Relationships: Telltale Signs You and Your Partner Aren't on the Same Page About Your Relationship

In my previous article, I discussed why it's important for you and your partner to be on the same wavelength in your relationship.  I also talked about the many different relationship choices these days, and the consequences of having divert needs on major relationship issues.  In this article I'll be discussing the telltale signs you're not on the same page (see my article: Are Your Emotional Needs Being Met in Your Relationship?).

Telltale Signs You and Your Partner Aren't on the Same Page

Telltale Signs You and Your Partner Aren't on the Same Page

The following list might indicate that you and your partner aren't on the same wavelength with regard to your relationship:

• Less Emotional and Sexual Intimacy: When you're not happy in your relationship because you and your partner aren't in agreement about what you each want, you might feel disconnected from your partner which could lead to a reduction in emotional and sexual intimacy or you feel like you're just going through the motions (see my article: What's the Difference Between Sexual and Emotional Intimacy?).

• Arguments About Time Apart vs Time Together: If one of you wants to spend more time together than the other, you could be having more arguments about this. Often the person who wants to spend more time together feels rejected and abandoned by the partner--even though this might not be the case. It might just be that one partner needs more alone time to recharge (see my article: Learning to Compromise in Your Relationship About Spending Time Apart vs Time Together).

• Arguments About How You Spend Your Time When You're Not Together: If one or both people are feeling insecure about the relationship because they don't know where it's going, they might argue about how much time you spend with friends, hobbies or at work. 

• Discussions About Life Decisions Are Avoided: You and your partner aren't talking about long term relationships goals because you don't have a common understanding about the direction of the relationship, so you avoid dealing with these issues. This avoidance, in turn, creates more tension and misunderstandings (see my article: 7 Tips For Creating a Stronger Relationship With Relationship Goals).

• Arguments About Money: If you're not discussing relationship goals, you won't know how to prioritize decisions about money, e.g., buying a house, saving for a vacation, and so on (see my article: Arguing About Money in Your Relationship).

• Arguments About Flirting With Others: As mentioned in the prior article, there are so many different types of relationships (monogamous, monogamish, open relationships, etc), so if you each have a different understanding about how you define your relationship, you might argue about how your partner is interacting with other people, including being overly flirtatious.  If you're feeling insecure, even if your partner has no intention of being with anyone else, you might engage in "mate guarding," which can create even more tension in your relationship (see my articles: Irrational Jealousy and Mate Guarding - Part 1 and Part 2).

• Family Events Are a Problem: If you and your partner aren't on the same page about the type of relationship you each want, you might find family gatherings become problematic because you don't go to your partner's family events and/or your partner doesn't go to your family events. This can create tension for significant events like parents' birthdays or holidays. Even though some family events might not be fun, if you're in a serious relationship, you're there to support one another.  You also might end up making excuses to your family about why your partner isn't there.

• Boundaries Aren't Respected: Whether it's emotional, sexual or other physical boundaries, it's hard to know what the boundaries are when you and your partner aren't in agreement.  If you want to be in a monogamous relationship, but your partner wants an open relationship that includes sexual and/or emotional intimacy with others, you or your partner are bound to get hurt and disappointed.

• A One-Sided Relationship: If you feel you're making most of the effort in your relationship so that your relationship feels one sided, you're going to feel resentful and disappointed. Another sign of a one-sided relationship is when your partner talks about something the two of you did together and instead of saying "we," they tend to say "I."

• Frequent Misunderstandings About Your Partner: If you feel like you don't know your partner anymore, you could be experiencing a sign that you're not on the same wavelength anymore (or maybe you never were). You might be growing apart because you have divert views about what you want in the relationship.

• Together But Feeling Alone: When a couple isn't on the same page about the relationship, one or both of them can feel like they're alone even though they're physically together. If you're with your partner but you feel lonely, this is another indication of being disconnected from one another (see my article: Are You Feeling Lonely in Your Relationship?).

The items listed above aren't exhaustive, so there might be other telltale signs that you detect with your partner.

