by Daria Yermashkevich 
- Lesson 1: Love Essentials: Identifying Your Relationship Needs
- Lesson 2: Love Essentials: Fulfilling Your Relationship Needs
- Lesson 3: Revealing Your Relationship Values for Meaningful Connections
- Lesson 4: Beyond Compromise: How Non-Negotiables Influence Your Love
- Lesson 5: The Power of Boundaries
- Lesson 6: Introduction to The Attachment Styles
- Lesson 7: Finding Your Attachment Style
- Lesson 8: Know the Attachment Type of Your Partner to Date Mindfully
- Lesson 9: How to Date with Confidence or Learning Your Strengths, Overcome Your Weaknesses
- Lesson 10: Defining and Achieving Your Relationship Goals
- Lesson 11: Breaking the Vicious Cycle or Identifying and Overcoming Past Relationship Patterns
In this lesson, we will learn how to satisfy your relationship needs with and without your partner and make your relationship more fulfilling.
How to Fulfill Your Needs and Get a Great Relationship?
Now, as you understand your core needs better, you can start a journey of figuring out how to meet them.
Think What Needs You Can Satisfy Yourself
Reflect upon your needs list and identify which of them can be met independently, without the involvement of your partner. Think about which of them you can fulfill yourself. Certain needs such as financial stability, emotional support, and comfort can be supplied by oneself.
If you’re uncertain about how you can fulfill relationship needs, imagine how you’d support someone in a similar situation. If your partner needed to feel valued, perhaps you’d offer more compliments, refrain from critique, and emphasize their strengths. Request others to do the same for you, or engage in self-affirmation. Compile a list of your achievements and traits that make you proud. Focus on your successes rather than dwelling on failures.
Consider Who Else Can Help You Satisfy Your Need
Some needs, like being valued, may feel more gratifying when fulfilled by others. Though mutual support and understanding are needed in a couple, it’s essential to remember that your partner shouldn’t be the sole provider of all your emotional needs. You could encourage your family members to express their pride in you more often or engage in more open dialogues with your best friends, requesting their active listening. Making your partner solely responsible for meeting all your emotional needs can make the relationship less of a pleasure and more of a trouble for your partner.
Learn to Ask Your Partner
The subsequent crucial step is communicating to others how they can assist in satisfying your needs. The idea that others will intuitively grasp your needs sounds very romantic and very unrealistic. Be open about what you really need, and you’re likely to see the needs met faster.
Exercise: Learn to Satisfy Your Relationship Needs
Let’s learn together how to find ways to satisfy relationship needs based on a very common example – the need to be Heard.
This is a very common need that can be also signified by being in touch, connected, feeling understood, listening, sharing, and so on. If you have this need, you probably like to share stories and feel bad when your partner is not very attentive to you, simultaneously scrolling the smartphone or watching videos.
How to Satisfy This Need on Your Own?
- Turn it into your profession. First, you can understand that this is the need for your personality and you can realize it in any context, not only in your relationship. You can conduct training at work or start an audio podcast. You can become a professional trainer and tell your stories every day. You can also try volunteering and sharing the expertise you have for free – this option is less demanding to your skills than a job but gives the same satisfaction if you want to feel heard.
- Talk to those who have to listen. You can choose to regularly talk to a professional, it can be a life coach or a psychotherapist. This way of satisfying your needs will also give you valuable insights into how to fulfill your life goals and move on.
- Listen to yourself. Many of us want the attention of others but they don’t want to give this attention even to themselves. Start writing a diary, recording your personal podcast, and meditating to connect to your own thoughts and feelings.
How to Ask Others to Help You with This Need?
- Ask your friends, family, or even colleagues with whom you are on good terms to listen to you. Explain to them that you don’t need help or advice, you just want to feel that they hear you. Remember that people might be busy as well, so always ask if they have time for you. Otherwise, they will start doing something simultaneously and you will feel abandoned again.
- Find friends abroad or talk to those that you already have at least once a month. These regular calls will give you time to share what you have on your mind.
- Don’t let people interrupt you at work meetings or in personal conversations. You can politely say that you want to finish your idea first. Be gentle and don’t get offended straight away. Most likely, people didn’t even notice that they interrupted you.
What If It’s Your Partner’s Need?
- Approve! Tell them that you appreciate every time they share something with you.
- Show that you listen and don’t try to solve the problem at once. Most likely the person doesn’t need your solutions, they need to be heard.
- Give your partner time. Even if it’s just a few minutes a day, make sure that you devote yourself fully to them during this time – no phone, no social networks, no funny videos – just you and your partner.
- Don’t argue or express disagreement straight away. Yes, you may have a totally different vision. But you can still at least acknowledge that there are other points of view, even if you don’t agree with them.
So this is the basic algorithm. Now it’s your turn. Recheck your relationship needs from the previous exercise and write down your plan to fulfill them. Yes, it takes time. But every minute spent is really worth it.
As you gradually learn to satisfy your relationship needs, you’ll notice a significant increase in your happiness and satisfaction. If you are in a relationship, you will see how it will be getting healthier. If you are single, the realization of your relationship needs will help you find a truly fulfilling relationship.
For a deeper understanding of how you can deal with particular relationship needs, you can refer to the book “The Secret Laws of Attraction” by Talane Miedaner.
That’s all for today! Stay tuned for our next lesson, where we will learn about your relationship values.
Your Flisk
Quiz: Love Essentials. Identifying and Fulfilling Your Relationship Needs
Why is it challenging to find a partner who instinctively understands and fulfills our emotional needs?
a. Because we often do not fully understand our own needs.
b. Because it is impossible to find such a person.
c. Because all humans are inherently selfish.
d. Because communication in relationships is usually poor.
What are the benefits of understanding your relationship needs?
a. Better self-knowledge and as a result happier and fulfilled life
b. Helps you communicate with your partner better
c. Allows you to set boundaries more clearly
d. All of the above
What is one common fear that prevents people from expressing their relationship needs?
a. Fear of being perceived as too needy
b. Fear of being too happy in the end
c. Fear of talking too much
d. Fear of being too independent
What are some ways to identify your relationship needs?
a. Embrace the needs that resonate with you
b. Confront the needs you resist
c. Pay attention to yourself during difficult times
d. All of the above
Can we fulfill some of our relationship needs independently, without involving our partner?
a. Yes
b. No
Why should we learn to ask our partners to fulfill our needs, rather than expecting them to intuitively understand them?
a. Because expecting others to intuitively grasp our needs is unrealistic
b. Because only half of the Earth’s population can read minds, and your partner might not be in the right half.
c. Because people are stupid and hopeless in general, so you can’t rely on them when it comes to emotional matters.
d. None of the above
