Needs, needing, needy (:-P)

I think that relationships are really hard but I don't have a lot of experience to go with. I just married the first woman I met when I graduated from college because I thought it was time and that's what you were supposed to do. Never really knew how to relate to women in a male-female sort of way, but DUH, I'm gay! but now that I have that small part figured out, relationships are still hard. but mostly, in my case, because I'm never going to develop a relationship with guys who are just looking for hookups. But enough about me, LOL, I don't think that needing another person is necessarily a bad thing, I mean, that's the point to some extent, we help each other and to some extent are responding to each others needs. If one person feels like the energy is being sucked out of them, maybe something is out of balance. If we are dependent on someone, well, it might be a time when we need the support and time will come when we will be the ones doing the supporting. I guess I don't have any answers, but I can identify with what you're saying. but I do think that it is a little easier if we have someone else to walk the path with, if we find the right person. but that's just my theory, since I ain't there yet. good luck!

 

I've been focusing alot lately on what I really need vs. what I want. When I start to find myself 'needing' my partner, I try to examine why? Is it a role or a hole? Do I just need to vent and she's my favorite person to talk to? Or do I feel like I need her to complete something that I personally am lacking in?

If the former - I reach out without hesitation. If the latter, I try to find a way to fill that hole myself. When I'm simply missing her company or the feel of her skin, I make sure to let her know how much I WANT to be with her. It helps my confidence in myself and my relationship to know that I am choosing this, choosing her out of a desire to share myself and my time, and not to provide some crucial element that's lacking in myself.

 

how beautiful! a really wonderful way to understand relationships! I will try to remember this too!

 

We often hear how difficult it is to be in a relationship, how much hard work is required, etc., etc. Makes it seem like such a burden! Who would want to get into that?!

I tend to think that relationships that work are probably easier than many think. But these "easier" relationships do require the essential exercise of a different kind of muscle: kindness. I just posted a thread on this essential ingredient.

LLG above made the important point about intention, about doing things in a relationship because they are intentional, conscious and deliberate, as opposed to doing things by default and habit (classic relationship killers).

Of course we have needs in relationships, otherwise why get into one? But the problem is that many of us don't know what they are, exactly. It's our job to figure these needs out and to take what our lover is willing to give us with a spirit of gratitude and joy.

 

This is a great observation but it also made me do a minor spit-take! My mind sometimes is on the fast track to the gutter.

Too many of us look at a relationship as what we need to be happy. If we can't be happy with ourselves, if we consider ourselves and out lives so lacking that we require another person to "make" us happy, then we're going to be perpetually disappointed because we're forever waiting for a person to fill that hole in our souls that often even WE don't understand.

If we concentrate on making ourselves a better person and not one that needs to be rescued or completed, we'll end up being stronger people, and we'll have the potential to attract stronger people.

I've got plenty of the same quirks and neuroses I had long before I came out. When my wife and I married, I saw her as someone who had something I needed, something I lacked in my life because I was unhappy and "missing something". I was looking for a relationship to make me a whole person, a "real boy", whatever. It didn't work. I had to do that myself. My boyfriend has his own quirks and neuroses too. But we both were impressed by each others' ability to stand alone and be our own person, rather than be needy and take from the other. We give to each other, and take what each other offers, rather than expecting to receive something that will make us feel happy and whole. Yeah, we're early in all this and I should probably wait a couple years to spout off! But I cringe when I see people claiming that all it takes is a relationship and they'll be happy. If you're not happy WITHOUT the relationship, you're not going to be happy WITH one. If you're happy with yourself, you'll attract a strong person and you'll end up even happier, because your relationship will enhance to your life, instead of just filling some nameless need.

 

who knew? :dry: I really thought that getting married would put so much sex in my life that I would stop craving sex with me. And there is such a thing as situational homosexuality, so maybe in some cases that might work. In my case, the "situation" was that I was gay. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, that doesn't go away when you marry someone of the opposite sex. As much as I wish that I had never brought a woman into my life, I would never want to be anything other than what I am. DNA is pretty complex. Whatever strand affects my sexuality also produces lots of other things that I really like about myself. Bottom line is I'm just one package, and while I might like to have had the right genes for a full head of hair, I think that you just can't start picking and choosing what we are. I guess that's what is call individuality! Each one of us really is one of a kind, even if we're similar in so many ways. but I wax philosophic...