Many of you wonder if you are needy and you have a fear of being too needy.
So you may discount your legitimate needs.
We all have needs to survive and thrive.
We need to sleep and eat. These are functional needs which are required for your life to function optimally. Other functional needs include earning money to pay bills, doing the chores to manage your home, etc. You wouldn't deny yourself of sleep and food, would you?

You also have legitimate emotional needs. These are what help you feel loved and appreciated.
Do you feel awkward if you express and ask for your needs to be met? Do you see it as a sign of weakness?
Relationships are likely to fail if there is not enough alignment with each other's needs and requirements.

An extraordinary relationship is reciprocal. You are sensitive and attuned to your partner's needs as well as your own and they to yours. A relationship is as successful as you and your partner's needs are met. To the degree they are not, the relationship will begin to fail.

The difference between neediness and legtimate needs:

Neediness:
1. comes from desperation, helplessness
2. driven by emotional deficits
3. externalized problem and solution
4. results in helpless/victim position
5. insatiable, always needing more
6. results in repelling others.

Needs:
1. are normal, valid, important
2. are present in healthy, successful people
3. necessary to survive and thrive
4. best met by taking responsibility, initiative
5. unmet needs stimulate action
6. most effectively met by being assertive
7. met needs results in contentment
8. ability to get needs met tends to attract others

To express your needs requires being assertive. Being assertive takes knowing what you want and need, being willing to express them to your partner and ask for your partner to meet these needs. Asking is very different from demanding. That is what you tend to do if you are feeling needy. Demanding from a place of neediness usually backfires. It is off-putting to others.

When you have emotional deficits, it is your responsibility to resolve the tension within you that they cause. For this, you might seek a psychotherapist if not able to manage on your own, and most people are not. Whatever you do, don't make someone else responsible for your shortcomings. Any emotional deficits that you might have are your responsibility to resolve. Until you do so your are probably not ready for a relationship. You are not a victim; you just have work to do.

© Relationship Coaching Institute | All rights reserved | Adapted with permission