How To Ask For What You Need In A Relationship

What gets in the way of deeper connections with the people you love? Do you struggle to be seen, known, and heard? How do you react when your needs aren’t being met? Getting clear about what we want and then asking for it in positive, effective ways is an absolutely vital step to improving our relationships.

What to do when you’re into self-development and your partner isn’t.
What to do when you desire connection and feel lonely in your relationship.
How to know when to seek professional help.

Transcript

I am Anna Siwald and this is Authentic Parenting,

A podcast about personal development in the context of parenting,

Where I explore how you can find more calm connection and join parenting through the process of self-discovery and inner growth with a trauma-informed lens.

I'm a parent educator and my mission is to help children by helping parents.

The motto of this podcast is raising our children,

Growing ourselves.

Today,

How to ask for what you need in a relationship.

Do you know how to ask for what you need skillfully,

Mindfully,

Compassionately from your partner?

Do you sometimes feel as though your spouse doesn't understand your feelings and needs?

Do you feel lonely,

Unseen and unheard in your intimate relationship?

I have an incredible episode for you with a returning guest whom I absolutely adore and who is simply amazing and I am positive you're going to love this conversation.

Last year,

I did an episode called When Your Needs Are Not Met with Yvette Erasmus.

It's episode 262 and it was in the top 10 most downloaded episodes of the year and it generated a lot of response.

So I invited Yvette back to the show.

Dr.

Yvette Erasmus is a psychologist,

Teacher and consultant specializing in transformative learning,

A sought-after relational intelligence expert with over three decades of real-world experience in human transformation,

Healing,

Growth and learning.

Dr.

Erasmus helps us embrace and enjoy our differences while staying grounded in our fundamental unity.

Her work is dedicated to bridging differences and to bringing whatever is divided and fragmented back into wholeness,

Integrity and harmony.

Today we explore what to do when you're growing and changing and your partner isn't.

Do you feel like you have grown apart to the degree that your values are no longer aligned and you question should you stay or should you go?

When you crave emotional connection,

Nourishment and intimacy but feel alone in your relationship?

When to DIY your relationship issues and when to seek out professional help?

How to communicate your needs without coming off as needy,

Clingy or desperate?

Why we transfer our chronically unmet needs onto our partners and how it's not their job to heal our childhood wounds?

The interplay of dependence,

Independence and interdependence when it comes to your needs and how to recognize the signs when you're reacting from your woundedness.

And it all begins by shifting our old lens of domination model of what's wrong into a relational model what will help.

Yvette also demonstrates so skillfully and beautifully the how to of communicating your needs.

She gives us scripts and formulas so listen,

Take notes and be sure to put it into practice.

By the way you can grab a list of needs that I created for you.

Find a link in the show notes.

She said so many wonderful things during this conversation but one thing remained with me and it's this.

When we say yes in a relationship but we mean no both people pay a price.

I hope this episode will help you find your voice,

Speak your truth,

Ask for what you need without the old unhelpful strategies and build deeply connected,

Fulfilling and life affirming relationships.

Before we get to today's conversation here are some past episodes that you may enjoy.

Episode 68 is your relationship toxic?

Episode 102 how to communicate your needs in a relationship?

Episode 113 signs of childhood trauma in adults?

And episode 216 childhood emotional neglect to better understand where emotional unavailability originates in the first place.

And now please enjoy this fantastic conversation with brilliant Yvette Erasmus.

I mentioned in my Facebook group I said guess what guys Yvette Erasmus is coming back to the show you know a returning guest and everybody got excited and she said I'm gonna re-listen to that episode.

She listened to it then she said damn it's so good.

Wow that's so great I'm so delighted to hear that.

So we have to deliver again Yvette.

I absolutely I'm gonna say it from the beginning I absolutely adore you.

I love your writing everything you do you know I'm on your mailing list I get every newsletter and it's always so thoughtful wonderful I learn a lot and just amazing so thank you.

Thank you thank you that means a lot to hear that you know sometimes you sit in your own house and you're doing your work and you're doing your writing and you sort of wonder if it's having any effect so it's always lovely when you hear from somebody that it is.

It is you your stories always are very powerful and you connect it with your work so beautifully you lace it which I think is very skillful and besides your accent I also love the way you choose your words you know the choices that you make it's beautiful.

