I recently shared an experience of being treated as if I were invisible and how I spoke out against that but there’s another form of invisibility that’s critical for us to address: hiding our needs.
As part of the on-the-job training of life, situations that hurt you make you aware of your needs. Spend enough time in a relationship subsisting on crumbs and you experience a painful awakening about your unmet needs.
Your relationships provide a window into understanding who you are and what you need.
Quite simply, some of us have no clue what our needs are. We might see them as indistinguishable from wants. The best description of needs and wants is by financial expert, Karen McCall:
“A need sustains you and a want entertains you.”
If, as a child, you experienced emotional, mental and/or physical neglect, you won’t have felt safe, secure and nurtured. This can cause you to train yourself out of having needs. You might do without. It could be settling for crumbs or filling the void with something else (e.g. food, shopping, sex).
It’s not that you don’t have needs. You do have them but have either forgotten about their existence or given up on trying to meet them. If, for example, your feelings weren’t acknowledged or what you had to say didn’t matter, or you felt as if you had to take a backseat to someone or everyone else, you figured, ‘What’s the point?’
If you think that your needs will go unheard or that even if you do speak up, that they won’t be met, you’ll reason that it’s easier to stay quiet than risk being ignored and/or rejected. To compensate, you take on a role (e.g. people pleaser, overachiever, caretaker, fixer, underachiever, black sheep) as a back door to trying to get your needs met without as much risk.
Notice me. Take care of me. Listen to me. Love me.
We need trust in our interpersonal relationships. When your habit is to hide your needs, in those situations where you need someone else’s input, for example, a romantic relationship where it takes two to row the relationship boat, you won’t voice them. Sure, you might hint and when you’ve finally had enough, blow up, but what you won’t do is be you. You won’t show and voice your needs by extension of your values and boundaries.
So much time is spent catering to other people’s needs, expectations, desires, feelings and opinions that yours are forgotten.
Any situation that has brought up pain and discomfort for you is flagging up your emotional needs. We all have them, no one is exempt.
Emotional needs are the things that we need to be, do and have in order to survive and thrive.
Our needs extend far beyond the basics of food, water, shelter, clothes on our back etc. They include:
- Belonging
- Safety and security
- Physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing
- To give and receive attention (e.g. acknowledgement, praise, to listen and be heard)
- To give and receive affection
- Intimacy
- Status
Purpose and goals - Connection to something beyond ourselves — community, ideals, beliefs
Everything that we do in life is about meeting our emotional needs in some way, shape or form.
Some of what we do is helpful… and some is harmful.
Your habits provides clues about what it is that you believe you need to be, do and have in order to have an emotional need met.
Let’s say that you desire status: you might think that the way to gain respect, reputation and stature is to focus on managing your body and your image or to attach yourself to certain types of people to ‘enhance’ you.
We all have an emotional need for status but when you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing in the way that you’re doing it for as long as you’ve been doing it, you run the risk of setting you up to fail.
You don’t know why you’re seeking something from a certain someone or something.
You don’t know your own agenda and will do things for the wrong reasons.
Back to the example of status: if your desire for status stems from an experience at school or within the family where you blamed what happened on you not being attractive or popular enough, this is why you will inadvertently seek status through your appearance. You might hang with the charming, narcissistic folk who blow smoke up your bottom and then bring you crashing back down.
The emotional need is temporarily met but what you’re doing doesn’t nourish or sustain you because it hurts you.
A similar thing happens with attention. Someone seeking attention in a healthy way might hang with a trusted friend or spend a day or a weekend focusing on doing things they enjoy. Someone else might go on Tinder, Plenty of Fish etc and collect attention. Same desire (emotional need for attention), very different aims and very different outcomes.
If your relationships don’t feel happy, healthy, harmonious and you’re not being you, every experience that hurts will be trying to call your attention to your emotional needs.
You might crave a relationship to feel safe, secure and to have a sense of belonging but if you saddle up to a Mr/Miss Unavailable, your emotional needs aren’t going to be met.
You might think that an educated, attractive, high-earning partner will meet all of your emotional needs but if you don’t share core values in terms of character and direction, you are incompatible and your emotional needs won’t be met.
I speak to so many ‘Cool Girls’ and ‘Good Girls’ and many of them pride themselves on being “low maintenance”. It’s like a badge of honour to not ask for anything. They don’t state their needs, ask for help or call out any bullsh*t. They don’t want to “make drama” like “other women”. It’s as if they think that having no needs should be an easy fit for getting what they want.
