Do you have these three things in your life?
- Someone who is paying attention.
- Someone who will respond if you fall apart.
- A sense that you don’t have the manage the whole world on your own.
If not, then I’m going to make a guess about you:
You’ve felt you had to be independent most of your life.
You haven’t been “allowed” to have needs.
Whenever you were needy – when you really, really needed someone – no one was there for you.
And now you’re looking for a love that can hold you.
A love you don’t have to hold up all on your own.
A love that has your back.
It’s not easy to find, is it?
I’m going to say something that may sound surprising:
What we think we’re looking for in a partner is love.
But what we’re actually looking for is a sense of being held.
Not in in the physical sense (though that’s important), but in the emotional sense.
This idea comes from Donald Winnicott, an influential psychoanalyst who wrote about childhood development.
Our yearning to be held dates back from our earliest memories of life.
Infants don’t understand “love,” but they do know whether someone comes to comfort them when they cry.
The way other people respond to our needs shows us their love in action.
One last thing…
We don’t have to earn the right to be held, any more than a baby has to be “good” in order to earn the right to be picked up when she cries.
People who punish us for having needs reinforce a toxic message: that our needs matter only if we behave well.
That’s why I don’t agree that neediness is man-repellant. If you never show you have any needs, how are you going to know whether he can meet your needs?
(Maybe we all need to proudly wave our #NeedyWoman flag.)
Let us know what you think!