So that's fan-girling you in the beginning so last time we talked about needs how to communicate our needs to our partner what needs are how to be aware of our own needs especially as women and we talked about the difference between needs and feelings and it was a really lovely conversation but I thought this time in addition to talking about the needs a little more because it's a huge topic a lot of women struggle still with communicating or even knowing their needs but let's talk about the partner-partner relationship specifically if it's a marriage or if they're not married but they're living together and I'm sorry to my single friends this episode may not be as relevant to them but this is a very common ask in our community when your partner doesn't understand your mental health when your partner doesn't understand your trauma when you have a hard time communicating with your partner about your needs when they are not available emotionally because you're in a partnership with them as a romantic partner but you're also parenting together and in these two areas usually there are challenges and to begin that I want to ask you to start by framing the domination talk about the domination model because that has a lot to do with it okay okay so this is such a long-winded way no it's great it's totally great so the way that most of us were raised many of us at least were raised is in a domination system and in domination systems there's so much to say about them where do I even begin we're trained to see the world through the lens of what is wrong and when we see everything through that primary question through this lens of what is wrong then every time we have an issue with a partner or even with our children one of the very first things that we start thinking is what is wrong and actually if we're wanting to build you know collaborative loving empowered healthy relationships this is the first point of intervention right that question is not going to give us anything relational it's not going to help us with our relationships it's going to help us with survival system tasks okay it's going to help us with inanimate tasks like if your computer is broken you of course you want to ask what is wrong and then go in and fix it but that is not the right question when it comes to relationships when we're in relationships we want to be asking what will help we want to be in a relational model not a domination model so in a domination model the way we show up in our relationships is trying to figure out what's wrong with ourselves and other people what's wrong with you what's wrong with me and then our approach our strategies are usually some version of trying to control and change you or me and the reason that that doesn't work is because it sets us up into power struggles and human beings have a very very deep need adult human beings right all human beings perhaps have a deep deep need for sovereignty self-sovereignty and choicefulness and freedom and many of us want to be loved for who we are and the ironic thing is once i know that you love me as i am i naturally want to grow and change but the change that comes is coming because i see how me changing meets my needs and your needs better and i feel inspired to change and that's the kind of change we want to go for in our partnerships where i am in charge of the changes that i do and i'm doing them for my own reasons as a contribution to my own wellness and your your wellness right but domination programming has us thinking what's wrong what's wrong with you what's wrong with me this is what you need to change this is what i have to change and there's a lot of have-to thinking and a lot of should thinking and the way that that then sort of plays out in our relationships is that the each person ends up with a lot of resistance and a lot of bracing and it erodes trust and we don't want to do something just because we were told to because that's too much like you're now the parent and i'm the child and it takes us out of the partnership model so in partnership we want to get much more skilled at power with communication and that's not something that many people are good at yet to say to say the least i can say a lot more about domination you know systems if you want me to i just wanted to pause for a moment and just find out if that was making sense so if you had more questions about that it does make sense and i am just thinking where do i go from here because i have so many fireworks going in my head so when one person is doing some self-help work in a relationship and a lot of my community members are our listeners you know hence they are listening to this podcast uh reading self-help books but their partners aren't necessarily right or they may be doing their own work but they are on different trajectories or there is a gap and you recently talked about that gap i think in one of your videos i i watched that creates a challenge you know one parent who is more empowered who is more conscious parent is learning all of those good things and skills and supposedly but what i find interesting is they are still stuck in the domination model now they are like i changed what's wrong with you that you're not changing um you need to do your own work you are not seeing that i'm making changes um isn't that the lovely thing about humans we go off and we learn something that is inspiring and where we feel expanded and we get all inspired and encouraged by the work that we're on and then we have such a deep longing for the people in our lives who matter to us to join us on this journey and then the way that we take it back to them makes it really difficult for them to join us because we come with so much enthusiasm that it almost feels like a demand to the other person and to the degree that it feels like i'm coming to you with i finally figured out what was wrong with you and here's all the things you can change and then my life will be so much better when you're different that's not really that appealing to the other person so you know one of the ways that we want to think about how we're bringing our own personal insights and tools and development back to the other person is by living into the things that we are learning that's inspiring and really taking a more indirect way that you're going to be inspired to grow and change when you see how i'm living differently how i'm treating you differently and how it feels to be in my relational sphere so the more that a partner can talk about themselves instead of the other person the more inspiring it's going to be the more that i come back and say you should read this book i mean anytime somebody says to me if