This is how we disappear. This is how we become invisible.
Of course, when their partners fail to be loving partners, they feel shortchanged and very confused. It’s even more aggravating when women they’re afraid to be like experience relationship success.
You have needs.
Pretending that you don’t, or acknowledging that you do but trying to get them met via a hidden agenda that spares you the vulnerability of speaking/showing up for your needs, doesn’t work. It’s like selling people in on a 0% introductory APR offer and thinking that you can prove and earn the right to have your needs met. It’s as if by them hurting and disappointing you, your anger becomes a justification and a claim for getting your needs met.
There’s no need to sell yourself short just so that you can be pissed off enough to then feel as if you’re in a position to speak up about your needs!
You have needs and it’s your job to represent.
You are your primary caregiver. Meet your needs through your treatment of you and your boundaries as well as the choices you’re making in people and relationships. Hiding your needs in your relationships means that neither you or the other party will be able to meet them.
Meeting your needs means that you don’t have to come from a place of lack. You’re not coming from a place of starvation.
When you treat you with love, care, trust and respect, you won’t accept less from others than you can already be and do for yourself.
Your frustrations about what others aren’t being and doing point to what you need to be and do for yourself. You will be able to take care of your own side of the street and meet your emotional needs and choose the right relationships (mutually fulfilling), things and opportunities to support you.
Your thoughts?
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Thank you, Nat. So timely. Two months ago I finally got to the point of telling my here again, not again relationship about my needs. And that I have needs and expectations…proceeded by what they were. Calmly. Gently. But no less clear. He couldn’t handle it, and he’s disappeared again, but this time it seems for good. Amazing how finally having a voice in what you want scares the living crap out of them. Him disappearing for the last two months tells me all I need to know.
Just brilliant as always. I had a private session last year with Nat after struggling with relationship grief for most of the year and it was so empowering. I miss the podcasts.
Thank you. I miss the podcast!
Could this be anymore powerful? MY GOSH!
Natalie, you are so wise. I don’t want crumbs; I want and NEED the full loaf.
The sad thing is, is that there are so many emotionally unavailable people, that you feel you have to settle for to mitigate the lonely feelings. It’s hard out there. So many want the fringe benefits of a relationship but the don’t want to put in the work and effort to keep it long-lasting.
I am getting stronger and stronger at stating my needs and YES it runs people off and that is why it is so difficult to do. Loneliness eats away at me. 39 years old and lonely as hell.
Starr,
Lonely can be painful but you have so many opportunities to reach out and explore what brings joy into your life.
Yvonne
This is great! And came at the perfect time!! I always feel bad for having needs. Thank you for validating them! The current guy I am dating is making me feel like a burden. I’m not asking for much at all. Very little actually. I feel like I don’t exist a lot of the time, or to use your word, I feel ‘invisible’. I have explained this to him. He justifies how he is. I keep thinking it’s me and that I need to be more patient. This post has made it very clear to me. I need to not be afraid to communicate my boundaries and values and not settle. Thank you!
There are so many persona goals you can work on for yourself, and it safe keeps you from choosing the wrong people to be around. If you are happy in yourself and alone, you won’t come from a place of starvation, you won’t feel the nlike d to hold onto people who don’t add good to your life. It starts with you.
A great read I posted to Facebook. It was easy to spot myself in many scenarios you wrote about. I hope I can apply them.
Are you planning to write about the U.S. president being a narcissist/sociopath? I swear it’s like a drunk monkey is running things–so traumatic!
Spot on as always and relevant to both halves of every relationship ??
Except for the timeline, my experience is similar to Meredith’s. It was early December and I texted him. It is not that I woke up that day with the conscious thought-“today I am going to be une chienne”, no, it was because after more than two years I was exasperated and exhausted. Following the intense love-bombing; so many starts and stops. So many broken promises.
I archived the text and have viewed it a gazillion since. It was calm, respectful. Perhaps I am not the only one to claim or admit to this; I even APOLOGIZED for saying that I felt I was being played.
The reaction was swift. Several texts from him, mostly to the tune of how I obviously am incapable of understanding him, etc. But that was not the final chapter. The next weekend I saw him twice. It was intense. Then, poof, gone (apparently for good). I can almost hear his voice, “so, you think I’ve played you? Let me show you what I can do…”
He has ignored me for an entire season. Once again he has shown me who he really is and now it is up to me to believe it. Thank you Natalie.