In a future article, I'll provide a clinical vignette and discuss how you can try to resolve these issues.

Getting Help in Therapy

Just because you and your partner aren't on the same wavelength doesn't necessarily mean you can't get there.  Sometimes you just need help.

These kinds of problems usually don't get better by themselves, and if you don't know what to do, you could benefit from working with a licensed psychotherapist.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to discover what you want, how to communicate your needs and how to work out a possible compromise.

So take the first step of contacting a licensed mental health professional so you can have a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

In a prior article, Are Your Emotional Needs Being Met in Your Relationship?, I began addressing the importance of having your emotional needs met within your romantic relationship or marriage.  But there are many people who don't understand what their emotional needs are, so I'm addressing this issue in this article.

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

Without being able to identify and understand your emotional, you can't really ask for what you need in your relationship.

Many people who had unmet emotional needs as children grow up to be adults who don't understand what their emotional needs are and how to even find out what they are.

Many of these same people go on to have romantic relationships with people who are, at best, ambivalent and, at worst, abusive, including emotional and/or physical abuse.

In contrast to people, who grew up where their emotional needs weren't taken care of, people who grew up in households where the love and nurturing was "good enough," usually have an intuitive sense of what they need from their romantic partner.  If their partner mistreats them either emotionally or physically, they are much less likely to put up with it than people who grew up with unmet emotional needs.

It's important for you and your partner that you understand what you need emotionally.

Let's start by identifying some of the most common emotional needs that people have.  This list will give you an idea, but it's, by no means, exhaustive, and you might identify other emotional needs that are important to you.

Common Emotional Needs

• to be seen for who you are
• to be heard
• to be understood
• to be encouraged, supported and nurtured
• to feel loved
• to receive affection
• to have emotional intimacy with significant others (family, friends, partners/spouses)
• to be allowed to grow and develop as a person
• to be forgiven
• to be touched and held

Once again, there are just some of the most basic needs that most people have, but there can be others.  For instance, someone who needs time to him or herself might have a need for a certain amount of solitude.  Or, there could be other important emotional needs, depending upon the individual.

Discovering and Understanding Your Emotional Needs
So, if you haven't had the experience of having your emotional needs met (or, maybe you not even aware that your emotional needs weren't met when you were a child) how can you go about discovering what these needs are?

As a psychotherapist, one way that I find to be very effective is to begin paying attention to what's going on in your body.

Your body contains both conscious and unconscious emotions and memories, so that focusing on what's going on in your body can begin to help you to understand your emotions as well as your emotional needs (see my article: Mind-Body Psychotherapy: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

Depending upon how in touch you are with your embodied emotions, this can be challenging, especially if you are dissociated (i.e., cut off) from what's happening in your body due to emotional trauma.

For many people, who grew up in households where they were physically abused or emotionally neglected, as children, it would have been either dangerous or too emotionally painful to be in touch with their emotional needs.

In such situations, children often defend themselves against the emotional pain by suppressing their needs.  This is a common defense mechanism.  This defense mechanism protected them in a way from feeling the emotional pain.  It protected them from feeling too vulnerable.

The problem is that these same children often grow up to be adults who are out of touch with their emotions and don't know what they need emotionally.  Even worse, they often enter into romantic relationships that replicate their childhood experiences.

Let's take a look at a fictional scenario to understand this:

Dina
Dina came to therapy because she was confused about her two year relationship with John.

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

Her close friends had been Dina all along that John wasn't treating her well after they moved in together.  Although she trusted her friends and she knew that they wanted the best for her, Dina didn't see it and she wondered if she was missing something.

When she provided her family history, she talked about growing up as an only child and being raised primarily by nannies.  Her parents were often preoccupied with their careers and too busy to spend much time with her.

As a result, before going to school, Dina spent a lot time playing on her own.  She remembered having a young nanny who was kind and attentive for a short while, but her parents fired the nanny after they discovered that she was allowing her boyfriend to come over to spend the night when Dina's parents were away traveling.