that you should read blah blah blah instantly it's more difficult for me to read that book you know that may be a particularity with me because i have a very strong need for freedom but when somebody is saying to me oh my goodness i'm reading this book here's a quote that i really love what do you think about this quote here's how it's really living in me does it touch anything in you or not when it comes to me like that from a place of sort of shared exploration sharing of yourself with no demand that i now need to read it or that there's anything being asked from me if i am genuinely inspired by the quote and i'm inspired by the conversation i might think to myself oh i want to read that book and we want to create conditions where somebody figures out what they want for them as opposed to reacting to what you think is good for them this comes up a lot oh i gave the podcast or this episode or this book to my partner and he or she is not interested again we perpetuate that domination control model right yeah we're enlightened now you need to be enlightened too so we will be fine or you know i learned this technique you should use it too because it works but how can how long are we going to wait for the other party then to talk about that because it's like so frustrating to live with someone like that i mean how much can we tolerate shall we tolerate at all because if i'm growing and changing and developing and my partner isn't up to speed and i see no hope in the future right i have a growth mindset my partner has a fixed mindset that can really create tension and friction and a lot of conflicts regardless of the parenting aspect we can talk about the parenting too like disciplining the kids parenting differences but in a partner-partner relationship how do i know if i want to stay in this what if there is someone else out there or maybe i can be autonomous and happier on my own yeah so let's think about this in stages let's think about this in stages and the different things we may want to do in those stages so number one the point of awareness in this case being i'm growing and changing i'm feeling inspired and i really want a partner who's growing and changing with me so one of the things that i'm realizing in that moment is one of my deep relational values is personal transformation growth and change and if my partner is not appearing from the outside and from my experiences to be on that same value set that's the first conversation is making that explicit sweetheart listen i've been doing all of this reading i noticed myself growing and changing i don't feel like i'm the same person i don't have the same assumptions that i did five years ago 10 years ago 20 years ago when we met and i'm noticing you're interested in and then name what they're interested in and it feels to me like there's a gap between us are you feeling that too okay so you start by just describing the current state as you're experiencing it checking it out with them you try to get all criticism all evaluation all whining all complaining out of there and you just start with shared reality are we both experiencing this do you see me as different than i was x number of years ago because i'm feeling that and then if you get to agreement you want to get to a place where yeah you know well you just are into blah blah blah and i'm not you know whatever it is that the conversation ends up being then you can talk next stage this is a growing issue for me what i'm realizing is that i've got a deep value for continued learning and growth and i really am longing for a partner that can join me on that journey is that a journey that is interesting to you or not i don't want to impose my values on you i don't want to impose my my you know what works for me on you but i want to know whether that's something that you are inspired into or not now if not right if you if what you discover is the person that you're partnered up with really doesn't have any desire in being any different and is dismissive and uninterested in anything that has to do with learning growth and change then each person needs to make their own decision about whether or not that's going to be tolerable or life affirming to them in the long term and i work with people all the time where people are growing apart and then growing back together and growing apart and growing back together but there's a lot of ways of having that conversation to find out what are we dealing with that don't sound like you never grow and change and you're not interested in blah blah blah and a whole bunch you know like we'll start with the complaint and the accusation and the urgency and the demand usually because we have a fear that they're not going to join us and we don't want the relationship to end and so you know we come with our own fears and urgency and we want to put pressure on them to stay in it with us and the the count you know the self-sabotaging piece is the more i come with urgency and pressure the less appealing it is to the other person and so we want to get that out of the space in the early stages and we really want to be focusing on choicefulness and sovereignty and values have we grown apart to the degree where our values are no longer aligned and if that's the case we have a dilemma what would what should we do about that and you hold it as a couple problem not of me versus you problem so that would be sort of in the early stages i'm going to pause for a minute and find out how that's landing as a start it could be hard and challenging to separate this is my issue versus this is our issue i think a lot of people stumble in that right instead of yeah yeah because in the domination system our training is this is what i want and you give it to me i don't want to give you what you want why can't you love me the way i am well i do love you the way i am but i have these needs well i don't i'm not responsible for your needs and your feelings like it ends up being a me versus you conversation instead of a conversation that is focused first on describing a shared reality and and and making explicit where we're at and then surfacing for each person how are you feeling about that what are your needs around that what are your wishes and longings around that here are mine this is how i'm feeling this is what i'm needing these are my longings and wishes tell me about yours how are you feeling what are your needs what are your longings and wishes how far apart are we how close are we what do we want to do about that and then each person needs to get really clear with themselves and this is awareness work on each partner to what degree am i willing to work with things as they