty. Is this all there is to enlightenment? Not by a long shot, but it's a start.

[John Bendix]

"I do see a relationship as almost a third entity, however. There is me, her and the relationship. How do we make the relationship happy? By meeting the needs of the other person."

 

I agree with this wholeheartly. It is a manifested entity that we have created.

 

"Look at it this way - to be in a relationship means that the relationship itself is a positive experience for both. Instead of seeing it from a poverty mentality, i.e. what is lacking, I see it as what the relationship PROVIDES to me and to her. Not only are my needs being met, but I get a chance to meet hers, and in that I am practicing my highest calling. By meeting the needs of someone I love, I have the opportunity to view service to others as an experience I enjoy, not a duty. Is this all there is to enlightenment? Not by a long shot, but it's a start."

 

I do look at this it in a different way. If you see the connection that you have with all that is, that may be what you call "the highest calling". It is what may some call compassion. To see the connection that the two of you have may be the beginning of realizing your connection to all of creation. At some level the true self may recognize this connection and begin to see the larger connection we have. Maybe this is the start.

 

To bring the egoic needs of each other into it, seems counterproductive to me. As you intimated, one may not need to have an intimate relationship if you see the desire to have your emotional needs taken care of as an useless endeavor. The Church may have even said this in other ways about the life of Jesus.

[NowandZen]

Yes, that's it. At the level of pure consciousness, you take people as they are, with no expectations of them, nor they of you. Very few of us have reached that. At pure enlightenment, you have no need of marriage or relationships.

 

But, as my man Prince said. "In this life, things are much harder than the afterworld. In this life, you're on your own."

 

How much better is this life with a partner to share? It's a question each of us must answer.

[John Bendix]

NowandZen,

 

I think that we are on the same page.

[NowandZen]

John:

 

So if this is not too personal, do you think you have reached the stage where you are no longer in need of that type of intimate relationship? Is that something you aspire to?

[John Bendix]

NowandZen,

 

No, I do not mind answering. I will say that I have reduced my desire to seek a intimate relationship because I no longer see it as a need. But the ego is still is still there. It dominates my life much less than it did by simply recognizing its dysfunctional ways. But it still wants what it does not have.

 

If I no longer had any ego or a mind of incessant thoughts (which fuels the ego), I could feel the connection to all that is at each present moment that arises. Not many on this planet have achieved this to such a degree.

 

If it comes, I will welcome and accept it as a part of the world. The connection that have with people seems to be a better path to take.

[NowandZen]

Ok, I think I understand where you are on this. If you aspire to that level of consciousness, which I find admirable, I wonder what the best path is to take?

 

In my experience, simple denial of what the ego wants does not work. Rather than have a battle with my ego, which I almost always lose, I try to observe my ego, develop an non-judgemental awareness of when my ego has guided me, as opposed to my higher self. It may just be that I am so far back in my journey that this awareness is all I can do right now.

 

Namaste

[John Bendix]

NowandZen,

 

"In my experience, simple denial of what the ego wants does not work. Rather than have a battle with my ego, which I almost always lose, I try to observe my ego, develop an non-judgemental awareness of when my ego has guided me, as opposed to my higher self. It may just be that I am so far back in my journey that this awareness is all I can do right now."

 

Amen. Do what you can and what makes sense to you right now and let the future come as it does without judgement or wanting it to be other than it is.

How can it be, anyway?

 

The ego tends to mask or cover over the higher self. The self that knows all of the material world is is only there as a part of creation. It is when the ego dominates our life that we "lose" ourselves. What we are really losing is the sight of all things from the inner self's perspective. A perspective that sees its connection to the manifested and unmanifested, or all that is, or some call God.

 

Acceptance to me is the key. The ego wants things to be other than they are. It has a never ending search for more. The ego wants to create for itself material objects, images of the past and future, etc., in order to embelish itself. It desires that feeling of attainment. Problem is that that emotion is just as temporary as any other and the feeling will fade. The ego wants to keep repeating that feeling and the drama that ensues as in a drug addiction.