Dina remembered waking up one day to find that the nanny that she loved wasn't there.  She was given no explanation until much later when she was an adult.  This was a big loss for Dina that she suppressed and never discussed until she came to therapy.

The new nanny that they hired was somewhat quiet and reserved.  As a result, Dina often felt sad and lonely, and she sometimes went to her parents to try to get their attention.  During those times, her parents scolded her for being "needy," which made her feel ashamed.  Later on, when she was old enough, she was sent to a boarding school far from her home.

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

Shy and sad, Dina had difficulty making friends at boarding school.  There were a couple of students who were more outgoing who befriended Dina, but being at boarding school and hardly seeing her parents was a sad and lonely experience.

By the time she went to college, Dina gave the impression of being "independent."  But it was really a pseudo independence that was a defense against being emotionally vulnerable.

Intelligent and attractive, she attracted the attention of many male students in college, but she dated very little and spent most of her time with a few outgoing friends who initiated friendships with her.

Dina met John in her senior year of college.  Shy and unsure of herself, she initially kept John at arm's length.  But he was persistent and found ways to be around her during college activities.

After John asked Dina out many times, she agreed to go out with him.  Initially, she found him to be very attentive.  Not only was he good looking and intelligent, he was also very funny and made Dina laugh, so she began opening up to him more.

Dina had never experienced anything like this before, and she became captivated by him.  He was her first and only lover, and their love making was very passionate.

After they graduated from college, they found jobs in NYC and moved in together.  By then, they had been together for a year.  At first, looking for an apartment and making plans was fun.

But shortly after they moved in together, Dina realized that John seemed to change.  Whereas before he was very attentive to her, he now seemed to be preoccupied with other things--his job, his male friends, hobbies, and other activities where Dina was not included.

At first, Dina thought that John was adjusting to post college life, but a year later, he was still the same. Whenever she tried to talk to him about it, John became uncomfortable and dismissed what she had to say.

Then, a few months before she came to therapy, Dina discovered an email on John's account from another woman and she realized that when John said he was seeing his friends, he was actually seeing this other woman.

When she confronted John about it, at first, he denied it.  But she showed him the email, he blamed her.  He told her that she had become boring and it was her fault that he looked outside the relationship.  He told her that, as of now, it wasn't serious, but he wanted to continue to see this other woman to see whether it would develop.

At first, Dina took John's words to heart and she blamed herself for his infidelity.  She thought:  Maybe he's right.  Maybe I am boring.  What can I do to change?

When she talked to her close friends about it, they told her that John was making excuses, not taking responsibility, and blaming her for his own behavior.  They told her that John was mistreating her, but Dina didn't see it.  She believed that if she could be more interesting, attentive, and sexy, she could lure John back.  But no matter what she tried to do, he continued to see the other woman and spend most of his free time with her.  He wasn't even coming home at night any more.

When Dina started therapy, she wasn't sure what she felt about John seeing another woman.  She knew she wanted him to be monogamous with her, but beyond that and blaming herself, she wasn't in touch with any other emotions.

By helping Dina to become more aware of what was going on in her body, Dina began to slowly develop more of an awareness of her internal experience.

For instance, she began to recognize that when she felt her stomach muscles clinched, she was either anxious or angry and that when she felt a sinking feeling in her chest, she felt sad.

Over time, Dina began to realize how much she had suppressed her emotions as a child as a way to protect herself from feeling overwhelmingly sad and angry with her parents.  She developed compassion for that younger part of herself that was often left to fend for herself, and she appreciated why she had to suppress her feelings as a child.

But she also realized that she was much more resilient as an adult and she could now handle the emotions that would have been too overwhelming as a child.

Part of the work in therapy involved grief work for her unmet emotional needs as a child.

The work was neither quick nor easy, but eventually Dina was able to feel her anger and disappointment and recognized that John was mistreating her.  She also realized that she needed to feel loved, valued and treated with respected and her needs weren't being met in her relationship with John.  So, she summoned her courage and broke up with him.