are and to what degree is that going to be a betrayal of my sense of identity and my values and is going to actually feel destructive to me in some way and these are really hard conversations to have you know they they often i recommend you get a facilitator or some skilled help with some of these yeah i was gonna say that sounds like next level because usually the party who is hurt is stuck in their hurt and unable to see the other person as an autonomous sovereign human being right that's where we stumble because what matters to us is our needs our hurt we are not in that open spacious compassionate place to see that yes they are human being they have needs as well one mother recently wrote to me she said you know i was going through a hard time and i wanted my husband to be there but that was his evening of playing golf or some game and he chose to go and do his activity and i my needs were not met and and there was that conflict you know i was thinking to myself yes but he is a human being too right he has needs too he has his commitments why should it be always about you and never about the other person but i think the hurt makes us stuck in our own reality and not be able to see the other person how can we get out of that that's stuckness yes i'm always an advocate an advocate for the both-and approach okay it's never an either-or it's always for me a both-and and here's how the both-and we could apply it to the situation yes on the one hand um here you have two people one person is wanting emotional connection emotional nourishment and intimacy from her partner and in this case the partner is the strategy the object that she wants to have meet her needs and in this limited moment in time and space the partner has a need for more community connection and play time and movement or whatever it is you know like following through on a different commitment and isn't available in that place at that time if that's all that's going on that's usually very easily navigated funny i get that you really want some connection tonight i've made a commitment to my friends can we do it tomorrow morning and you matter to me i love you of course i want to be here for you it's not going to work this evening and there is a foundation of trust and respect and being able to be flexible with when and where we get our needs met because there's trust that we matter to one another what i see more commonly is that these arguments and these hurt points are actually a symptom of something deeper going on which is that one or both of the partners don't trust that their needs are important to their partner and therefore feel like they have to fight for their needs and insist on their needs and recruit their partner into meeting their needs and persuading them about why their needs are so important and this is one of the places where when we come with that when when the other person becomes the only strategy possible to meet my needs and there isn't a habit in your way of relating where you're both surfacing both people's needs all the time where it's about one person asking from the other and then it's a yes or a no and then that's the end of the conversation there's a lot of demand energy that ends up being a power struggle and then it also actually ends up being a lot of miscommunication because sometimes what i want to know is do you love me do i matter to you do you enjoy spending time with me are you intrinsically motivated to care for me and when i can ask that question directly and in a time that isn't stressful i might get a very different answer than when i try to answer that question in code and in code it may sound like well i'm free on friday night and i'm really missing you and i'd like time to get it tonight so could you cancel all other plans and hang out with me and start because i'm that's my way of proving to myself that i'm more important than everybody else yeah and that's coming from a place of neediness and insecurity and you know puts the other person in a double bind so there's there's a lot that can be going on right underneath yes yes and this woman um once she asked the question she later you know texted me and she said do you think this has to do with my childhood needs that they were not met and now i'm wanting everything from my partner i said i will talk about that during the podcast yes yes the answer is yes that happens all the time that happens all the time you know we it's really normal for us to want to get our partners to heal the needs that we didn't get met as children so if we didn't get enough empathy if we weren't seen or heard if we didn't get enough admiration if we weren't like seen for who we are as we are and celebrated and delighted and if we didn't get enough of that from our parents which many of us did not get enough of that right then we transfer those chronically unmet needs onto our partner and they become the new strategy for getting those needs met so you're going to probably some part of you will do that with your partner and your partner will also be doing that to you and it's often unconscious and here's what i like to tell people and this is like a i don't know it's not it's like the bad news your partner's job it is not your partner's job to help you heal your childhood wounds but it is a very very beautiful gift that your partner can give you if it comes from generosity and from inspiration in them and the same back it's not your job to heal your partner's wounds it's not your job to suddenly make up for all the things that they didn't get but to the degree that you're able and willing to provide the thing that they didn't get because that brings you joy it's an incredible gift to your partner if you can do that but it's not your responsibility and it's not their responsibility to meet your unmet needs and this is something that we often get confused about because you know domination programming will install in many of us so like a little unconscious script that other people are objects to meet my needs and therefore i need to teach them how to meet my needs and how to do it well and what my needs are and i need to recruit them into it but from that consciousness i'm treating another person as an object not as a subjectivity not as a sovereign being that i'm being in relationship with and i'm seeing them and i'm evaluating them through the lens of how well are you doing in making me feel good and that's not going to be a sustainable long-term love model that's a how are we using one another in a contract model and then we're going to get stuck in a lot of power struggles hey did you love the podcast show your support by becoming a patron on patreon.

