Can we take an honest inventory without first being vulnerable?
My best friend’s 20-year-old daughter is in love. She is in her first serious relationship with a lovely 23-year-old young man. It is early days in their relationship, and they are firmly rooted in the honeymoon stage. They are still one-dimensional characters to each other. Both are perfect and no one has done anything yet to burst that bubble of projected perfection.
But the storm, she’s a comin! It comes for everyone. We cannot and should not stay one dimensional if we want to have an intimate, authentic and sustainable relationship. Like Pinocchio, we must both turn into “real boys”- three dimensional beings with real (and sometimes) annoying habits, needs and feelings. This is the road to intimacy and vulnerability and how we determine if this person’s particular set of needs fits with ours. There is no other way to grow as a couple.
So as my friend’s daughter recounted her fears to me about his feelings for her changing if she dared to ask him to meet her needs, I shared with her what I believe about relationships and inventory taking. That to know if someone is the right fit for her, she had to be vulnerable enough to tell him who she was. If she hid her attachment needs from him, she would never know if he could meet them and if they were a good match for one another. You have to jump off the cliff first, without knowing what or if anything will be there to catch you. This may seem counter intuitive and downright foolhardy, but it is the only way to know. Better to know now than later, I always say. But I can understand her fears and her putting it off. Get a little more relationship under your belt before you test it right? Wrong! Getting too much relationship under your belt without being honest is not a good idea. It will not serve you. It is better to know from the beginning if this person is right for you and you for this person. There is no other way than to cross your fingers and jump. The young woman had a need. Her need was that if he was ever mad at her, that he had to tell her. You see, it made her nervous to wonder and guess. She’d end up obsessing, wondering and assuming the worst. This created anxiety for her which stopped her from being her most loveable and loving self. I asked her if she would consider sharing her needs with him and asking him to let her know if anything was wrong immediately so that she never had to wonder, guess and become hypervigilant and anxious with him.
To me, this is the beginning of the real relationship. Where she will become a three-dimensional person with her own needs, can voice those needs to her partner, AND give him the chance to meet them. Sometimes he will and sometimes he won’t be able to, but at least he gets a fighting chance if she shares her attachment needs with him. When feeling safely loved, people operate at their best and can excel in other areas of their lives from the spillover. Then its his turn. And that’s how it goes.
BUT many couples never set that precedent early on. These are the ones who show up in my office in conflict, distance and chaos. Many people in relationships are unaware of what their attachment needs are. Having grown up in a family where no one named them, met them, voiced them or validated them for the child, the child matures and enters a romantic relationship without a working knowledge of what they need from another person to feel loved and secure. This lack of self awareness creates damaging habits right from the get-go; habits of burying feelings and needs by either rationalizing them out (“Well at least he doesn’t cheat on me”), attacking themselves (“I’m too needy”), catastrophizing (“He’ll leave me if I ask any more of him”), and basically hiding their true selves and blocking the only route to true emotional intimacy in the hope of hanging on to the relationship. What a shame.
Start sharing who you are and what you need in your relationship from the very beginning. If you are not a good fit for each other, better to know sooner so you can find someone who can meet your needs and whose needs you can meet. It doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you or with your partner. It is possible that we can both be wonderful people, just not a good match for each other.
