What Do I Want From A Relationship And What Do I Really Need?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Each of us has a certain unconscious matrix, by checking with which we choose a mate for ourselves.

There are many different points of view on this topic. Psychoanalysts talk about the Oedipus or Electra complex, Berne's followers talk about different types of games that people play, and neuroscientists talk about biological comparability, which begins with how much we like the smell of another person.

Our basic needs

Attention, Evaluation, Challenge and Support are those Basic Needs that accompany a person throughout life and are fundamental to the creation and development of relationships. At the same time, it is important to understand that the imbalance of these values leads to what we call cooling, disappointment and, in the end, the destruction of bonds between partners (and I am now talking about a broader context than romantic relationships, I observe the same tendencies in business partnership).

Working with people and observing the life twists and turns of friends and clients, I notice that in their lives, with enviable regularity, the following story happens: a person is looking for his soul mate, looking for, looking for, choosing for a long time and finally finding. We liked each other, began to live together, and then it turns out that, despite the compliance with all external, social parameters and even intellectual characteristics, what a person feels while being close to such a partner is not exactly what he or she was striving for. … How does it work and what to do about it?

Nothing is more valuable than Attention

The first step to starting a relationship is Attention. Rather, the very Exceptional attention that, like the rays of a warm and tender sun, we direct to a partner at the beginning of a relationship. In these rays, a person wants to reveal his best sides, demonstrate his most outstanding abilities, in general, Become the Best Version of Himself.

Many of us are familiar with this feeling, it comes at the very first stage of a relationship, when we are in love and when we are struggling to get our partner's love in return. This is a delightful sensation - the eyes are burning, the extra pounds melt away before our eyes, the energy gushes and we see only the best manifestations in our partner. And this is how we experience being in love on an emotional level.

Falling in love on an MRI

From a neuroscience point of view, at this moment we have a real hormonal storm with an incredible cocktail of dopamine, adrenaline, endorphin and oxytocin (responsible for feelings of anticipation, increased excitability, pleasure and connection).

The combination of these hormones, raging in the blood, from just one mention of a beloved, appears on dynamic MRI in the form of flashes of brain activity, comparable to the northern lights. This also adds endogenous (formed in the body itself) opiates, which make us insensitive to physical discomfort. At this moment, the most delightful epithets in relation to each other are born, the need for hugs, kisses, sex, just time spent together increases sharply. People at this moment strive for Mergence (You’re my heart, You’re my soul / You are my heart. You are my soul) and see only this:

a) what you like, admire, appreciate, b) how they are similar.

Roughly speaking, the limbic brain, which is responsible for the social connections and the emotions that these connections form and strengthen, takes power, while the neocortex, which is responsible for logic and critical thinking, nervously smokes in the hallway.

The first stage is the foundation of the relationship

The first stage is incredibly important for the entire subsequent history of the relationship. It is at this time that the very bond is created that makes the relationship with this particular person exclusive, fundamentally different from all others. It is very curious how the freely stated biblical text "Unwind from his father and mother and cling to his wife, her husband" describes this.

I am not capable of this

People who have difficulty making unique bonds tend to have traumatic experiences in their personal history, such as losing a parent in early childhood, or being admitted to a medical facility, or in situations where the parent's full love and attention was not available. for various reasons, for example, due to a serious illness or the loss of a loved one.

For people with a similar life history, on the one hand, it is very difficult to trust someone and show love, on the other hand, having trusted, they quite often fall into codependent relationships, in an unconscious attempt to compensate for what was not received in childhood.

When entering into a relationship, it is very important to realize with what kind of baggage of family stories you come into them. What do you want in a relationship for yourself, and what you really need. It is also important to be aware of what you want, you can offer your partner. And this is fundamentally different from the wish-list that I sometimes hear when working with clients.

It should be …

She must be…

At the same time, people rarely realize what true needs are behind these wishes. What they really need.

For example, girls often voice a desire to have a strong and reliable person nearby. What does this really mean?

Option 1: I was not loved as a child.

If, with such a request, a young woman had an experience of emotional rejection in childhood, she will become attached to any man who is persistent enough to hold her on his knees and hug her, falling asleep, while often demonstrating insensitive or even cruel treatment of her to others. moments. Her inner child is so eager to "handle" that for a long time she is unable to assess the real emotional or even physical threat posed by such a partner.

The true need for this girl is that she can be in a relationship where the partner is ready to take on quite a lot of the functions of a Caring parent: she would be careful, affectionate, predictable and would be able to form clear boundaries and be very emotionally sensitive in order to do it very consistently but gently. The unconscious leading emotional need for such a person is Peace. And more often than not, she will project this need for a partner who may need something completely different.

Result: if she receives this emotion enough, she will have the opportunity to "overgrow" this white spot in her personal history and grow emotionally for more mature - partnerships.

Option 2: I need a sparring partner.

The same request (“I want a strong and reliable partner”) can be with a socially successful and independent girl, who by this means a kind of sparring partner for her social achievements. Without realizing this, she will pay very little attention to finding and cultivating connection and community and will very quickly move on to the next stage of the relationship - Differentiation - seeing the differences and the ability to deal with them.

The real need in this case is to find a life partner who can be challenged or given an impartial Assessment in person and who is ready to do it in response, since she sincerely believes that this is what close people are needed for - “tell each other the unpleasant truth, because others don't care."

Such a message is very often associated with the early growing up of a child, when life created such conditions where responsibility had to be taken and carried and there was no opportunity to complain or ask for help from loved ones.

Result. If a woman is not aware of this peculiarity of hers, he will be sincerely surprised that the relationship begins very violently, but then quickly ends. The leading emotional need for such a person, as a rule, is Interest and inner Drive. That is, she needs constant new intellectual or physical stimuli, and for this, the partner must develop an openness to new experience and a desire to constantly develop, learn and improve, you must agree, this is somewhat different than “strong and reliable”.

I have given these two examples in order to indicate the scale within which true requests can vary, which look quite similar at the “want” level. And of course, in reality, there are many more options.

As a person and a specialist, it is important for me that people have a chance not only to fall in love, but to create relationships that have a much higher probability of success than 50/50. And yes, for this you need to learn to understand yourself and your true needs. By the way, this is no less important not only when choosing a partner, but also for choosing a business in your life 😉 Various methods are good for this: from reading books and attending seminars to working personally with a coach. The main thing is that the result of this work was not just a wow-effect, but real changes at the level of beliefs and behavior, so that later it would not be "excruciatingly painful, for the years spent aimlessly …"

Four questions for realizing "What do I really need in a relationship?":

1) When relationships are formed and developed in the most favorable way for me, what is it like?

2) In order for the relationship to develop in the most favorable way for me, what do I need to be?

3) What Attention and Support from a partner do I need in order to become who I want to be?

4) What Assessment, Challenge from a partner will be the most developing for me in our relationship?

Good luck in understanding yourself and what you really NEED!