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Com forward slash authentic parenting and choose a level of support now back to the show and so by meeting our needs through different means right for me for example this podcast i can be specific meets so many needs that i no longer look at my partner for fulfilling these needs that i have in the past looked at him for so many of my needs of course i have changed and grown and you know i had my own programming and and wounding and that played a role but i come to realize that the more i become autonomous independent responsible for myself in meeting my needs in becoming a happier person i don't need that much from my partner then we can enjoy the partnership whatever comes with it but i think it's a challenge it's so challenging for many of us because we we marry we we want them to to meet all our needs isn't that you know what love is all about how are they going to show their love then yes but we forget that they are also incomplete human beings who have chronically unmet needs right we we sort of don't want to see that part but i think that talks about the trauma or the immaturity that comes with the trauma that this connection from yourself because you are still the victim if you are in that mindset right yeah yeah so let's think a little bit about the difference between being dependent on someone to meet my needs which is going to leave me feeling like a child and a victim and i'm going to have urgency and i'm going to try and recruit you because i have this illusion that i'm dependent on you to do this thing that i'm longing for and let's contrast that with being interdependent where i mean in an ideal partnership we are naturally meeting each other's needs all the time you know like that's the the joy of relating is that i just love being around you because it meets my needs for challenge and stimulation and play and growth i mean that's the reason we're in a relationship it's not to be little reptiles that are sort of parallel playing in isolation and you know radical independence you know the kind of independence which is the opposite to the dependence like i'll just meet all my needs myself and i don't need anyone you know that's a trauma response um so we don't we don't and we're going to flip between these three states in our relationships sometimes we have more dependent parts that come up and they feel a little bit more clingy and a little more needy and a little bit more desperate those are unhealed child selves that we want to take to therapy and that we want to take to our empathy circles and we want to take to our best friends and we want a community of support who's going to really help us tend to those little children on the inside who feel desperate for something they haven't had and then we want to watch the parts of ourselves that react against not getting what we need and becoming reactively self-reliant and breaking bonds and breaking attachments and the part of ourselves that then sees attachment and bonding as dangerous and unwanted because it's just a setup for disappointment and pain and we want to work with those parts and we want to actually re-bond with and reattach with and soothe those incredibly self-reliant and disconnected parts and we want to bring them back in and once we have a relationship with our dependent and independent parts we can bring to our present moment adult relationships the sense of interdependence where i'm going to ask you my dear loving partner to meet my emotional needs and i'm going to tell you that i'm feeling sad and disappointed and can we have half an hour to just cuddle on the couch or i'm going to bring my needs to you and for the most part there's trust and consistency and reliance that you are interested in meeting them and when you have something else going on and there's a no it doesn't bring up all of this distress in me and then what that builds in our relationship is this trust that when i say yes it's a whole-hearted yes and when i say no it's not because it's a rejection of you it's not because you don't matter it's not because you don't are not important it's because i have some other needs i need to attend to first and in the scope of our relationship i'm here for you and we do meet each other's needs it just doesn't happen in this way at that time on demand you know when it's ordered up all the time and that's the essence of an interdependent healthy mature empowered relationship but it's deeply connected and there's a lot of bonding and attachment and there's a lot of like you are my person but you're not my only person and therefore you have to be everything to me at all times is that making sense it does i and i don't know how to ask a question so how can one because i'm thinking of so many people who ask me questions about this in preparation for this podcast so one of them is how can a person know when they're slipping into their childhood clingy needy desperate area as opposed to being in this are there signs are there questions that they can ask to catch themselves to raise their awareness what would you say about that i know that i'm being triggered by a wound or some unconscious material that's trying to get into my consciousness when my my biological system gets flooded with emotion and urgency and i lose access to choicefulness when i feel like um some part of me has hijacked me and i it's like some something in me has hit the play button and i'm about to start doing this thing that i've always done it's often a rage reaction it can be a shutdown it can be a withdrawal it can be a kind of a freeze it can be a walk out the door and slam the door right it can be whatever that thing is where i feel like an impulse arises in me and i no longer have access to choice and i'm just playing out a very predictable old pattern those are the signs that your partner or you are being hijacked by an uh wounded part of the self and that part is it's it's very difficult to ask your partner to help heal that part it's not going to be healed by your partner being different you really do need to go and find um professional guidance and support and empathy and find ways of healing because that's both about what is happening in the present moment it is being triggered by something legitimate in the now that the intensity of your reaction tells you that there is a hijack from a memory system and story emotional system that is um preventing you from staying in your healthy conscious empowered loving self and you're acting out an old adaptive strategy and those kinds of things we need more strategic help unpacking and discharging and untangling and when it's between a couple it's too easy for each person in the couple to feel vulnerable and self-protective and defensive and both people's adaptive strategies usually kick in and that makes it very difficult for each person to get what they're needing so that's where it's just helpful to bring in some supplemental resources so that it's not all on these two people carrying the burden of figuring all of that stuff out on their own i mean go find a trained professional who can help you get some insight into that yes well said another thing that comes up frequently is my partner is not meeting my emotional needs whatever that is and when we usually ask what do you mean can you give an example you know what are those needs the person doesn't know i want you to speak about that what could be helpful for that person who feels that they have a need for emotional intimacy emotional connection the emotional support they often use emotional as this blanket term for communicating something that i think is is is deeper right so maybe let's start with that and then i'll ask a different question so what is that code language for when a woman oftentimes says i want my husband to be emotionally available meet my emotional needs emotional support what's going on for that person yeah so it's this is this is where i often say to people get really good at asking for what you actually want and don't have it be a concept or an idea have it be a practical present moment concrete behavior that this person could do right now that would be a step in the direction of the big thing you're asking for and so that often sounds like things like this dear partner dear other person i have a deep need for empathy right now and i'm wondering if you have 15 minutes to listen to me just vent and then just reflect back to me what you're hearing me say i don't need you to do anything about it i just need to hear my words come out of somebody else's mouth said back to me do you have 15 minutes to just do that it would be a huge help that's a much easier thing for somebody to say yes or no to than to say i need emotional support can you give that to me sometimes people don't know what that means yeah i don't know what that means for example i have used it myself i have probably said it many times but when you really strip it down like what does it mean yes yes so here is the very practical things you can ask for from a partner would you be willing to listen to me for x number of time and help me get in touch with the feelings that i'm not aware of right now just all i want you to do is listen for feelings and check out random guesses of what i might be feeling could you do that for 10 minutes same thing with needs i feel like i'm super out of touch with my needs i don't know what i'm needing all i know is that i'm angry and i'm upset and i want to vent can you listen for 15 minutes and guess at my needs and let's just see if i can get a little bit more connection to my needs here's the list of need words grab it off my website download it give them the list say here's the list can