082: Your Relationship Needs Matter

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Welcome to episode 82 of Healing Relationships from the Inside Out.
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I'm Dr.
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Dar Hawks, and this is where we gently heal relationships from the inside out.
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Today we're talking about something that sounds simple and almost never is.
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Your needs, what they actually are, why they matter, and why so many of us reach a point in a long relationship where we honestly cannot say what we need anymore.
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If that's you, you are in exactly the right place right now.
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Someone asks you a simple question, what do you need?
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And you open your mouth to answer, and there's nothing there.
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Not because you are empty, but because it has been so long since anyone asked, and so long since you let yourself answer.
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So the words have gone silent.
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If you have ever felt that blank space where your needs used to be, stay with me.
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Because not knowing what you need is not a character flaw.
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It's something that happened to you slowly, and now I want to help you find your way back to it.
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Here's what I see again and again in the women I sit with.
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I will ask gently, what do you need right now in this relationship for yourself?
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And there's almost always a pause, a long one, and then some version of the same answer.
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I don't know.
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I'm not sure I even know anymore.
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And I want you to hear me say this clearly that answer is not a sign that there's something wrong with you.
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It is a sign of how long you've been pointing yourself outward towards others and towards the outer world.
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You have spent years tuned into everyone else's needs, what he needs after a hard day, what the kids need, what your coworkers and manager needs, what your friends need, and what your family needs, what the current moment needs, so it does not tip into conflict.
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You have gotten really good at reading the room.
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So good that you stopped reading yourself.
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And needs are a little like a language.
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If you don't speak them for long enough, they don't just disappear, but they do become quiet.
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The fluency of the language fades.
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So when someone finally asks what you need, it's not that you don't have needs or that you have no needs.
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It's that you have not spoken this language out loudly in such a long time that the first words come very slowly and feel almost foreign in your mouth and in your body.
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You didn't lose your needs, you lost the habit of listening to them.
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So before we go one step further, let me say the thing I most want you to hear.
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The fact that you can't name your needs right now does not mean you're not allowed to have them.
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It does not mean they do not matter.
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It means they've been waiting quietly for you to turn back toward them.
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And that is exactly what we're gonna do together, gently.
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So let's name what we are actually talking about.
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Because the word needs gets used in a hundred confusing ways, and the confusion is part of what keeps you and us stuck.
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When I say a need, I don't mean a preference, like wanting the dishes done a certain way, and I do not mean a demand, something you are requiring of him or yourself.
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A need is something deeper and quieter than either of those.
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It's the condition your heart requires to feel safe, to feel close, and to feel like you are yourself inside this relationship.
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It's not about him doing a specific task.
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It's about a way of feeling that you have to have in order to be well inside the relationship.
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Think of it like the difference between wanting a particular meal and needing to eat.
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The meal is a preference, but eating is a need.
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You can be flexible about the meal forever, but you cannot go without food and stay healthy no matter how low maintenance you tell yourself to be.
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Your relationship needs work the same way.
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You can be endlessly flexible about how a need gets met, but the need itself does not go away just because you stop naming it.
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It just goes unmet quietly while you wonder why you feel so tired and so distant.
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So, why does it get so hard to know what you need?
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Why the blank space, the long pause, and the I don't know.
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Let me show you how it happens.
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Because once you see it stops feeling like a personal failing.
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It happens by inches and seconds over the years.
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Early on, you knew what you needed.
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You said it maybe once or twice, and somewhere along the way, naming a need led to a hard moment.
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He pulled back or got defensive or things got cold between you.
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So the next time you made your need smaller.
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The time after that, you waited for a better moment that never quite came.
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And eventually, without ever deciding to, you stopped bringing your needs to the surface at all.
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You filed them away as not worth the trouble.
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And here is the quietly devastating part.
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When you stop speaking a need out loud, you also slowly stop hearing it inside yourself.
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The need does not vanish, but your awareness of it dims.
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You get so practiced at overriding it that you lose the thread of what it even was or what it means to you.
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So now when someone asks, What do you need?
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Your honest answer really is, I don't know.
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Because the line between you and your own needs has gone faint from lack of use.
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There is something else underneath it too, and it's quite tender.
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For a long time you've probably believed that having fewer needs makes you easier to love, that a good partner is one who doesn't require much.
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So you didn't just hide your needs from him, you hid them from yourself too, because some part of you decided that not having them was safer, kinder, more lovable.
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You were not being neglectful of yourself.
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You were trying in the only way you knew to keep love alive and intact.
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And so you arrive here in a relationship you have been giving and giving years to, genuinely unable to say what you need.
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Not because you're broken, because you've been so devoted to not being a problem that you slowly talked yourself out of your own inner voice.
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Of course, you can't find it quickly because you've been silencing it for a very long time.
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So here's what becomes possible when you stop treating not knowing as a dead end and start treating it as a door.
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And this is the heart of what I want to give you now.
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So let me slow all the way down.
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You do not find your needs by sitting in a quiet room and trying to think your way to them.
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That almost never works because the thinking mind is the same one that's been talking you out of them for years.
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You find your needs by noticing where the ache is and being okay with feeling that ache.
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Your needs leave footprints and thumbprints.
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And these foot and thumbprints are your reactions, the thing that keeps stinging, the moments you replay over and over again.
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The small letdown that lands much harder than it should.
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That extra weight is almost always a need pointing at itself.