I am guilty of being the ‘easy going’ girl. It’s painful to admit that most of my needs aren’t being met in my non-relastionship of over 18 months.
I do have needs. I need;
– to feel like I matter and am cared about (to be asked how I am and what’s going on in my life)
– reliability and stability (to know when I am going to see/hear from him again)
– to be able to express my love and affection without being dismissed or making him disappear for a few days
– A monogamous relationship
– a future (if we can’t even plan for a week in advance, where is our future?)
I want so much more.
Erin,
This is my experience exactly. I’ve been in a non-relationship. Three years of pretending to not have needs, pretending I’m not hurt/disappointed/frustrated.. afraid to say I miss you since it will push him away and start the ‘cold cycle’
Letting him control the temperature..
this ongoing silencing/censoring myself ..having so much want to express but end up texting something like
“It’s ok, all good I understand… no worries” and usually with a smiley face 🙂
Argh.
I need to keep telling myself it’s human to have needs and it’s ok to want more!!!
OMG – three years?!!! When will enough-be-enough for you Grace? I could only withstand approx 3 months of BS situationships where my needs were never met before I used to blow my top lol. Three years is like a prison sentence, why are you so intent on punishing yourself like this? Don’t you believe you are worthy of and deserving of more?
I just spent some time being invisible. The guy I was dating undermined my experiences, telling me that my experience of my own past was wrong. Reflecting his values into everything I said. Not showing interest when I brought up important events from my life but of course he brought up a lot of sad sack stories of his past and like a decent person I listened and reflected and made the appropriate sounds of showing you understand and accept another’s perspective. This is very reminiscent of my childhood where I was constantly told that any interpretation I had of my life and emotions was incorrect. Nat is spot on. It’s hard to recover from a childhood where feelings were not safe to experience. I was always in the wrong. I either didn’t trust my own experience or I knew I was right but couldn’t say anything or I did say something and then the gaslighting would start till I was back at doubting myself or raging over being undermined yet again. I did call him out on undermining my experience but not of course every time he did it. Sometimes you don’t fully realize even that it’s happening. I see things in retrospect which even at the time upset me but I couldn’t see why. The most charitable explanation is he put his needs in the center and tried to enrol me into them. And not directly by the way. Not by directly saying these are my needs would you be willing to. Let alone asking me what my needs or wants were. But he tried to enrol me in a manipulative way so I always felt like things were left unsaid or that I didn’t know what game was being played. He was basically trying to see if he could enroll me exactly as he wanted without telling me what he wanted. And since nothing was directly spoken I was left not in a position to agree or disagree or discuss or state my own needs.
I also realized during our breakup conversation how much of our missed connections (basically him undermining me) was because of his own insecurities and fears. Which he would state as if they were universal truths. Since he didn’t want to deal with them he undermined me instead. Eg if I say I don’t eat gluten he won’t say yes he’s had an allergy for a while which made him worried for his health. He would say oh it’s universally known on principle that gluten is etc. (not our actual conversation but you get the point). So he undermines my experience of my own life because of his own insecurities. But he undermines it in a know it all principle of the thing way. I don’t let people undermine me so easily. But still you can’t fight it all the time. And once someone does it you’re not safe anymore to state your experience (forget needs this was just a casual dinner conversation).
What’s the solution? Watch out for your discomfort or anxiety or stress. People undermining you means they don’t care about your needs and can’t access their own truths either. If like me you’re not ready to breakup at least seek some distance for a few days.
Hi Sammy, your comment really resonates with me. I found it frustrating to no end having such difficulty communicating with the man I just broke up with (particularly after 17 years with my non-English-speaking ex-husband who wouldn’t even try!). I went through much of what you describe, and you hit it right on the head: others try to undermine us because of their own insecurities and it indicates that they don’t care about our needs because they cannot access their own truth. I felt at the same time undermined and overwritten. It’s no wonder he didn’t want any input or feedback from me: he has more baggage than Terminal B at LAX and was used to getting a free pass with everything due to his professional stature, but I wasn’t having it.
I meet my own needs these days. Never gunna leave it to the many man boys out there to see my strength and try nick my self love. Fuck That.
I don’t even give them crumbs let alone dine on the shit they chump out….a sweet smile, and a walk in the other direction. I don’t even bother to run..why run when I’m not scared? 😉
We got these peeps down and being single free from all.that.BS has been a liberating journey.