you just scan this list and see if there are any things on here and just reflect them back it would help me with self-connection what if the other person i'm so sorry to interrupt what if the other person says i'm not going to do that like go to therapy i'm not your therapist i'm not capable of doing that they may not phrase it like that but they may even feel that right um how do you address that you say thank you thank you for letting me know what you are and aren't up for that's really nice yeah i mean yeah thanks for letting me know that i would hate you to do something that you don't want to do when we say yes in a relationship when we mean no both people pay a price so you actually want to cultivate conditions we're saying no i don't want to do that that's i think that's weird oh okay thank you thanks for letting me know that and then if you want to follow it up you can say okay so is there something hearing that that would work for you that you'd like to offer instead and then let them come back with what they feel like they're up for uh sometimes they're like well i can listen but i'm not going to scan through a list of weird words but i can listen and tell you what i'm hearing you say would that work yeah that would be great i'd love that okay then you work with what they're willing to give you because most frequently men especially they just want to solve the problem right they tend to just focus on problem solving um this is a really big one here's what i often tell people if you are with a partner who does a lot of problem solving the first thing you do is you acknowledge and empathize with the need they are trying to meet when they're problem solving and it sounds like this you know sometimes when i'm talking and it seems like you really want to contribute to my well-being by jumping in with a fix does that sound right to you does that resonate i think what you're trying to do is help me is that true so you extract the beautiful good intention you're wanting to help me and you're wanting to contribute to my well-being and this is the way you're trying to do it am i getting that right some version of that and then when they acknowledge yeah they obviously you're in distress and i want to make you feel better okay so you're wanting to help here's what would actually be helpful i want you to help me too and i love that you want to help me the thing that would be helpful is to name my feelings and to just be with them without doing anything about them because there's a young part of me that when you try to make my feelings go away there's a younger part of me even though my adult self knows better who feels like you're trying to make me go away and it's really reassuring to me when i can tell you i'm really frustrated and angry and blah blah blah and everything is terrible in my life and you say honey i hear you you're frustrated you're angry etc etc i'm here with you if you could do that move it would really meet my needs for being loved in my wholeness and my completeness and it would be very soothing how does that sound to you is that something you're willing to do be you know something that you'd be willing to do and when you can make that a doing when you can reframe that for your partner as this is how to fix it this is actually the problem solving move name the feelings and sit with it that's the fix that often makes a lot more sense to people it does because you also see their goodness you see their need you connect to their need you don't respond to their strategy yep always build on what's working we have a habit of talking about everything we don't like what we don't want don't do this don't do that this doesn't work that doesn't work we've got to flip that it's exceedingly demoralizing to people when they're constantly hearing how they're not getting it right so when we change the conversation into here's what would help here's what i think you're trying to do that i really love here's the intention that i think you have that i want to build on here's an adjustment to the strategy that would really be more aligned and that would work what do you think are you willing to do that we acknowledge the good we build on the good and we ask for what we do want instead of keeping the conversation on everything we don't want yeah because it's also helpful to the other party right if you communicate what you want then the other party has a choice to say yes or no and yes it makes total sense on a practical level it's very challenging and i wish most of us can get training before we enter into partnerships like building the plane while you're flying it really is right it's building the plane while you're flying as we say and actually we don't really know what our work is until we end up in these relationships so in some ways i don't know that we can figure it all out and then get into a partnership ready like you know what i like to tell people is you are worthy of being loved and related to as you are and so is everybody else and that means we all have work to do we all are imperfect and wounded we all bring triggers and that's part that's all of those things are the things we're bringing to have love sent its way you know like we want to be loved up as we are and once we can learn to work with our triggers with our feelings with our wounds with our memories and we stop making it bad and wrong and pathology gizing ourselves and apologizing our partners once we just accept that's the raw material and really we're here to learn how to love and work with all of that the whole game changes suddenly you don't have to be perfect you don't have to be enlightened you don't have to be healthy you don't have to be healed before you can be loved and once you can be loved or once you can be loving all of those things begin taking care of themselves have you watched these documentary series called couples therapy it's it's have you it's it's it when you just spoke it reminded me of that series um i think we are sold this illusion that a partnership or a couple's relationship has to be perfect you know if you have ups and downs bumps then that's not a good relationship it's time to discard it's in movies it's it's everywhere that's the messaging right we we don't have tolerance for shortcomings for conflict we don't know how to handle conflicts how to repair how to communicate everything that we're talking about but that series i can't recommend it enough because it just illustrates that yes we can be in a partnership we can love one another and we can have conflict and this is what it's about and this is how we can resolve together and it showed that wow this is the relationship this is the love this this is it yeah and i love that show for that reason yeah me too me too it's so rich it's so rich and i love the mentioning of this illusion that somehow you have to be worthy of or earn your way into love by being healthy or that your partner would need the same thing the the material we bring into our relationships is the material that wants to be loved up and if we can change our thinking into what will help what is what will be forgiving what will be graceful and that's got to be balanced with what are my limits i need to be responsible for my well-being i mean i i don't want to be in an abusive and destructive and toxic relationship and then stay in it because it can you know there are limits on each side right but generally this idea of working through things sticking with it building trust building repair coming back together reassuring each other that there's attachment that there's bonding that there's stability that there's a love here even when we get upset that there's security here even when we temporarily don't like each other that that's all okay that's really really rich work yes that that is all it's about i think so in your work you talk about this quadrant i think it would be good in this point of time to talk about that do you know which i'm referring to right the four quadrants when should you stay or should you go when your relationship is toxic i'm hoping if you could illustrate that sometimes what i'll do is i'll ask people to think about a grid where on one axis we have care for self and care for other right care for self and others and on the other grid we have sort of skillfulness and awareness and when we make this grid we end up with four quadrants and a lot of the issues that we can come that come up in a relationship we want to assess what quadrant it's falling into so in one quadrant where i care about both of us i care for me and i care for you and i have a lot of skill and capacity this is the the relationship that can be very healthy we have a lot of interdependence we have dialogue we have collaboration we have skill we have awareness we have care for self and we have care for others that's like the ideal that we keep trying to get back to then we have relationships where i don't care about you i've lost connection with myself i have no skills i have no awareness and in those relationships where i'm very low on skillfulness awareness careful self care for others those can be very abusive those are relationships where especially if i don't care about you and i have no skill i'm going to yell i'm going to hijack i'm going to use a lot of domination i'm going to use a lot of force i'm going to use a lot of power over to try and get my way those are the relationships that are abusive and in that course it's a free course on my website anybody could go and download it and get the workbook and go through the self-assessment but i've got a whole can you say the link or or i i can put it in the show notes but if there's a link that you remember i think you have to go to ivetteerasmus.