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And underneath all the specific aches or stinging, there are really only a handful of core needs that most of it traces back to.
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The need to feel that you belong and are truly wanted, the need to feel free to be your full self without managing his mood or your own.
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The need for lightness and play together again.
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The need to feel that your voice has weight in your own home, and the need to feel safe enough to stop monitoring yourself or holding yourself back by watching the room and getting that it's okay before you speak.
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When you can't name what you need in the abstract, you can almost always find it by asking, of my last few hurts, which of these was each one really about?
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So picture it.
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Instead of staring at the blank space and feeling like a failure for not knowing, get curious about the ache.
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Think back to the moment this week that stung more than it should have.
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Maybe he was distracted while you were telling him something that mattered to you, and it landed harder than a distracted moment should.
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And ask yourself gently, what was that really about?
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And underneath it you will find it.
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I need to find that my inner voice matters to him.
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I need to feel wanted, not just tolerated.
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There it is, not a vague fog anymore.
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A need with a name that you can actually do something with.
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And that is the whole shift.
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You don't need to already know what you need in order to begin.
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You only need to be willing to follow the ache back to its source.
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The not knowing is not the end of the road.
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It's the very step on it and into it.
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If something in this stirred a quiet yes for you, there is one small thing you can do today.
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You can take the free relationship needs quiz.
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In just a few minutes, it will help you put words to what you have been needing all along.
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The need that's been underneath everything.
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It is gentle, it is free, and you can find it at needs.docdarhawks.com.
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That's needs.com.
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You really don't have to figure this out alone.
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Then if the quiz has already shown you your need and you're tired of figuring this out by yourself, schedule a let's figure this out together session with me.
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It's 45 minutes, just the two of us, nothing to fix about you, him, or your relationship.
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We simply just look at what is happening between you and him, and then together we find the next small step that you can take.
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You can book this session at session.drhawks.com.
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Now, before we move into some quiet reflection, I want to take apart that one belief that keeps women stuck in the blank space the longest.
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The belief is this, that if you really cannot name what you need, then maybe you don't really need anything.
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And the kindest thing is to keep going the way you have been.
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It sounds humble.
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It is actually the thing that keeps you tired and distant.
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Because not being able to name a need is not the same as not having one.
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The need is there.
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It's doing quiet work, whether or not you have the words for it or not.
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Whether or not you have the words for it.
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An unmet need you can't name doesn't just politely disappear.
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It leaks out sideways and all around as resentment, exhaustion, as frustration, or that flat distance that you just cannot quite explain.
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The cost to you of not knowing is not zero.
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You've been paying a cost all along.
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So let me say the opposite plainly.
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Knowing what you need is not a luxury for women who have it all figured out.
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It is the most practical thing you can do for the closeness you're trying to have and trying to protect.
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Because a need you can name is a need that you can finally ask for clearly.
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And a need you can ask for is one he can actually move toward and help you fulfill.
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You cannot be met in a place that you won't let yourself look.
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Knowing what you need is not selfish.
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It's the doorway back to being close.
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So here's what I want to leave you sitting with right now.
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Not homework, not one more thing to do the right way.
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Just a couple of gentle questions for you to sit with.
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You don't need the answers right now.
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Just sit with them, let them be with you in the room right now, and let your body, your mind, and your feelings process them.
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Trust that the answers will come to you as you hear me.
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Ask them.
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Number one, think back to one moment this week that stung a little more than it should have.
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Don't judge it, just notice it.
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And ask yourself gently, what was that really about?
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What was I needing in that moment that I did not get?
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Let the ache point you toward the need instead of pointing you towards what is wrong with you.
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You can listen to the first few moments of this episode where I name the needs as a reminder so that you can identify what you were needing in that moment that you didn't quite get.
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And secondly, even more gently, when did you first decide it was safer not to need much?
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You don't have to fix that right now.
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Just notice how long you've been silencing that voice and offer it a little kindness for how hard it has worked to keep you safe.
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Sit with this, let them be tender, not critical or urgent.
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There is no grade here, there's no way to do it right.
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Just you turning back towards a part of yourself that you've been away from for a while and giving it your tender, loving attention.
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And I want you to hear and hear this last part clearly.
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The fact that you are still here, still wanting to feel close, still willing to ask, what do I need?
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Even when the answer does not come easily.
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That is not nothing.
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That is a wonderful, caring woman finding her way back to herself.
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And you don't have to make that whole journey alone in the quiet the way you have been.
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Here's a reminder.
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If something in this stirred a quiet yes for you, there is one small thing you can do today.
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Take my free relationship needs quiz.
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In a few minutes, it will help you put words to what you've been needing all along.
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The need that's been there underneath everything.
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It is gentle, it is free, and you can find it at needs.drdarhawks.com.
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You really don't have to figure this out all by yourself.
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Secondly, if you already know your need from having taken the quiz and you're tired of trying to figure this out by yourself, schedule a Let's Figure This Out Together session with me.
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It's 45 minutes, just the two of us.
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Nothing to fix about you, him, or your relationship.
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We simply look at what's happening between you and find the next small, simple step to take.
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You can book your session at session.docdarhawks.com.
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That's session.drwks.com.
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Your needs are real.
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They always were, and I'm so glad you spent this time with me today, turning yourself back towards them lovingly and with care.
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Until I see you either in the quiz, in a let's figure this out together session, or in the next episode, please take good, gentle care of yourself.