For some obscure reason, I recently spent an hour of therapy time discussing marriage. Upon establishing that I am–in fact–pro marriage my therapist informed me that statistically speaking marriages produce happy husbands and bitter wives. She explained that this is almost always created because the average women my age believes that marriage will fulfill all their needs.
Initially, I reacted in the arrogant way that we all react sometimes. I am different. Then I made a judgment. Who are these silly women that believe that one person (and a piece of paper) can satisfy their every idiosyncratic need?
She began to cite the most common needs that women expect to be fulfilled through marriage. It was an exhaustive and long list. I rolled my eyes at the silliness. But, five minutes in I felt myself nodding in agreement. Ten minutes in, I began to furiously scratch an imaginary itch on my arm. Fifteen minutes in, I began to cross my legs, unfold them and then cross them again. At twenty minutes, I actually huffed and puffed. Finally– mid-session– I exclaimed to my therapist,
‘Goodness woman, I am so damn irritated and I don’t know why.’
It turns out that I am one of those silly women. I have the expectation that The One will somehow complete me in every single way possible. To further my own embarrassment, I smugly stated:
‘Look, I’m not going to settle. I’m not going to compromise. I would rather be alone than be with something that doesn’t give me EVERYTHING I want.’
‘You are willing to compromise an entire relationship rather than to compromise some of your needs?’ she countered.
[She should have yelled CHECKMATE here but she didn't because she is a classy lady.]
As the session continued, I realized that I don’t even know what my needs are. I could see that I do naturally compromise (no matter my defiant denial of it) but I tend to compromise my most basic needs. I do this because I have never actually thought about my needs.Sure, I routinely think about the characteristics and traits I want my elusive future Man Friend to possess.But as a single woman, I feel like I have been brainwashed to believe that ‘need’ is a dirty, desperate word. The verb ‘to want’ implies an independence that is sexy and desirable.
It is absurd and that is the reason I have begun to think about my needs. These are the most important ones and I am not willing to compromise.
Equality
I do not believe that men and women are the same, but I do believe that we are equal. Therefore there needs to be some sort of balance in most aspects of the relationship. Men who subscribe to strict gender roles will stifle me. Equality will also impact the way we make decisions as a couple. I need my opinion to be just as important as his. I need us to be a team.
Acceptance
I need a man who will let me be me. An anecdotal example: if he is outdoorsy (something which I really am not) he will not try change me, or judge me, or deride me for not going to the gym. I am not willing to lose my sense of self for a man. This is not to say that I am not willing to change a little. I also want a man who will show me new experiences. But ultimately, I need to be loved for exactly the way I am.
Emotional Freedom
I need a man that is able to appreciate the complexity of my brain and who will be able to be an active participant in our emotional and intellectual worlds. What does this mean? I am a romantic, a dreamer, a philosopher and I believe in the goodness of people. I need a man who will be able to match that in some way. This need however, is most important in the way we deal with conflict resolution. I fight to be understood and I fight to understand. I need a man who will want to resolve our differences in a constructive way. Time and time again.
Financial and Emotional Security
I need a man that is ambitious, hard working, practical, smart and who possesses an entrepreneurial spirit. He does need to provide for us both [See Equality] but I need to know–that in the worst case scenario–he will be able to push through. As for emotional security, I need a man who is strong but who can also acknowledge his weaknesses. I need a man who will do his best to choose to love me everyday and I need a man who will not run screaming into the abyss at the first sign of trouble.
Eye Candy
I need a man that I will be happy looking at for years. I like tall men with kind eyes, naughty smiles and lean arms.
When I look at the above list, I feel a sense of understanding and relief for my past affairs. I have not yet met a man who would have been able to meet these five needs. It is disappointing but it is also liberating. While there are no prospects on the horizon, I am one step closer to knowing what I need which means I must be one step closer to getting it.
And there is nothing dirty or desperate about that.
Have you ever thought about your needs? What are they? What about the ones you absolutely refuse to compromise?
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OMG, I’ve never thought about it that way. I am so afraid to settle for anything less than what I want, what if what I “need” is different? OH jeez. More to think about…
Interesting. Very thought provoking posts.
The things I’m not willing to compromise on are also equality ( I can’t stand macho man or man who limit themselves strictly to gender roles). I want us to be a team as well and don’t expect/want a man to be the “head of household”.
I don’t want kids until 5 years after marriage no matter when I will get married and no matter how much older I will be.
I’m not willing to move out of Canada especially not to raise my kids elsewhere.
I expect my significant other to help around with house chores and respect my individuality. I want to have my own seperate life as well and not lose myself in the relationship.
I want to manage my own finances and have my own seperate bank account.
I will definitely not have a joint bank account EVER under any circumstances. (you never know…)
I want him to respect my personaly, my thoughts and most importantly my intellect. I don’t want him to tell me how to think or that he’s right and I’m wrong. I guess that sums it up.
