Question
Is there some particular need that’s so important to you that if you don’t get it met, looking back you’ll say your life wasn’t satisfying, and are you starting to get discouraged about ever having it met?
My answer
Up until recently, as I've previously answered, my big unmet need was marriage. And I would say that up until about six months ago, this was an unmet need that I had put in a box and come to peace with not having it met. But more and more recently, I've started to think that this is actually not the case and that I have changed my mind. It's my prerogative after all to do so. What I neglected to do however was to tell my partner. Why? Fear. Pure and simple, I was afraid that by me telling him about my change of heart, that it would be the end of our relationship. He had said as much historically when I'd asked him at various times about marriage, what scared him, why he "didn't believe in it" and why he didn't want it.
Recently I got the answer. And it was that he was scared of being hurt. So there weren't actually any fundamental issues with him and marriage itself, but I think it was more to do with me and him and our relationship. It was a wake up call that hurt. I could have been the girl that broke up with her fella, only to find out a few months later that he was engaged or indeed married to someone else. It wasn't about him and his beliefs after all, it seems to me that it was about this faith in our relationship.
If you've read previously blogs, then you will have read how he revealed that marriage was a reality for him these days - a matter of hours before I flew out of the UK to have a think about what I wanted and what that meant for our relationship. The timing wasn't great, my reaction wasn't great, and my subsequent thought process around his motives hasn't been great.
Quick take
Beware of unmet needs so important they sow the seeds of hate.
My prognosis
But overall, in answer to this question, I think that marriage, or some level of commitment close to it has now become something that will make my life satisfying when I look back at it in years to come. I have related this to my partner whilst I've been here. However his way of communicating doesn't really extend to skype as he told me this morning, and he wants to speak about everything face to face when I'm back. He is very angry at me for leaving him in London to take this holiday. And some say rightly so. I however have learnt to be a little bit selfish in the last few weeks and have to ask - if I truly thought that there was no other alternative, then surely something is so deeply wrong with our relationship that we are both to blame.
The author goes on to say put up or shut up... never have truer words been spoken to me. Even when I was "OK" with the no marriage thing, I still spoke about it an awful lot. So clearly I was always just making excuses, lying to myself and others and lying about my relationship most of all. I feel very sad about this because if I'd been truer to myself a long time ago, then perhaps things could have either changed or ended at that time. I let love blind my true desires and I will never let that happen again.
Is there some particular need that’s so important to you that if you don’t get it met, looking back you’ll say your life wasn’t satisfying, and are you starting to get discouraged about ever having it met?
My answer
Up until recently, as I've previously answered, my big unmet need was marriage. And I would say that up until about six months ago, this was an unmet need that I had put in a box and come to peace with not having it met. But more and more recently, I've started to think that this is actually not the case and that I have changed my mind. It's my prerogative after all to do so. What I neglected to do however was to tell my partner. Why? Fear. Pure and simple, I was afraid that by me telling him about my change of heart, that it would be the end of our relationship. He had said as much historically when I'd asked him at various times about marriage, what scared him, why he "didn't believe in it" and why he didn't want it.
Recently I got the answer. And it was that he was scared of being hurt. So there weren't actually any fundamental issues with him and marriage itself, but I think it was more to do with me and him and our relationship. It was a wake up call that hurt. I could have been the girl that broke up with her fella, only to find out a few months later that he was engaged or indeed married to someone else. It wasn't about him and his beliefs after all, it seems to me that it was about this faith in our relationship.
If you've read previously blogs, then you will have read how he revealed that marriage was a reality for him these days - a matter of hours before I flew out of the UK to have a think about what I wanted and what that meant for our relationship. The timing wasn't great, my reaction wasn't great, and my subsequent thought process around his motives hasn't been great.
Quick take
Beware of unmet needs so important they sow the seeds of hate.
My prognosis
But overall, in answer to this question, I think that marriage, or some level of commitment close to it has now become something that will make my life satisfying when I look back at it in years to come. I have related this to my partner whilst I've been here. However his way of communicating doesn't really extend to skype as he told me this morning, and he wants to speak about everything face to face when I'm back. He is very angry at me for leaving him in London to take this holiday. And some say rightly so. I however have learnt to be a little bit selfish in the last few weeks and have to ask - if I truly thought that there was no other alternative, then surely something is so deeply wrong with our relationship that we are both to blame.
The author goes on to say put up or shut up... never have truer words been spoken to me. Even when I was "OK" with the no marriage thing, I still spoke about it an awful lot. So clearly I was always just making excuses, lying to myself and others and lying about my relationship most of all. I feel very sad about this because if I'd been truer to myself a long time ago, then perhaps things could have either changed or ended at that time. I let love blind my true desires and I will never let that happen again.
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