Why is marriage so hard?
Why do my needs never get met?
Will things ever change?
I’ve been learning everything I possibly can about the differences between men and women so that we can begin to understand one another better…and use that to create more fulfilling relationships. Maybe it doesn’t have to be so hard.
An important difference between men and women:
- Men don’t recognize their need until it is urgent.
- Women recognize their need early on but easily get distracted and put that need on hold (or subjugate the need entirely).
Let’s use an easy example…
My husband will go most of the day without ever stopping to think, “Should I eat?” or “Am I hungry?” But when he’s famished or feels a hunger-headache coming on, everything (and I mean everything) needs to stop so that he can eat.
I, on the other hand, will get a sense that I’m getting hungry and I’ll think about going to the kitchen and grabbing something to eat….right after I do this one more thing…and then this other one thing… It might be several hours later before I will go get my hunger need met.
Sound familiar?
So, as women we will often put our needs on the back-burner and then wonder why our needs never get met.
We also learned that we should put others’ needs before our own. This often leads to us never getting our needs met and teaching those around us that we either (1) have no needs or that (2) our needs are unimportant.
And because we will put others’ needs before our own, we assume when our husband doesn’t put our needs before his – he’s being selfish. Nope. Men were not taught that they “should” subjugate their needs or that it’s the “right thing to do.” (And in reality…it’s not really working out that well for us, ladies…).
WHAT TO DO DIFFERENTLY:
First, notice when when your husband is getting his needs met (or attempting to get his needs met) that he treats those needs as urgent. Stop short of judging that he should behave differently.
Second, and most importantly, stop overlooking your own needs and making them unimportant…to yourself and those around you.
We know how that works out…and we cannot resent our needs not being met when we’re the ones pushing them aside.
*Based upon the work by Alison Armstrong