Com and just go to the introductory programs under resources and then you can sign up for the should i stay should i go video series yeah and it'll give you a self-assessment where you know i think in one of the parts of the workbook it even says if the following things are happening in your relationship this is abusive and you do need professional help this is beyond learning better communication skills or trying to say it differently or you know there's more going on here so there's a whole assessment to help you figure out whether you're in a red zone in your relationship an orange zone which is like do some work but you could diy it and a green zone where you're really thriving and sort of moving in the direction of a lot of intimacy and and partnership so abuse is when i don't care about you and i have no skill okay so i'm reactive and i'm demanding manipulation manipulative relationships are where i have learned a lot of skill i have a lot of skill i have a lot of capacity i have a lot of awareness but i'm really only caring for myself i'm not caring about you so what i'm doing is i'm coming back with all of my skillfulness but my intentionality is still to change and control you so what we have going on there is a lot of manipulation happening and the other person will usually feel it there'll be a guardedness there'll be a wariness there'll be a confusion they'll be like they're saying the right thing but i don't trust them or they're it sounds good but it doesn't feel good in my body like if you're having that kind of a disconnect pay attention because sometimes what's happening is somebody is trying to be very skillful at trying to get you still to be an object to meet their needs and then we have the realm of misunderstanding and in misunderstanding these are the couples that i work with the most and that i love working with it's really like i love you so much and i care about you and i i care about what you're needing and i love me and i care about what i'm needing and both of us are in that space and now when we're communicating it's a lot of glitchiness in the way i say it and the way you're interpreting it are not the same and we're miscommunicating and this is what i mean but this is how you took it but the foundation there is trust care love wanting to go to bed for myself and you and so those are the places where we actually do a lot of repair work and a lot of grapple and we can build more skillfulness okay so misunderstanding happens when we don't have a lot of awareness and skillfulness and we're bringing the best tools we have in the moment but there's a lot of care and trust between the people and then like i said collaboration and dialogue is where we get to when you build on that foundation you really care about one another and now we're going to help you both get really aware and really skilled and this is where we can up level into some really really thriving amazing empowered loving relationships where we just begin undoing the programming that no longer works so what's really needed for sort of the you know like the self-help culture and like learning non-violent communication or learning compassionate communication or learning communication skills that's assuming a foundation of both people having a growth mindset both people having a lot of care and trust with one another and needing help with skills and awareness and capacity the other two manipulation and abuse what you're having is one person is really in it for themselves or both people are in it for themselves and they're constantly in a power struggle trying to manipulate change control bully the other person into being someone other than who they are and those kinds of situations are more entrenched have a lot more trauma history and need a lot more assistance that's not something that usually those two people can sort out with on their own because there's a lot of projection that happens which means i don't know if you're the one doing it or i'm the one doing it i don't know if it's originating from me or from you and and that becomes very hard for people to sort out on their own how is that landing is that getting at the the four quadrants that you were asking me to go through yeah i i think it is i think it's a brilliant model and it gives a lot of clarity so that you can sort of self-diagnose and look at your own partnership or relationship and and understand and have a feel where you at and and like you said often people need third party they need therapy they need help and and i encourage that you know if you're diy it's it's not gonna work it's gonna get worse with the help you can get so much further in your relationship i wanna ask you this was asked in the community too can you ask a vet to give a specific example of how to communicate my need to my partner and i think you did a good job already several times but as we reached to the end of our conversation can we use an example or of how can you state your observation neutrally communicate your need and your feelings and make a request in in a non-judgmental way here are a couple of formulas it's a little more difficult if i don't have a specific thing but some formulas would be you know hi sweetheart i've been noticing a pattern that looks like blah blah blah blah blah you can see it that way too i'm noticing and then describe something that you're wanting to bring up and then check is that how you see it as well because the first step is getting to a place of shared reality right so you know i'm noticing a pattern where you know the night before you say you'll take the kids you know to school and then in the morning you're super tired and i get up and i end up driving them to school i think this has happened three or four times in the last few weeks do you know what i'm talking about and the key here is to bring it in neutrally openly and then if they're like well you know you stay in that conversation until you're like well this is the thing and then you you reveal the impact that it's having on you and you do it in a way that there's a lot of self-responsibility and a lot of gentleness and how that might sound i'm noticing while the first couple of times i had a lot of joy in doing that because i wanted to help you i'm noticing as this continues that it's beginning i'm beginning to have some tension around it and i'm beginning to feel a little bit resentful and then you follow up that experience that feeling that need the noticing inside of yourself with what you're needing and what would help don't stop there because that'll feel like a criticism so then you say i'm i think what i'm realizing is i i just want to revisit the conversation i have a need for some partnership and some shared reality some agreement on how we're doing mornings and i want to just check in with you again do we need to update this agreement what's working for you what isn't did you agree to something you don't really want to do do we you know like and you sort of bring up the possibilities what would help the first thing that would help is for you and i to be able to have a conversation about it right and then the second thing is what strategy or what agreement do we need to update or revisit or understand and so that would be one way of bringing it up but it is um revealing the impact it's stating the specific thing you don't ever come in with i want to talk about your narcissism you don't come