Understanding Your Emotional Needs

Several months later, Dina began dating again.  She used her new awareness of her embodied emotions to understand what she needed emotionally in a relationship and she used this awareness to eventually enter into a much healthier relationship.

Conclusion
When children grow up with unmet emotional needs, they often protect themselves emotionally by suppressing those needs.

As adults, they often continue to suppress those emotional needs so that they're unaware of what they need emotionally.

This lack of awareness has consequences for the individual on his or her own and for being able to choose healthy relationships.

When clients are unaware of their emotional needs, one effective way of working in therapy is for the therapist to orient the client to what's happening in his or her body with regard to embodied emotions.

Getting Help in Therapy
Using the mind-body connection to identify your emotional needs is an effective method.

If the issues in this article resonate with you, rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from being in therapy with a psychotherapist who has a mind-body orientation to doing therapy.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Are Your Emotional Needs Being Met in Your Relationship?

One of the leading causes of relationship breakups is when one or both people in a relationship feel that their emotional needs aren't being met.  And, yet, so many couples are reluctant to discuss this important issue with each other.  

Are Your Emotional Needs Being Met in Your Relationship?

Every Relationship Goes Through Its Ups and Downs

You can't expect that your spouse or partner will always be attuned to your emotional needs. There can be many reasons why your spouse isn't meeting your emotional needs at a particular point in your relationship, including financial or work stressors, anxiety, medical problems, problems with your children or other family members.

But if you find that, over a period of time, your emotional needs aren't being met in your relationship, it's time that you and your spouse sit down for a heart-to-heart talk about what's going on in your relationship.

What Does It Mean to Have Your Emotional Needs Met?
You and your spouse or partner won't always be on the same page about everything.  For instance, you might have particular interests that your spouse doesn't have or vice versa.  So, neither you nor your spouse are likely to meet all of each other's needs.  This is why it's healthy to have friends that you enjoy seeing where you have common interests that you and your spouse might not have.

But when I refer to having your emotional needs met by your spouse, I'm talking about, on the most basic level, feeling loved and cared about by your spouse.

Each Person Might Communicate Love in a Different Way
Many  couples, who have been together for a long time, stop expressing their love and appreciation for each other the way they used to when they first met.  For a lot of these couples, it's not so much a matter of not caring any more as it is that, over time, they've forgotten how to communicate these feelings to each other.  Or, in some instances, they might never have known how to do it.

For other couples, each person in the relationship might have a different way of expressing love and appreciation.  If each person in the relationship is on a different wavelength about how to express love and appreciation, each of them might miss certain gestures that are meant to convey these feelings.

For instance, a husband might express how much he loves for his wife by making sure that her car is always in good working order.  But the wife in this relationship might feel unloved because, from her point of view, husbands who love their wives express it by saying, "I love you" or by bringing them flowers.

Since they're both coming from different places about how to express love, the wife might completely miss that this is her husband's way of showing that he loves her.  She might just think her husband likes tinkering with the car.  And the husband might feel unappreciated for his efforts.  So, it's important for each person to understand his or her spouse.  And there can be some compromise around these issues if the couple takes the time to talk about it.

You Deserve to Have Your Emotional Needs Met
Many people struggle  with the idea that they deserve to have their emotional needs met, especially if they grew up in a household where their emotional needs weren't met when they were children.  As adults, they might not know what they need in order to feel loved.  Or even if they do know, they might feel so undeserving that they don't feel entitled to it.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you feel you're not getting your emotional needs met by your spouse, you're not alone.  Many people seek out help in individual therapy as well as couples counseling because of this issue.

If your spouse is willing to participate in couples counseling, you both can learn to change the current dynamic in the relationship.  You'll probably also learn a lot about what your spouse has been experiencing in his or her relationship with you.

Even if your spouse isn't willing, at this point, to participate in couples counseling, you can benefit from your own individual therapy to learn to deal with this issue in your relationship and to avoid the anxiety and depression that can often develop when your emotional needs aren't being met.

About Me

I am  a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.