His/Her Needs

[Neil Warner]

Hello everyone. How are you finding the content? Helpful?

If you have not found it yet, you can access this week’s second PDF, called “His/Her Needs,” here.

Please, feel free to add your comments about the text and describe your plans, going forward. Did you feel confused about a topic? Completely disagree and want to rant? You can express all of that here!

We are here to listen and help.

Neil

[norafem]

The question about your own needs is more frequent now than ever…If you look at the situation of so many people, frustrated and lonely, they can describe only a vague feeling of non-satisfaction and resentment against their lives.
What if we say: what is the need that has to be fulfilled now in your life? and then, we open the conversation to a variety of possible actions, behaviors and thoughts that can close the gap between needing and having…
Sometimes, people feel lonely, and imagine that only with the company of one person it can be satisfied. Is this right? well, no…there are so many other human connections that can provide that feeling of being in good company! Can be that your friends, students, clients, or neighbors can touch you and send you the message that they care about you, and the perception of being lonely goes away.
So, can you share the different ways in which you take care of your own needs?

[Anonymous]

I’m an individual who has an easy time talking to people and building rapport with them. It’s also my business to be sociable and to create a good experience to keep my clients coming back, I’m a newly licensed cosmetologist. I can walk into a room of strangers and feel pretty comfortable which is great for someone who used to be super shy as a kid. In day to day dealings with people, I have to say I’m not in a lonely place. BUT, when I go home, my husband ignores me and it’s difficult to get him to talk. All I really want is to feel as though we are connected as a couple and a family, we have a teenage daughter. He’s done a lot of sneaky things behind my back, like porn and chat rooms with other women, we have some bad history there. I’ve done a lot of forgiving and forgetting and he always wants a clean slate with me, fine I give it. Then he eventually reverts back to dishonesty and expressing anger towards me when I try and connect with him. We had a huge fight this morning and he told me that he didn’t want to be married to me anymore. He said he wanted to live his life the way he wanted and wouldn’t even say what it is he wanted. After talking to him for awhile, he said he was willing to “try” to be in the marriage again and be more honest with me. This afternoon he told me that his two sisters invited him and our daughter to dinner with their families to celebrate her birthday which was in September, I wasn’t invited. He seemed okay with that and I was angry now and we had another fight. I told him it was too bad that his sisters can’t see us as a family after being married for over 13 years and that he can have that divorce he wanted. I refuse to play games and I will not be treated like this by him and his family the rest of my life, it really hurt. He called his sister to talk about it and she told him that he misread the email and yes, of course I was invited. He said she got mad at him when he explained what he put me through. I don’t know what to think now. Maybe for me taking care of my own needs would be leaving this marriage? He started out being a very nice, personable man…I don’t even know what the heck happened here, it’s crazy.

[norafem]

You ask:
maybe for me taking care of my own needs would be leaving this marriage? YES!
Here is how you do it:
Using the example of the sisters’ invitation:

“When you present your family invitation as not including me,
I feel left out from your family celebrations.
As I need to feel loved and included, if you continue with this kind of exclusion, I will procure other connections with my own family and friends. Is this what you want?”

In this paragraph, you tell him what he is doing, the impact on you, and that you are taking some actions to feel better connected.
It has to be done without crying, shouting or feeling distressed. You have to say that in a voice that is firm and resolute, like: “if you do this, these are the consequences.”
Stop begging, asking for emotional support and begin to develop a new attitude where you take care of yourself, show him that you are not dependent on him giving you love and connection, (so he can’t manipulate your feelings as he did with the invitation), and start sending a message of strength.
And, BTW, “what happened here…” is that you sent him too many messages showing your dependence on his giving you love and support, and he is now abusing his power position, giving you less and less….Go back, show that he is not the owner of your happiness, and things will go back to more normality.

[Anonymous]

When I woke up this morning he left me a note saying the family dinner had been cancelled. All this garbage and b.s. for nothing.

So when I show my independence I’ll be better off and will most likely find myself single again. I hate divorce because it’s always hard on the kids, I never wanted that for my daughter.

[norafem]

Well, getting divorced is not necessarily the only option…If we accept that your husband is in need of growing up, and this is a biological imperative very difficult to fight back, then we a bit of hope that, by changing the present dynamics of the relationship, he will be pushed to change also. As it is now, both are stuck in a negative interaction: if you send him the message as:
“I love you, and also have a responsibility towards my own person; I need to feel loved and valued and included, and that is non-negotiable. So, I will do whatever I can to get myself into a better shape, hoping that you will take care of yourself. I hope that we both can feel better in a little while; I will do my part to feel better and perhaps you can do the same.”

See that there is no reproach, no guilt inducing words here? Only describing the real situation….and then moving on to change your life bit by bit. Getting new friends? check; taking care of your body? check; improving your work skills? check…
You can see how it’s done here. It’s an invitation to mutual growth, not to divorce.
Of course, with time going on, you developing yourself and he stuck in his resistance, the gap will be wider….but we can hope that he is smarter than allowing it to happen.

[Author]

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