Smart men and women understand that people form relationships to get their needs met.
They know how to apply this knowledge to their own relationships and because of that, have much better than average relationships. After reading this article you will know what they know and be more relationship smart, too.
Love, companionship and affection are a part of the needs that get met in a relationship, but there are many more needs that could be expected to be met in a relationship.
Relationships work well when needs are met for each partner by the other. If significant needs stop being met for either partner, for a long enough period of time, the relationship struggles. It can even start to head towards THE end. If your relationship – or your past relationship – was going well but is all of a sudden struggling, need fulfillment is probably the problem.
Relationships are always in either a positive or negative need fulfillment cycle.
In a positive need fulfillment cycle you meet your partner’s needs and then he or she responds in kind by meeting your needs. Getting needs and wants fulfilled feels good and fosters generosity. The couple in a positive cycle will be fueled by each other’s generosity onto new heights of consideration and loving actions towards each other, making then both happy.
However, no couple stays in a positive need fulfillment cycle forever. Inevitably one of the partners will have needs that are difficult for the other to meet. The difficulty is rarely that the need is actually hard to meet, but rather that it bumps up against something inside the person whose job it is to meet the need.
Perhaps it is a belief, a value, an old scar from past trauma, or a self-concept that gets in the way. Often to give that one thing will require the giving of one self that is not very comfortable, feels to risky, or feels like too much. As a result this need of the partner will go unmet.
Working with you as your relationship coach, I can provide the necessary clarity and insight into what’s going on to cause struggle in your relationship (whether current or past if you are single), and what to do to create and maintain a lasting, positive need-fulfillment cycle. To get started set up your Get Clarity Telephone Coaching Session.
The couple will then enter into a negative need fulfillment cycle. As one partner fails to meet the others need, the partner whose need goes unmet will respond in kind, often unconsciously. The couple will begin to treat each other with less generosity and less love. Fewer and fewer needs will be met and as a result the couple will feel worse in the relationship. This is the point at which couples fight, trying to find a way to go back to getting their needs met by each other.
There are four ways out of the negative need fulfillment cycle:
1. In smart couples, at least one partner within the couple will realize that they are in a negative need fulfillment cycle. An assessment of what’s going on will be done by the couple. They will problem solve how to make sure that each others needs are met again. For couples like this it does not take long to go back to the positive need fulfillment cycle and begin to feel good about the relationship again.
2. In some couples the partners realize they can function without certain needs being fulfilled, understanding that no relationship is perfect. They let go of the unfulfilled needs and return to the positive cycle.
3. In some couples the partners give up on the unmet needs, but with resentment. They get stuck in a position of no longer generously fulfilling each others needs. Instead they withdraw certain things that were previously given. The relationship typically keeps going, but never feels as good to either partner as it did in the beginning.
4. For some couples the needs not being met in the negative cycle turn out to be too critical for the couple to recover. The relationship disintegrates under the pressure of the negative cycle.
What this means for you and relationships:
Relationships thrive in a positive need fulfillment cycle and disintegrate in a negative cycle.
This means that so long as the two of you are meeting each other’s needs you will have a relationship that feels good to both of you and makes you both happy. When one of you has his or her needs unmet by the other long enough, you will have relationships problems and could possibly lose the relationship.
To use this information to do relationships the smart way notice the following in your relationship:
- When is your relationship in a positive need fulfillment cycle?
- What you are doing for your partner and what he or she is doing for you that is creating generosity and positive feelings for both of you?
- When do you start to have conflict, fight, or get irritated with each other?
- Whose needs are not being met and what are these needs?
- If you are the one not meeting your partner’s needs, why?
Working with you as your relationship coach, I can provide the necessary clarity and insight into what’s going on to cause struggle in your relationship (whether current or past if you are single), and what to do to create and maintain a lasting, positive need-fulfillment cycle. To get started set up your Get Clarity Telephone Coaching Session.
There’s a question you can ask yourself to tell you whether you should or should not meet your partner’s needs: Will this make you grow or will it make you shrink?
If meeting your partner’s needs will make you grow, find a way to do it. If it will make you shrink, have a conversation with your partner to find out if there are other needs that can be met instead.
If your needs are in conflict with each other, work them out for a win/win, no matter how long it takes.
Needs can be a difficult, emotionally charged element in a relationship. It can be hard to stay smart and address the question of where your partner is letting you down, or where you are letting your partner down, without becoming overwhelmed, falling into old patterns or feeling resentment.
