It’s really bad when your man doesn’t meet your needs, even if you’ve told him so over and over again. He makes it seem obvious that he doesn’t care, which can make you feel unloved and scared.
But what if he doesn’t care but you haven’t been well trained in how to communicate your needs in your relationship, like I wasn’t?
I was a communications major in college, so I thought I was a very good communicator—I mean really, really good at communicating because I know what I need and I’m not afraid to say it.
But it turns out I was confused about a lot of things.
1. I confused needs and wants
I need air, water, food and shelter. And I want to throw pillows for the porch, a party at my place, and shrimp for dinner.
When I was afraid to honor my desire for frivolous things, I tried to present them as “needs,” if you can imagine. It was very uncomfortable, but I thought it would make my husband take me more seriously.
I was wrong about that.
I thought that unless the things I desired were real necessities with some practical element to them, I wouldn’t get them and shouldn’t even want them because that was selfish. So I would try to mask my desires and act like pillows are the same as oxygen.
This didn’t get much of a response from my husband because he could smell the manipulation a mile away. I was just being overdramatic.
These days I like to simply express my wishes in an inspiring way by saying, “I would love summer pillows.” It doesn’t have to sound like I’m going to suffocate if I don’t get them.
Once I stopped being manipulative and overdramatic, my husband was much more motivated to be my hero. We now have throw pillows for every season, and John happily stores them in the attic for me until I want them.
2. I tried to communicate my needs with “we” instead of “I”
I got a bit confused here too. I would say ‘we’ needed things instead of I wanted them: ‘We need to visit my parents’, ‘We need to go on holiday’, ‘We need to renovate’. And even though he didn’t say it, there isn’t a universe where John needs to reform.
The man is not interested in fabric samples and could be happy with a cot and a cupboard. I was the one who wanted to renovate. And trying to put it on him made it weird.
That’s exactly what I was afraid of honoring my desires.
All I had to say was “I would love to renovate.” Because as soon as I did, he got into the renovation too—to make me happy.
3) I stated my needs over and over again (aka whining)
When I repeated myself, it was really to whip my husband for not giving me what I needed. It was to complain and criticize. So saying, “We have to clean out the garage” the third, fourth, and fifth time was the same as saying, “You still haven’t cleaned out the garage!”
He knew this and tuned me out because who wouldn’t tune out a judgmental whiner?
When I finally said, “I’d love to park both cars in the garage,” I got a completely different response. Later that day, the cars fit in the garage. Like magic!
4) I thought John was responsible for my happiness
So I told him what I needed him to do to make me happy, like spend more time with me, be more affectionate, talk to me more.
That’s what I thought would make me happy. But it turns out it’s my job to make Laura happy.
He can’t even do that, especially when I was so committed to being miserable that he knew it didn’t make me happy.
Once I figured out how to make myself happy and made it a priority, I got a lot more of the attention and affection I was looking for from him without having to communicate anything at all.
He just wanted to be around the happy woman singing “Baby Shark” in all the different voices in the kitchen.
By Laura Doyle
