The Loneliness of Unmet Needs

Here’s an interesting revelation that only came to me through my current counselling training:

          It’s not wrong to have needs in a relationship

It may sound obvious to many, but I really didn’t understand that properly during my marriage. My ex-husband used to try to make me believe that it was wrong to need anything from him. He made it clear that people should have no expectations of others. I realised eventually that it was actually some theory, possibly misinterpreted, which allowed him to suit his own ends; he believed that having needs was the same as being “needy”. He may or may not have been doing this with awareness, but the ultimate result was that he got to satisfy his own wishes, while I felt clingy and like a nag for asking for anything from him.