How to Express Your Needs Without Starting a Fight with Your Partner
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Imagine if you knew how to communicate your needs in a relationship and instead of starting a fight, your partner and you become even closer. Well, that’s what good communication is supposed to be about. When you communicate your needs, your partner gets to know you, and feels a connection with you because you trust him. When men get to make you happy, they feel fantastic about themselves.
But, for this kind of connection, you need effective communication, and this is exactly what I teach my clients using my Love Building Communication Guide, which is the fifth step of my Secure Love Creator program. Women who implement these strategies report so much happiness because they can communicate with their partners without frustration. Their partners are shocked by how good communicators their girlfriends are. And my clients experience so much healing when they realize that they can express their needs and that their partners care.
If you want a healthy relationship, You don't need to worry about not being on the same page. Every disagreement can be used to get to know each other better and improve the ways to communicate, but you need to take an active role in figuring out how to communicate your needs in a relationship.
Do you express your needs in relationships?
Unfortunately, anxious love seekers don’t experience this kind of fulfilling relationship because they hide their needs. They often feel ashamed that they have these needs or they feel unworthy of their needs being met. Then they hope that their partner will just naturally guess what their needs are and thus prove those trauma beliefs about self wrong. Many say statements like, “If I need to tell you, I don’t need you to do it.” This is not gonna work. Men are not your mom and you are not a newborn who can’t express herself. Moreover, men are raised to express themselves assertively, so they expect you would do the same. Open communication in a relationship is essential if you want to stay together with your partner and if you want to meet those needs.
When you continue a relationship like this, you may become bitter and never allow your partner to get to know you better. It just makes sense that you become angry and stressed when you feel this disconnection with your partner. You never realize if you are important to your partner because he simply gives up on trying to make you happy. That's what happens when people feel incompetent. They give up. So, your partner's need may be to feel that his efforts matter and that he understands you. For this, you need to learn how to communicate your needs in a relationship.
What happens when you have unmet needs in your relationship?
When their needs are not being met, anxious love seekers become angry. That’s usually when they start communicating to their partners. This kind of communication in your relationship comes with extra spice that may not be digestible to some people. This usually repels people because they sense that there is something unhealed deep down. This kind of communication is often completely shocking to your new partner or exhausting or burdensome to your longer term partner. Learning how to communicate your needs in a relationship is essential if you want to create a secure relationship.
Don't get me wrong, anger is not what causes problems. It's unprocessed anger. It's the kind of anger that comes from an unconscious, unaware mind. Many anxious love seekers don't understand their needs, and they also don't understand how their verbal and non-verbal communication affects their partners
Moreover, anxious love seekers tend to give up their personal power and accept the role of a victim, while demonizing their partners. If you are one of those anxious love seekers, you probably don't communicate effectively. Instead of assertively expressing your needs, you may use generalizations such as:
"Such and such" and "fill in the blank" are the statements that come from your deep rooted trauma beliefs about yourself, men, relationships, and the world. These beliefs cause you to self-sabotage your relationships.
Naturally, your partner becomes defensive because he feels attacked by you. So the cycle continues. You carry your old completely reasonable anger and transfer it onto your partner who is clueless about your feelings, needs, and boundaries.
But, fear not. I will explain how you can change all this and improve communication in relationships so you can meet your relationship needs of becoming closer to your partner.
How to effectively communicate your needs to your partner?
If you want to have your needs met, you may want to improve communication with your partner. There are three principles to remember that will help you talk with your partner in the ways that help you improve your relationship.
Let’s take an example that we can use to illustrate healthy communication of your needs. Perhaps we can talk about your desire for him to arrange dates with your more regularly. Similarly, in a long term relationship, you may want your partner to spend more time with you.
Instead of teaching your different communication style, I will give you three principles that will guide you.
So here are the principles you need to follow to avoid fights with your partner.
Firstly, realize that you have to communicate your needs to build a happy relationship
Your partner isn’t psychic. If you are like anxious love seekers, you will be prone to expecting your partner to be attuned to your needs. Remember, we women are raised more like this. We are not supposed to express our needs openly, but then we are attuned to other people more. You can expect this kind of exchange with your friend.
Men, on the other hand, are raised to express themselves assertively, so they expect you to do so too without making them feel guilty that they didn’t get you right away. When they meet someone who is a good communicator, they often say things like:
So let’s use our example. You wish he would ask you out more often. The benefit of communicating this with your partner or a date is that he will realize that you are into him, but that he also needs to meet your criteria. You are saying that you expect your partner to be more enthusiastic if he wants you to keep investing your emotions.
So, have I convinced you that you should try to learn how to communicate your needs in a relationship with your partner? I hope so, because we will talk about the second important principle.
Secondly, know and accept your relationship needs
We identified that you want him to arrange more regular dates. There is nothing wrong with what you want in life even if you are more “demanding” than other women. Embrace it! Don’t be ashamed. Also, don’t shame your partner for not just magically being on the same page with you.
If you own it and express that you understand that you may have higher standards than other women, your partner will actually be a bit intrigued by this. He will feel honored that you are so confident, have high standards and you chose him. Remember the statement, “She makes me want to be a better man.” Of course, this is if he is your man and if he is into the same lifestyle as you are. It’s not gonna work if your partner wants to herd sheep in Sicily and you want to have an enormous house in Beverly Hills. This is not a good match and confident men will not abandon themselves. And, you wouldn’t be into him if he did that.
Thirdly, communication in a relationship needs to happen from the premise that your partner is not your enemy
This guide will help you dramatically because a lot of miscommunication happens due to unconscious beliefs. Your body language with negative premises will change and cause your partner's automatic fight or flight responses.
Instead of putting him down because you have unmet needs, you can position yourself as a proverbial beggar. No, you don’t give your power away like this. You instead empower him. Only empowered people empower others.
Think about it as asking for a favor from someone who doesn’t owe you anything. Ultimately, nobody does. Once you embrace this notion, your exchange becomes much easier. Most partners are thrilled to meet your needs when you implement this strategy. And, you really don’t want someone to do things for you out of guilt. You deserve better.
Let me illustrate this with a cute story from my childhood. When my younger brother and I get chocolate or something, I would finish mine very quickly and he would eat his slowly. So, I would play the role of a beggar and address him as a king and beg for some chocolate. That worked well for me.
So you don’t need to manipulate your partner the way I did my little brother. You can just simply ask for what you need. And, you can do that when you know how to communicate your needs in a relationship.
Let's go back to our example.
Communication strategies for expressing needs and desires
There are various ways in which you can express your need for him to arrange more regular dates. Here are just some:
What can I do when my needs are still not being met?
There you have just a little part of my Love Building Communication tips. I have so much more to give you, but I need to keep these articles somewhat short.
This was just one of the examples and you can apply these principles at any stage of your relationship. Hope you try it and watch your partner show you affection like you’ve never seen before.
On the other hand, even the best communication may not reach your partner. Then you may have to decide if your needs are important and can you love your partner the way he is, not able to meet your emotional needs. Setting boundaries may be necessary to maintain your sanity. These are tough decisions, and they need to be made carefully. Ultimately, the most important thing is that you find a way to feel secure and confident about who you are and what you have to offer in this or any other relationship.
Would you like a little help communicating your needs in the ways that will empower your partner instead of starting a fight? Here is a gift for you. Download my Captivating Communication Scripts that can help you create powerful emotional bond with quality men.