To Want or Need

Shouting Into Space

日期

Calendar

Quicksearch

Support Wikipedia

Saturday, April 16. 2005

Posted by Latcarf in Relationships

Comments (0)
Trackbacks (0)

Should you want or need your partner? I've had this question come up a few times in my current relationship. It's a question that can mask deeper issues and one that should definitely be asked in any relationship.

I want my girlfriend. I desire her company (usually

), I want her companionship, her friendship, and her love. I don't need my girlfriend. I could go on living if she was gone. I am self-supportive, I have my own thoughts and ideas, and I don't need someone to actualize my existence. In my mind, the wanting of someone is on a much levell higher than needing someone.

I need air to breathe, I need food to live on, I may need love (see Maslow's Hierarchy), but that doesn't say I need a partner. Love can be found in many forms and it doesn't require a partner to be fulfilled as a need. Needs are a very different thing than wants. Needs must be met or we wither and waste away. Wants do not have to be met for our survival but they enrich our lives and make the quality of living so much better.

My girlfriend disagrees. She feels needing someone is the most important thing in life. She feels she needs me. Unfortunately, this feeling is representative of a deeper hole. It is the manifestation of something that is missing in her - something that has gone unfulfilled for a long time. This hole is not something that can ever be filled by one person, it is something that must be worked out by my girlfriend alone.

We've had multiple discussions (sometimes arguments) about this subject. At one point I even went online in the middle of an argument and Googled: "Should I want or need my partner". As luck would have it, I found an article that so perfectly framed my thoughts on the subject. I read it aloud to her and while she listened and heard it, I don't believe I convinced her.

Relationships are a tangle of of emotions and this fact can often make it hard to understand your true feelings and thoughts. I feel that I want my girlfriend but in her mind, that is not as much as needing her. My girlfriend feels she needs me, but in my mind, that is representative of a something unfulfilled in her. These feelings are the fundamentals of relationships and if they do not agree, it's often a portent of failure. I don't know now what it means to our relationship - only time will tell.

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

No comments

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images. E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
	Remember Information?
Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.