Not being invisible can make you stand out and be ripe for picking from both men and women who don’t like a woman with her shit together.
Too bad…I worked hard to finally be me 🙂
@soulfull
Bravo! What a great comment! Thanks for channeling some strength our way!
I’ll never forget how I felt when I read an embedded link in another post of an excerpt from “Mr. Unavailable…” and FINALLY connected the dots on the reason why my former husband was so into exploiting me for every iota of whatever he could possibly extract out of me and didn’t seem to see anything wrong with it: because I never articulated my own needs nor drew any lines! Conversely in the recently-ended rebound relationship I discussed on other threads, I went into that with an intention of being upfront about who I am and what I need, only to get routinely criticized and judged and shamed for being me. It was a great study in how to identify “unavailable” behaviour while getting acquainted with myself and what I need. It was additionally an ideal opportunity to work on my deeply-entrenched conflict avoidance.
It took awhile for me to realize that the rebound guy was in fact even more oppressively controlling and selfish and just as big of drama queen as my ex because since my ex was so overtly and spectacularly dysfunctional in so many ways, the other guy came up smelling like a rose by comparison, quite possibly just by being an adult who has his basic shit together. The bar is a lot higher now!
P.S. I also ended up in the online affair with the catfish I have discussed in other comments because I was utterly emotionally famished and wrung-dry from my ridiculously unworkable marriage. It took a lot for me to wean myself off that emotional drip-feed and let the catfish swim away, but I eventually did.
…and DAMMIT! I am still waffling in doubt about the whole thing, wondering that because *I* was unavailable when we started dating, did that “make” him unavailable, and so if we just did a reset and started afresh, everything would be just peachy?? I have to keep reminding myself, “HELL NO!” Yes, I was unavailable AND upfront with him about it. AND…as of Date #2, I was already feeling misgivings about how long I could tolerate him being obviously much more into his own assumptions and judgments and projections and stories that *he made up ABOUT me* than he was in actually listening to me and getting to know me. It was doomed from Day One. Q.E.D.
Some of you ladies deserve a medal! You’ve endured (and in some cases continue to do so) so much BS in these situationships! I suspect the reason why my past relationships were so short lived is because my ability to sacrifice my well-being bfor the sake of having a man was virtually non-existent. In the beginning, I would NAG a dude to DEATH if I felt like he wasn’t upholding his side of the bargain by making sure my needs were looked after – especially if I was playing the dutiful girlfriend and doing more than my fair share. And surely enough, they’d creep out the back door or I’d flush them once I stopped giving a shit (nothing worse than a woman who’s stopped giving a fuck), but I couldn’t imagine sticking it out in limbo with these arseholes any longer than I had to! Emotionally and psychologically I wasn’t strong enough to endure those types of relationships. I’d spent my entire childhood being emotionally / psychologically abused by my narc mum and her emotionally unavailable husband, so any time I catch wind that another person is treating me similarly, or I get a vibe that reminds me of the feelings I had in my childhood, I’m OUT.
Londonlupie, like you I will not sacrifice my well being for the sake of a man after the marriage I got out of. People have accused me of having a check list but it is really simple. I need honesty, integrity and fidelity. Without those there is nothing for me and I will walk the first time my guts tell me something is off. I am very astute and a good judge of character even when meeting people for the first time. Anything that reminds me of my marriage or gives me vibes that bring back those feelings I’m out as well. I din’t accept crumbs and am happily ploughing my own furrow. For those wanting commitment from your men look at this way. He will make it clear by the time 12 months is up what he is about. If by 18 months you haven’t got the commitment you desire then get out. Even my elderly father told me that by 12 months if a man isn’t committing you should exit as then you are in getting the milk for free category. It takes two to tango and of you are out of step then you need to do something about it and empower yourselves. There are men who will tick along and make do because their needs are met i.e. sex. These same men would then waltz off if they thought “the one” appeared without a back ward glance. For me though a man has to be truly single i.e. not in fwb deal. Also if a man had a harem of exs then that is no deal. Yes I may end up on my own but I’d rather that than getting the gold medal for suffering as I’ve come a long way from the marriage from hell.
The longer I’m single (it’s been nearly 14 months?) the more comfortable I am being on my own. Being single is just easier because you’re not compromising yourself, and when you’re like me and have trouble asking for what you need, it is easier. I’m trying to work on using my voice still. I do have a tendency to let people just walk all over me.