from diagnosis you don't want to come you don't want to come in with you know i want to talk about the fact that you never follow through on what you say you're going to do like we don't come in with what's wrong we come in with a neutral uh if it's a you know you don't you don't follow through you you come in with hey this morning i noticed you said you were going to take out the garbage and it's still in the kitchen can we have a quick chat about that you know i'm noticing that i'm feeling confused how do you want me to interpret that okay always end everything with a question always end with a way of bringing their perspective into the conversation uh you can also ask what needs are you meeting like what needs of yours are you meeting when when you say yes and then you don't do it like help me understand because i i have a bunch of stories and interpretations usually very pathologizing ones that kick in for me but i want to understand what's happening for you now one of two things is going to happen your partner's going to tell you it's not a big deal they don't know in which case and they'll just take out the garbage and then there's a whole way that we might work with that but what that tells you is they are not aware yet of what their need is and then the first thing is making it safe for people in your relationship to know what they need and to ask for what they need and one of the ways we make that safe is that we give them the experience of when they say no that no is perfectly okay that no gets met with thank you for letting me know that instead of coercing them into it yes exactly convincing them and that's right that's right that's that move of trying to get people to do what you want is part of what makes these other conversations difficult because we have to betox that habit first you know this is why yeah this is why i asked you about the domination culture first because it just colors everything and the moment you slip into it you want to go back you wonderfully ask the you know question are you here for connection or control is this control or connection i think reorienting ourselves in those moments because we're going to sleep and fall it's not going to be an easy path because it's so steeped in right it's so baked into us this domination model what's wrong with you and and you know the control the demands whereas would you suggest yeah it's very powerful when when you have an empathic connection with your partner and your partner has or you think about yourself when you have the experience that your needs matter to your partner and that they're not trying to change you and coerce you and evaluate you and shape you and that they are willing to work with you as you are all of a sudden what emerges in that space is a lot of generosity but the moment and then and then we want to do things for one another it is it is part of our wiring to want to do things for each other the main thing that gets in the way of us enjoying doing things for one another is being told we have to so we've got to get the half out of the space if we want collaboration yeah the same applies to parenting completely which is a whole different conversation but this is the same you know for for parenting when we want to have influence over our kids you know we want to relinquish control but what I'm hearing is wonderful words pop into my mind collaboration honoring the autonomy of the other person honoring that they are a sovereign human being being compassionate being graceful when they say no don't beat them up until they give up and say yes this is what comes up for me part of the welcoming in the know is establishing a relational culture where we honor each other's boundaries and when we're unable to hear no or say no we often have a big problem in our relationship with boundaries we see them as a problem instead of as a gift and boundaries are actually necessary for intimacy so that's just another reason why you know being able to work with both a yes and a no and knowing that you can say yes and no builds a tremendous amount of trust and when the other person knows they could say yes or no when they say yes it comes with joy it comes with inspiration it's not the kind of yes that you're going to pay a price for later done resentfully you know so it's a it's a pretty powerful move and that brings me to this notion of intimacy because many of us again grew up having a misconception of that this merging of selves right no boundary itself together merged and meshed version and we always think that is what intimacy is i think what would you say about about that about you know dispelling the myth of intimacy what what true intimacy is actually well mature intimacy infantile infantile intimacy is sort of emerging right but that's what an infant does mature grown-up adult individuated empowered deeply loving choiceful intimacy comes when you have two people who are self-responsible they know what they're feeling they know what they're needing they know what they long for they're living a life in alignment with their own values and their own integrity and they meet another human where if you think about it a Venn diagram there's enough overlap that our values and our worldview and our way of being feels comfortable and we're compatible and there's enough difference that there's chemistry and excitement and grappling and differentiation and there's this beautiful dance that happens where you do not have to be exactly like me for me to enjoy being with you and loving you and i don't have to be exactly like you in order for you to enjoy being with me and loving me and then we have this if you think about an infinity symbol we have enough attachment that we feel security and safety but we also have enough autonomy that our relationship has adventure and exploration and surprises and difference and we can hold that in a way that doesn't threaten our security with one another but it doesn't become so comfortable and so safe and so needing to be the same that both people feel like they have to compromise who they are or lose themselves for the sake of security and that's the sweet spot that we're always sort of aiming towards how does that land that that lands excellently i i just love it i mean i can sit here and talk to you forever i i'm gonna say i'm gonna have to invite you again if not this year you know again in the future but i i truly enjoy speaking with you hearing your wisdom and the way you communicate this complicated concept and you make it accessible and i hope this was helpful to the listener i think it will be i am definitely going to re-listen a few times because i was listening with an ear of an interviewer but i'm like wow that's really good i'm gonna listen as a as a listener because i need that advice so thank you so much it's such a pleasure it's such a pleasure and if you have follow-up questions send them to me i'm happy happy to address them so thank you excellent thank you so much for for your presence for your wisdom for showing up and sharing your heart um i just adore you oh thank you it's such a pleasure i'm so honored i'm so honored

Reviews

I can’t say how helpful and useful this episode was with words that feel adequate. It gave me so much to think about and work with, thank you so much! 💖🙏🙌✨

This is worth listening to more than once. Thank you so much :)

Wow! What an informative, realistic conversation. Thank you.