A few posts ago I wrote about being "too needy", and how people should be given a break about this. Besides it's absolutely how we survive. However, it's also important to address that sometimes our need to get our "needs" met can contribute to the demise of our relationships. This is how it sometimes happen.......
Ally and Billy have been going out for 8 months and they have been getting along great. Billy calls Ally every night. They either talk for hours or just say good night to each other. However, for the past two weeks Billy has been quite distracted and distant. He hasn't called in the evenings as consistently as before and he cancelled a dinner date on Ally once. He explained that he was working towards a promotion at work, and has been stressed by the extra work he was taking on. He also explained that his boss has been nagging him about deadlines and he has been working late with co-workers. Ally becomes more upset when she sees a facebook tag of him with a group of people, and wonders how he has time for this if he were so busy. Ally finally confronts Billy, and they have a big fight. He says he cannot take the pressure of work and her at the same time, and ends the relationship. Ally asks for forgiveness a week later, they reconcile, but the relationship ends again two weeks after.
Ok, I totally made up this story and any similarities it has to a real couple is just coincidental. Clearly I'm not here to blame Ally and my choice of using Ally as an example, is not to put down women by any means. This can happen to either men or women. The point is, Ally's needs were not being met in the relationship and so she sought to get her needs met by confronting Billy. However when confronting Billy, she already made up her mind that he was making more time for other things (ie. work, hanging out with others) rather than her. There was no other way this would have been resolved other than Billy choosing between "other things" and her because Ally set herself up as competition to Billy's own needs. When we pit our "needs" against our partner's "needs", most of the time our partner will choose to meet their own needs over ours.
This example is not to suggest that we must put other's needs over ours to make the relationship work. On the contrary, we should discuss how our needs and our partner's needs fit together. This is one way Ally may have been able to resolve this issue. In conclusion, it is important to evaluate what your needs are in a relationship. If your needs are not being met, then you may need to evaluate whether staying in the relationship at that time is valuable enough to put off meeting your own needs. Often times this is the hard part because it requires us to make an evaluation of ourselves first.
Ally and Billy have been going out for 8 months and they have been getting along great. Billy calls Ally every night. They either talk for hours or just say good night to each other. However, for the past two weeks Billy has been quite distracted and distant. He hasn't called in the evenings as consistently as before and he cancelled a dinner date on Ally once. He explained that he was working towards a promotion at work, and has been stressed by the extra work he was taking on. He also explained that his boss has been nagging him about deadlines and he has been working late with co-workers. Ally becomes more upset when she sees a facebook tag of him with a group of people, and wonders how he has time for this if he were so busy. Ally finally confronts Billy, and they have a big fight. He says he cannot take the pressure of work and her at the same time, and ends the relationship. Ally asks for forgiveness a week later, they reconcile, but the relationship ends again two weeks after.
Ok, I totally made up this story and any similarities it has to a real couple is just coincidental. Clearly I'm not here to blame Ally and my choice of using Ally as an example, is not to put down women by any means. This can happen to either men or women. The point is, Ally's needs were not being met in the relationship and so she sought to get her needs met by confronting Billy. However when confronting Billy, she already made up her mind that he was making more time for other things (ie. work, hanging out with others) rather than her. There was no other way this would have been resolved other than Billy choosing between "other things" and her because Ally set herself up as competition to Billy's own needs. When we pit our "needs" against our partner's "needs", most of the time our partner will choose to meet their own needs over ours.
This example is not to suggest that we must put other's needs over ours to make the relationship work. On the contrary, we should discuss how our needs and our partner's needs fit together. This is one way Ally may have been able to resolve this issue. In conclusion, it is important to evaluate what your needs are in a relationship. If your needs are not being met, then you may need to evaluate whether staying in the relationship at that time is valuable enough to put off meeting your own needs. Often times this is the hard part because it requires us to make an evaluation of ourselves first.
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