I like male attention but I’m not looking for a relationship. I need to work on myself, otherwise a relationship will be something negative and it will ruin my self-esteem. I can recount the words and behaviour of my past relationship and men, being away from it just helps my self-esteem like nothing else.
I don’t have the emotional strength to put myself out there because I am dealing with health issues and my energy levels aren’t always good. After 7 years on my own I am a happy single and can’t @arsed with the games that men play. Recently I was ghosted by a female friend which reflected more on her than me but it still hurt after 5 years of friendship. I’d never had this happen to me before and consider it to be rude and immature especially as it happened when I was ill and needed friends. I haven’t been on a date in years and am not looking for a relationship now either, it isn’t a priority for me at present. The door isn’t closed but I don’t believe there is a man near my age who isn’t a Peter Pan or pervy Peter Pan.
What I would wish is a long term companion if it is to happen and won’t be afraid to say so if a conversation arose about what do you want? None of the pleasing crap, being the nurse or putting down my needs from now on. I’ve always said if a man wants into my knickers then to say so and I can make the decision yay or nay but don’t give me the relationship crap and then ghost after establishing a relationship. Sadly few men in their 50s who have been bruised by life can be that honest so they become Peter Pans because then they can stay in control, avoid feelings, being close in a relationship and like the proverbial rolling stone gather no moss. In their wake is a trail of destruction.
Now after so long single I don’t know if I am capable of giving to someone else, compromising to establish a relationship or even making time because I am used to my own life now and it becomes harder to open up the older you get. Not only that but I don’t need stress, manipulation or dating crap which is so common these days in my life.
Right on target! This has been a big challenge to overcome…learning how to state my needs or set boundaries, without needing the motivation of anger and resentment, to do it.
I was always “the cool girl” when it came to dating and being with my ex. I was with him for a third of my life, married young, and he was much older than me. He would tell me how “cool” I was, not “demanding” like previous g/f’s…it almost felt like grooming. It wasn’t until we had a child, that I finally felt like an equal to him; that I was finally allowed to have thoughts, desires, opinions and equal say on how we coparented or made life decisions. Unfortunately, he must have gotten so used to me belittling my needs and going along with the way he wanted things, that it created a great deal of conflict when I finally started to stand up for myself. It was then that I started to really see his childish and manipulative tactics for dodging responsibility, putting blame and guilt on me, patronizing and dismissing me…all because I had a difference of opinion or voiced when something wasn’t right for me, or even asked for help with the baby and house chores. Being on the receiving end of this behavior can be so crazy making and frustrating, that you end up eating shit to keep the peace…until it festers and oozes into resentment, and eventually you react to the little thing that tips you over the edge.
This is why it is important to learn what you need, how to full fill them and how to voice them respectfully. If you do it from the onset, then you discover your compatibility or incompatibility earlier rather than after you have already invested a great deal into the relationship.
Your last paragraph echos my sentiments exactly. But…….. this depends on two people being honest from the get go and this doesn’t always happen. I am all for two people saying yes I like you, I’d like to date you, I’m not seeing anyone else and see where it goes. None of the can I can’t I ring crap, you just get on with it and when older it saves a lot of time and energy. Unfortunately many men have rooster in the hen house syndrome and the internet has made it easier to access female company for them so they want to keep their options open in case a better female specimen is out there they might be missing out on.
Before the internet it was more difficult to meet a large number of people you might be compatible with for a relationship. If you met someone you liked, were attracted to and gelled with you made the effort with them and treated them well knowing if they moved on due to shady behaviour, it was back to the relationship desert. In those days values and boundaries were better too. I blame the internet for a lot of the ills we have with dating and relationships now. Everything is casual, no commitment and if the going gets tough it is a case of move on….next! There is no sense either it treating and behaving with honesty and integrity.
Mind you the latest report about the British man who picked up drug resistant gonorrhoea in Asia might cause some to think again about casual sex. He got what he deserved but his sexual partners don’t. Oh so glad I don’t have that to worry about as a cheating ex husband was enough.
“There’s no need to sell yourself short” – I couldn’t agree more. I’m actually a man in my thirties and honestly, I can say that a good portion of my life I’ve been guilty of selling myself short. It all comes down to a lack of self-esteem. I was dating women I wasn’t really in love with just to date someone. From my today’s perspective, that’s a big NO. I’m single now (more than two years) but I’ve learned to value myself and my time. And to respect others and their time. Therefore I wouldn’t date anyone just to pass time or mute my inner voices telling me how alone I am. Nothing is less sexy than being needy and dependent.
