Ask for What You Need

Over the years as a therapist providing marriage counseling it has intrigued me that often people communicate their needs in an angry or hurt way, rather than simply an honest request for the specific thing that is needed.  The focus tends to be on the ways in which the need was ignored, forgotten, granted incorrectly, or refused altogether.  Now, this is understandable for many reasons, but this approach of focusing on the ways in which one's partner did NOT meet one's needs often becomes more of a habit for the initial expression of the need, which, of course, does not express what is needed at all.

A few years ago, I was working with a couple when this issue became very apparent.  It is common in many marriages, but on this day it was so crystal clear and quite simply needed to be directly addressed.  The husband was telling his wife how unhappy and frustrated he is with how she handles some of the things in their marriage.  He had some legitimate needs, but he was telling her all the ways she was making mistakes and upsetting him without once asking for his needs to be met.  In fact, his statements were coming off poorly and she was getting upset.  

I stopped him and asked him if he was attempting to express some needs.  He expressed that he was doing that.  I turned to his wife, who had tears running down her face, and asked her how she was feeling.  She said she felt criticized and attacked (which is how it was feeling to me, as well).  I talked with them about how it is important to ask for what we need, rather than stating only what we do not like.  He attempted to shift this and struggled to express himself at all.

So often in marriage we hurt one another unintentionally by asking for basic, appropriate needs that we are not feeling are getting met by our partner.  It is unfortunate that the way we ask for these needs is typically done in a way that is perceived as criticism by our spouse because we make this very common mistake of stating what we don't like instead.  In so doing, we end up making our spouse upset instead of getting a loving, validating response.

Try making a purposeful change in your marriage by paying close, careful attention to how you ask for your needs to be met by your spouse.  I think you both will appreciate this adjustment.