After bouncing from one unfulfilling relationship to the next for years, I finally (FINALLY! Sweet Lord, finally!) considered what my “needs” and “wants” are when looking for The One — and that was all born of joining the world of online dating! They make you answer so many questions about yourself, of course, it was only natural that I started wondering what it is I really do need from someone else.
I totally agree with yours… and have to add that I really need someone who cares deeply about family and will make that the center of his life. He doesn’t need to spend every waking moment with yours truly and our hypothetical kids, but we have to be crucially important to him. And he needs to like my family, too, because I like them. A lot.
Sometimes we’re the same person. And sometimes, I think I need to see your therapist :)
I am starting to realize that my extraordinarily high expectations might be a little RIDICULOUS and that I need to reevaluate my needs and wants and see if they’re realistic or just plain stupid. Those are excellent needs that you have listed and I’m sure a few of them will wind up on my list–like Equality, Acceptance and Eye Candy. Other musts on my list would be Open Mindedness and Cares About People.
With me, the main things are intelligence and sense of humour. Especially a guy who “gets” MY sense of humour. Looks help, but I have fallen for guys not classically attractive who I have MYSELF found GROWING More attractive, so that’s not necessarily a big issue for me.
One more thing. Once I do get married, I am not willing to settle down.
I want to stay young and live young for life. That means I refused to stop going out, or having a social life to stay home, cook, clean and pop kids then take care of them.
I want to have my signoficant other be my best friend and he needs to understand that and where I come from. Therefore, I want him to understand that I’m not willing to give up on my dreams and compromise on life as I want it. :)
oh i could read your posts over and over!!
this is such an interesting thought and one that i spent a lot of time mulling over with when i was single. one day i put together a list of things that i wanted from a relationship. my top 3 were
- emotionally aware: somebody who is conscious of their feelings and is willing to act upon them
- respect: someone who would treat me exactly how they would want their sister to be treated. with 100% respect at all times
- humour and silliness: someone that can be themselves and love me for being myself.
when i met someone 6 months ago and went back to the list about 12 months later, he ticked all the boxes. he’s not perfect, neither am i but as marilyn monroe said
“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure, I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
I think it’s a sad state of affairs when women go into marriage thinking this is going to be the one-size-fits-all solution. Because seriously? Marriage is hard work. It’s about compromise. You have to work at it every day. And there will be days when you feel like it’s a mistake. There will be days when you feel like it’s the best decision you ever made. The women who are able to deal with that wavering difference of opinion are the ones who are happier. The ones who expect it to fix all their problems are the ones who end up miserable. I say this without judgment, and as someone who is newly married (but has been in a long-term, live-together relationship for years). So yeah, that’s just my two cents.
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This post has had me contemplating things for DAYS. Well. The days since you posted it, I’ve been contemplating it.
I still have no idea but wow. Incredibly thought provoking. And since my blog pinged back, I thought I should actually comment!
There are things I certainly need met – my words to describe it would be – a partner, someone who’s emotionally available, supportive, encouraging, realistic, silly and goofy similarly to me, who makes me laugh when I don’t want to and who I can do the same thing for.. your shoulder on bad days, your cheers on your good ones and I’d be his, someone more positive than me cuz I can live in the negative if I allow myself and I need a good strong force in someone I love, my favorite person at the end of the day.. the one who loves me, no matter the stupid things I do or say because he recognizes I’m human and have a lot of mistakes to make still and a lot of learning to do from them.
I don’t know how to categorize those things.. but that’s it.. in a nutshell. Oh.. and not allergic to cats. ;)
Very interesting post. I’m married, have been married for 20 years and dated my husband for 3 years before we got married. What’s really difficult is to find a person who has the same wants and needs as you do or at least ones that will mesh with your own. I’ve found that what happens in my own marriage is that sometimes I give more than I get and sometimes I get more than I give. But it pretty much evens out over time. Sometimes he’s more needy than me and I’m happy to give whatever he needs and sometimes I’m the needy one. The hard times come when we are both needy. But we somehow have always worked through those and moved on to happier times. It must be the memories of the happy times that we have had and know are just around the corner if we can hang on through the tough times. The happy times always return and are worth twice what the difficult ones are, at least for me they are.
Hi Hope!
This is something that I’ve been thinking about too lately. But more on the lines of “I’ve thought and thought and thought some more about what I want… what about what can I offer?”
The past 6 months or so, I’ve observed friends, acquaintances, heck even myself and I notice that while we are so fierce about him accepting us the way we are, we don’t want to do the same. Because sometimes he not understanding me is a part of who he is, right?
I may be wrong here, God knows I often am, but do you think that while we raise the bar for ‘him’ to please us, we don’t practice what we preach? Like Diane said, sometimes you give, sometimes you get and the two DON’T have to be perfect or in balance. The more I see of relationships, the more I realize that balance or lack of it, is often a bit overrated. Thoughts?
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Your therapist is one classy lady. I would have yelled “Checkmate!” followed by a jump-in-the-air-with-a-simultaneous-fist-pump.