Robert as a woman I’d rather meet a man who has manned up and spent time alone discovering himself and being happy than a man who dates to avoid being alone or rebounds/overlaps. Too many people are on the rebound and validate themselves by dating which then impacts on the people they date and so the circle continues. I have only ever dated men I was attracted to and interested in but always having been single for for months even years between relationships. I won’t sell myself short and so many people have a problem with a woman who lives by these values probably because they aren’t happy with their lives but do nothing about it.
Only you can make you happy, another person can’t. Using people to fill gaps in our lives due to neediness and desperation doesn’t show much respect or integrity for us or those other people. Sadly too many people don’t realise this and wonder why they bounce from one relationship to another which don’t work and mistakes get repeated. Being happy and single is preferable to being unhappy in a relationship or making do knowing it isn’t really what you want. After my marriage I know there are worse things than being alone and if it happens that I meet a man I can let into my life so be it. If it doesn’t happen nothing has changed, I know who I am, what I am about and my life continues. I don’t need a man in my life to define who I am or to validate/complete me as a woman.
Absolutely. You have to learn to master, or even better to let go your emotions. I mean… everything seems/is easy when you feel strong. But then there are those moments when you feel weak and that’s when the feeling of being lonely is heavy.
Agree but that is when you need to be on your guard and not get sucked into something you don’t really want. Also I have a strong sense of self preservation because of health problems and am well aware that if ill and feeling weaker physically and mentally I am more at risk of a dysfunctional relationship from a controller, fixer or manipulative man. I got out of a marriage with those and more characteristsics and am not going to relinquish my autonomy because when ill I know I don’t have the emotional resilience or the energy for a relationship hence not wanting to date even.
Thank you for this article. I’m currently struggling with my relationship. He was with the same woman for 30 years, and she left him for another woman. He’s been single for almost two years now, but having little to no experience dating after 30 years, it’s been a difficult go for me. My last relationship was 3.5 years with a Mr. Unavailable/Narcissist. So when I met the new guy, he’s very kind, sweet, and caring. The downside is he has social anxiety and does not think very highly of himself. We rarely ever go anywhere outside of the house together, and if we do, I have to pretend it’s like we’re friends (ie, can’t hold his hand or show affection). I struggle with this immensely, as I am a very social and affectionate person. I guess I’m at a crossroads where I have to decide that maybe just because he’s a “nice guy” and is good to me… isn’t enough. I find myself having “discussions” every week lately about my needs: more affection, more communication, I’d like to be able to plan things, etc. I don’t want to feel like my needs aren’t important or that I can’t express them to my partner without the worry that he’ll freak out or disappear. Why do I keep choosing men that “need work”? Sigh…
Omg Feisty I agree – everyone I know of and the cat next door, seem to be in new relationships within 4-6 months. I’m still turning down advances from men! I’m picky but this time I’m happy I’m being picky because it’s way too important, it’s my life and well being on the line and I don’t need another relationship to ruin all I have built so far! Silly lonely men and their eagerness to have relationships it’s not even about who with.
Hit the nail on the head Phoenix. I’ve been out in social groups that are predominantly women. I’ve gone horse riding and met only women. If I was that way inclined I’d have met a woman by now, but I am straight. Even on cruises there are more women travelling solo than men and those who do have the courage are too old and widowed. I even heard of one man widowed 6 weeks and he was chasing younger single women on the ship! So where are all the men? Probably hiding behind a PC screen having pseudo relationships or being the rooster in the hen house. The fact is that once you get to beyond 50 the pool of available men is of far lesser quality than the pool of available women because they move on to another relationship too quickly and don’t deal with their baggage. Factor in the fantasies these men have of boning a 20 something and being single becomes even more appealing. Older men are looking for a nurse/sugar baby which is a booming industry now and is a polite term for good old fashioned hooker when it is an arrangement which it mostly is. That to me is fine if you haven’t got children but they wise up and at some point will ask questions like why did you sleep with that old man?
What annoys me is the double standards that men apply. They can age, go grey, have moobs, bellies and health problems but will still be able to pull if they have status and money. A woman who has the same in the same age bracket is cast aside even though she may be highly compatible, simply because of her age. It is a bit like older animals in rescue centres being overlooked because they are the wrong colour, age blah blah. Well I ain’t so desperate that I’ll give the first man to look at me puppy eyes just to get some attention.
