The key to a successful relationship lies in our willingness to meet each others core needs. If we are unable to meet each others needs, the relationship cannot thrive. Unmet needs lead to our relationships becoming problem focused and the love that brought us together begins to take a back seat. This leads us to having a negative perspective of our relationship; slowly bringing disconnect.
What are core needs?
Core needs in marriage consist of feeling safe with each other, loving and respecting each other. To feel safe with each other, you take care of and provide comfort to one another. You create a home, have financial security, mutual trust, mutual honesty, protect one another physically, mentally and emotionally, and create an abuse-free environment within the marriage. Mutual love is an obvious requirement to have a marriage that operates from this level. Kindness, compassion, companionship, intimacy, affection and sex are also important factors here. When all or most of these needs are being met mutual respect for each other comes naturally. Spouses can support each other to reach respective goals. Each can sacrifice their own needs, to a healthy degree, for the bigger picture. Thee couples have maturity, they maintain a healthy balance and each feels a sense of fulfillment in life.
Disagreements will happen
All couples have disagreements; that is inevitable. When we are going through those hard times we have to remind ourselves of the reasons we fell in love with our partner and the things we admire about them. It is crucial to be willing to accept their flaws, just as we want them to accept ours. When we stay in a state of criticism, negativity dominates and begins to overshadow our positive memories and feelings. Think of your relationship and the things you can do to begin to get back on track. How do we get back on track when we have gone over the cliff? I will talk about that in my next post on communication!