Contrary to popular myth, crises and conflicts are necessarily present in healthy relationships. From time to time (if people are alive, of course), each of the partners is dissatisfied. These are natural and normal episodes in the life of a couple. Mature relationships are different in how these periods are experienced and how the couple copes with them.
For example, it is possible to perceive the dissatisfaction of the partner as a personal disadvantage. It means that you are hysterical/your fault; your problem is you have to deal with it. In this case, the responsibility for the problem is completely shifted to the partner, while the other participant in the events does not want to recognize and solve the problem. That is, the pair as such - no. They are together only in joy, but everyone has their own grief.
It is believed that a mature marriage implies meeting the needs of both partners. In this case, someone's dissatisfaction (no matter who he or she is) is a task that is important to solve together. That is, you and I are okay, none of us are "wrong"; we have the right to feel what we feel, and we do not have to deal with it alone. The slogan is "Are someone's needs not met? So we have a problem, and we deal with it together.
The important thing is that there are paired needs (which are met in a relationship), and there are individual and social needs. That is, some desires can and should be realized only in pairs, and some do not relate to the partner at all.
Sometimes it is difficult to draw a clear line, because it often happens that one need looks like another. For example, the wife offers her husband to go to the cinema. And he does not want to go to the cinema. A quarrel begins, because he feels that he is under pressure, and she ... But with her, let's deal with it in more detail. What does this movie mean to her?
1. I want to watch a particular movie or go somewhere else, namely, to the movies.
This is the need for leisure time, in a change of scenery, relaxation of tension. Do you need a husband for this? No. This need can be met alone or with friends. By the way, how is it with her friendship? Everything is good in this area, hasn't she forgotten about the social part of life? If there are no friends, it's her problem, not her husband's. He had nothing to do with it at all.
2. I want diversity, romance, a holiday in the relationship with my husband.
That is, I want to refresh my feelings, to add joint experiences. Do you need a husband for this? Yes. This is a pairing need, because it concerns relations with him. Only a movie will help you find peace and joy? No, of course not. If he doesn't want to go to the movies, but needs to "walk", the task becomes easier: just find another way to make a difference. What will suit him? If instead of a movie - a walk, dinner at home by candlelight?
And so on. It turns out that the needs can be very different, and the conflict is the same.
The trouble is that we can hardly identify our own needs. We do a lot of what we "need to" do. So much that in time we stop hearing our own "want". Remember: from childhood we were taught not to go about our desires, to put them off and focus on our responsibilities, not our rights. We were often told that we couldn't, but forgotten to say that we could. And over time, we have lost the ability to be in contact with our desires, to be attentive and sensitive to ourselves.
We are not used to hearing ourselves and understanding what we really want, what our needs are not met. And since we don't even know what we want, how can a partner know that?
It's a funny but bitter picture: "I don't know what I want. And if you don't give it to me, it means that you don't love/you're not my person.
How do we know what exactly is missing and how can we cope with it together?
There are needs that everyone has heard of. That is, needs that are considered to be "right" and socially acceptable. For example, the need for communication or intimacy is understandable, it should be. And we can recognize this need. The need for support is already more difficult to recognize, because it is recognized, but how exactly do you want to meet it is an individual question: one needs to sit next to him, the other needs to be listened to, and for the third - it is when they provide specific assistance in solving the problem. All this is about support, but in different languages of love.
And there are needs that are not widely spoken about. They are also natural, and we all have every right to these desires. All of them are important, because they are the components of happiness and harmony in family life. But they are often underestimated, if not simply overlooked.
For example, we often ignore these important needs:
In admiration and success.
In a holiday, in the discharge of tension. The need to work, to help others and to take care of the family is wonderful, but without relaxation it turns into hard labour. Sometimes it is vital to play computer games or to have dinner for you.
In physical comfort. For some reason, it is "customary" to recognize the need for order and purity, but at the same time, the need for personal space often falls into disgrace.
Alone, free and separate (oh, how often love is opposed to it!).
In the division of one's own feelings. Sometimes we just need to be understood, to be able to give our feelings the right to exist; to be able to endure our condition and be with us in it.
In passion, emotional shaking, the contrast of approach and estrangement. This can be achieved through quarrels, flirting or temporary separation.
In power. Sometimes it is important to know that something depends on us, that we are not in helplessness. It is not shameful, it is normal.
In the game, humor and ease (in contact with their children's part). For children of a certain age, play is the main task at this stage of development. Although we have grown up, but this need has not gone away.
Such important and necessary needs can be very many more. This list is just an example of what a soul can ask for.