I don’t understand the need people have to boomerang from one relationship to another. To me those are people who have no self esteem and aren’t dealing with baggage. I knew a woman who barely 18 months after being widowed and married for decades was desperately trying to fill the void she had. As a result she wasn’t being selective. I don’t want a man to choose me because he doesn’t want to be on his own rather I want him to choose me for other reasons. I now won’t date widowers, separated and divorced men within 18 months of the event and even then would go slowly to be sure they weren’t on the rebound and I won’t make do. A lot of people who make do in a relationship also don’t have the courage of their convictions if they do fall in love with someone else to break up, pause and then move on rather than overlapping or rebounding or worse staying with the safe option.
I have been struggling with this most of my adult life, very likely since childhood. I married someone that disregarded my feelings and emotional needs, and now I’m in that same cycle with someone else.
I am a habitual chance-giver, over and over and over, until I can’t stand it anymore and then I walk away feeling hurt, disappointed, mad at myself, mad at the other person, scared, lonely, and the list goes on.
Most recently, my partner made plans to go away this weekend with his friends. Now we are middle-aged, divorced, with each our own children. I expressed very clearly how I felt about him going away – we are trying to rebuild our relationship that has been built previously on the mishandling of one another’s feelings. I explained to him how I felt, I told him that at this point, right now, I needed for him to decide that the trip wasn’t worth putting my through the anguish that it would, or to, at the very least, invite me to go.
He not only avoided talked about the situation altogether (he had many many opportunities over these last few months of planning, and I even asked flat out out to talk about it), but he told me that we just had differing perspectives and that’s the way it will always be…and with that, he left for his weekend away.
For me, this crosses the line, crosses my boundaries in that I feel he had disregarded my feelings (again). He doesn’t respect or value me in the way that I deserve.
So what I struggle with is one, following through on the consequences of breaking my boundary, and two, walking away for good and feeling okay with it.
It’s been such a merry-go-round and my logical brain knows what’s right, but emotionally, I can’t imagine a life without him, and at the same time, can’t accept this kind of treatment.
I need to connect with some supportive friends that have been through this and have made it out to the other side. I need this desperately.
Natalie, can we have a forum of sorts?
I love your website and read it religiously. Thank you.
I don’t really get it to be honest. Everytime I tell others my needs, all I’m getting back are strange excuses, like “sorry, my life’s really chaotic and I’m scatterbrained and that’s why I rarely call/message you” – wait, your life has been really that chaotic for about errm, EIGHT YEARS?!? Is it just me, or is that a plain lazy excuse? I mean, it takes about three seconds to pick up a darn phone. And no matter how scatterbrained you are, since the one I had this conversation with, always acted as if we were really close, you should still think of me from time to time and feel the urge to call/message/meet me whatever here and there.
And the funniest thing is, in all these “friendships” I’m never allowed to be angry about anything. But tell them there’s something you’re not comfortable with and would like to change, they blow up or at least get extremely defensive and put all the blame on me.
And the problem is, they’re all like that. Is it really that much too ask? That your friends bother to message you? I would say it’s not. If there are no meet-ups in a friendship, I’d say it’d be a dead friendship or at least a dying one.
It just makes me extremely angry how people act as if I’m asking them to loan me a million when I’m asking for very simple things. I’m also sick and tired of asking in the first place, because 90 percent of the time it makes me feel like an absolute idiot. Here I am, asking for something like “would you please answer my question?” (friend on the other side of the phone often just ignores my questions), “could you please not act as if we are going to do this and that thing and then you just never mention it again or and act as if you never said that?” (friend doing some sort of future faking) … All of these questions feel so basic, things that should be kind of common sense. It makes me feel as if I have to act like the friendship-police and it sucks.
I’ve met so many different people the last years, but with all of them I had one of these mentioned problems. And everytime I want to talk about them, the other side gets defensive and then goes to act as if I am the problem OR says yes and then does what they wanna do anyway. I don’t know anymore. I think I’ll give up on humanity altogether, because it’s absolutely useless trying anything. I have met so many different kinds of people, and every single time when I tried to get my needs met as well, the other part just won’t reciprocate. I’m sick of it all. I’m sick of the discussions, the feeling like an idiot when I ask for something very basic, having to put up with other people’s ego and defensiveness when you tell them you want some things to be a little different, just everything.
