How Do You Fix a Needy Relationship?

All too often, people enter a relationship to fill a void, a sense of lack that people have about their lives or how they feel about themselves. It may seem at the beginning of such a relationship that their needs are getting fulfilled, but the sad thing is that one can never fill that sense of lack by getting it from someone else. The initial satisfaction will invariably pass, leaving emptiness in its wake, and their partner will become increasingly distraught at not being able to help.

We have often talked about the importance of getting to know yourself and continuing to grow that self knowledge. We can only develop a sense of self-worth and acceptance of ourselves by the work we do on and with ourselves. This means more than having an accurate assessment of your strengths and weaknesses; it means sitting at that point in yourself that is indisputable. It is beyond looks or intelligence or competence; it is not affected by the approval of others. It is the basis of feeling complete and thereby not needy. That work will pay dividends in its effect on your relationship, and when each partner supports the other in this type of self-work and self improvement, the relationship is usually highly successful. Acceptance of your full self, your progressing self and acceptance of your partner in the same way, when coupled with dedication to grow and find and fulfill your unique potential, produces healthier individuals and concomitantly, healthier relationships.

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Successful Relationship Reading Corner

In this week's blog we wrote about how you fix a needy relationship. These articles cover various aspects of that, including from the partner's point of view.

How to Become Whole in a Relationship "A solid relationship is two whole (or at least, fairly whole) people coming together because they love each other’s company. They’re not coming together because they need someone to love them all the time, because they need someone’s company all the time, because they need to be shown that they’re loved. If one person is whole but the other person is needy, dependent, insecure … the whole person will do the best that he or she can to help the other, but over the long run will feel weary of all the neediness and insecurity, and will feel resentment."

How to Overcome Neediness "As ill-defined as the experience of neediness seems to be, psychologists have made great strides in unpacking this complex state of mind. One line of research, which emerged from an attempt to better understand depression, sheds a good deal of light on what makes neediness so incredibly painful. Defining neediness, rather inelegantly, as “a generalized, undifferentiated dependence on others and feelings of helplessness and fears of desertion and abandonment, “ the investigators discovered that it has an important relationship to depression."

How Neediness and Emotional Insecurity Destroy Relationships "Feeling insecure in a relationship is horrible for the one who is feeling the insecurity. The burden – of fear and obsessive thoughts, of feeling powerless, of awful awareness that all this insecurity may actually itself be destroying what you treasure most – can feel pretty unbearable. But it’s also tough for the person on the receiving end of all that insecurity. The truth is that being involved with a really insecure person can be hell."

Spreading peace one relationship at a time
Phil and Maude
 
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