Who is responsible for meeting your emotional needs?\u00a0 This is an issue that happens very commonly and causes tremendous frustration for both parties in a relationship.\u00a0 I have in the past referred to it as \u201cI feel pain, what\u2019d you do?!\u201d<\/p>\n
What happens is we feel something, but we don\u2019t even get a chance to explore our feeling, we just automatically, without realizing it, assign it to something outside<\/em> of ourselves.\u00a0 For example, a guy walks in and is whistling.\u00a0 \u00a0His wife is concentrating on something and the whistling makes concentrating harder.\u00a0 She barks at her partner to stop whistling.\u00a0 She may even attack his character. . . \u201cYou\u2019re always whistling, why do you DO that?!\u201d\u00a0 Do you see what I mean in this example?\u00a0 What she is really feeling is frustrated with herself<\/strong> <\/em>because she can\u2019t concentrate, but she ASSIGNS it to her partner and bludgeons him for \u2018making\u2019 her not be able to concentrate.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s break this down.\u00a0 When this is permitted to go on, she is relieved of the responsibility of knowing what she feels and being in touch with her own feelings (frustration with herself).\u00a0 She has no responsibility to be able to articulate her feelings (insecure\/inadequate).\u00a0 She just feels the tiniest surge of negative emotion and deflects it elsewhere.\u00a0 She is holding other people accountable for HER feelings<\/strong> which leaves them doing all of the work\u00a0<\/strong> as they try to anticipate her needs \u2013 when she doesn\u2019t even know them herself!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know about you, but I don\u2019t find that too attractive!\u00a0 Unfortunately, I see this in many forms. . .<\/p>\n UNDERFUNCTIONER & OVERFUNCTIONER<\/strong> – One person who is very primitive in this way and not in touch with their needs (underfunctioner) partnered up with someone who contorts and adjusts to try to meet their needs (overfunctioner) before their partner even feels them!\u00a0 When this happens eventually the overfunctioner gets fed up because they can never get it right and please their partner.\u00a0 When they stop overfunctioning, the underfunctioner will eventually have to learn their own feelings and deal with them (although they will fight it tooth and nail!).\u00a0 The recovery is like watching a train wreck, but if both parties are workable, they can each grow into mature, appropriately functioning adults.<\/p>\n BOTH UNDERFUNCTIONING<\/strong> \u2013 In this scenario, both parties are woefully out of touch with their own feelings and assign any hurt they feel to their partner (or someone else, if partner is not around).\u00a0 They fight like cats and dogs or they\u2019ve just shut down and co-exist.\u00a0 Neither one takes a second to look into themselves and get in touch with their deeper feeling because they are too busy cracking on their partner for it.\u00a0 This is fixable, too, but the first order of business is to yank them away from each other and make them look at themselves.\u00a0 Picture being in the middle of two street gangs and trying to convince them they should not fight!<\/p>\n If we want healthy relationships, we have GOT to look at ourselves and acknowledge our emotional OVER or UNDER functioning .\u00a0 If we don\u2019t see that point, then we will not get better.\u00a0 Our marriages will fail, our relationships with our kids, our extended family, coworkers, and friends will be strained.\u00a0 When we see<\/strong> <\/em>it, we can work to change it.\u00a0 Normal, healthy functioning truly is better!\u00a0 It may be contrary to the way you\u2019ve always done it, but I can assure you that when we take responsibility for our own feelings and learn to articulate them instead of making other people responsible for them, our relationships will be relieved of a lot of tension, pain and anguish and the love can begin to grow again!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Who is responsible for meeting your emotional needs?\u00a0 This is an issue that happens very commonly and causes tremendous frustration for both parties in a relationship.\u00a0 I have in the past referred to it as \u201cI feel pain, what\u2019d you do?!\u201d What happens is we feel something, but we don\u2019t even get a chance to 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