Sorry for my rant.
Hey there Yani, I am completely with you on this as regards friendships these days. Across the board, across a wide range of professions and backgrounds my observations are that the majority of people in my life (most current friends/ aquaintences – people I have been ‘getting to know’ as a friend for say the last 4 to 7 years ) deliberately remain on the periphery and are notoriously unavailable for intimate, reciprocal, life enhancing friendship. You need that “circle of trust” although circle always suggests to me a group that know each-other and that is not really how my circle of trust manifests. I have about three friends in my circle of trust but I see them all separately. One of them lives on the other side of the country. Two are friendships of long standing, one is a friendship that has solidified and become worthy of my trust in the past 5 years. I would say that in he past 5 to 7 years this is the only friendship that has truly developed consistently (consistency is what matters here) out of the many (and I do mean many) I have tried to do my part in nurturing. And yes, many of those people exited in various ways after the first hint of questioning on my part or attempt at discussion. I am also sort of a part of a group of friends but the individual members, bar one, do not really wish to be in reciprocal friendship with me as an individual. My solution to the ensuing isolation has been to get most of my needs that were once met regularly through reciprocal ongoing friendships at least partially met through activity based groups. These “activity only” based connections are at least well bounded in a structure and reliable from that point of view. I play a version of soccer (but that is only once a week for two short seasons). I am about to take up boxing (classes) and team tenpin bowling. Without these activities it would not take me long to mentally and emotionally deteriorate as my needs for reciprocal, face to face friendship are greater than what is and has been available to me for the last at least five years.
I do feel that the friendship issue is a symptom/sign of an en-masse sort of emotional/mental breakdown that has insidiously emerged in middle class tech dominated western society in recent times (past 15/20 years). The dominant cultural norm is now self absorption and friviolity, unreliability etc. The minority who can’t stomach this cultural norm are ostrascised for holding values like respect, integrity, reciprocity, emotional availability and for actually trying to act in accordance with them in their personal relations. Our middle class western culture now dictates that these traits are no longer the norm in friendship (at least in my age group – let’s say 40plus).
I hear you. I think taking up some sport/group activity would be a good idea for me and others here too probably, because it’s true: It has some sort of structure, in the sense of there’s a beginning and a clear end time-wise, most of the time, and there’s someone who kind of lays down rules everyone has to abide to, in a way. So that’d be a good environment to get the needs to meet other people met.
And yes, I agree with the rest of your writing. I think most people also don’t hold people in high regard. They seem to see human beings as another event you go to, or their last big purchase. They do not see them for what they are: Human beings, with needs, expierences, feelings and wants and so on – we’re not objects. But most people don’t seem to get that, really, or just aren’t too fond of appreciating humans for what they are, the living, breathing and feeling creatures, who, in my opinion, are kind of special. I think human relationships have a major if not the biggest impact in our lives (of course there are other things that can have huge impact on us but I’d say your friends, family, schoolmates, work colleagues, etc do really form your life big time) and therefore I am very interested in really getting to know them. It’s hard for me to say I like people, because a lot of them aren’t the nicest (let’s say it this way), but actually I see them as something very interesting and special. That’s why I’d like to form relationships that aren’t just based on “what can I get from them?” or just a tool so I don’t have to spend time alone – those superficial relationships that seem to be so popular nowadays. No, I want a friendship that is real and where you care about the other one.
I feel like, if someone doesn’t want to reciprocate, it’s often because they really do see people more like objects and just aren’t interested. That’s a bit misanthropic of them, though, I find.
Haha, long rant because I haven’t slept well and am a bit philosphical then. I find it amusing how that tends to happen when I didn’t get enough sleep.
Excuse my English. It’s not my mother tongue.
Yani, I hear you too and agree. People treating other people as objects and calling that friendship/a relationship is something that I’ve seen a lot of and had my share of experiencing in recent years. There is no reciprocity in these situations and no genuine interest in learning about the other as an individual person. There can be no growth if these sorts of dynamics are dominating most of our relationships/friendships/work interactions. Over the years I have dropped (simply through the act of no longer chasing) so many of these non-reciprocal, object making alchemists. Like I said I can count my friends on one hand. It would be lonely without my activities. Take good care. Your written English is very good!
I can only agree, on everything you wrote.
And thank you! Take care, too.