THE BEST WAY TO GROW LOVE:CONVERT CONCERN INTO INTIMACY

First step: Recognizing our considerable needs

Knowing what we need sounds easy, but it usually isn’t.

For one thing, we are used to ignoring our feelings and needs. We often don’t know our needs if they hit us in the face (and trust them, they do).

Our vagueness is only one of the problems when we try to identify our needs. The even bigger trouble is our habit of letting the media dictate what we want. Its flashy images conceal from us what we truly want and need. The ever-so-popular wish of making a lot of money, for example, is often no genuine wish of ours. Instead, it can cover genuine needs like security, self-worth or recognition.

Therefore, whenever we face a desire, a choice, or a hard feeling, we better find out the need below. If we hesitate to buy ice cream, for instance, we may have a need for consolation, for caring. If we envy another parent for their child’s achievement, we might feel we need appreciation. Identifying our needs can help us find the best way to answer them.

Fights, where we tend to shout at our dearest what we lack because of them, are also an effective way to discover our needs. But somehow, most people find this way less pleasant.

Identifying our real needs, and finding what can answer them effectively (hint: money seldom does) can bring us peace and happiness.

Identification, then, is the first step.

Second step: Telling each other what we need

This step is no picnic, either.

The efficient way to share our needs is by having a chat about our feelings and plans at least once a day. Telling each other about our desires and difficulties enables us to understand what lies behind them.

A piece of cake, isn’t it?

Well, not really.

Many of our needs are not only practically unrecognizable, or embarrassing, but they also make us look needy, God forbid. Sharing them with others is frightening.

It requires a lot of trust.

Not every couple gained that trust, but every couple should try to achieve it. Because, as actor Harold Lloyd writes,

“If I could have just one word for love—it would be understanding.
Love must always be unselfish, and strangely enough, love is the only thing in the world that ever is unselfish.”

Expecting us, once we’ve fallen in love, to always be unselfish sounds a little far fetched. Yet, we can certainly try.

After identifying our needs and sharing them, we have to find ways to answer them.Unsurprisingly, this step is also not that easy.Luckily, it becomes easier over time.

Third step: Finding how to answer our needs

If the role of identifying and expressing your needs is for and foremost in your hands, the job of finding solutions that satisfy both sides belongs to both sides.

This principle sounds like a contract, but in reality, luckily, it feels rather heartwarming. Investigating our needs is fascinating. Learning to know our loved ones better is touching and uniting. Trying to help our sweetheart to be satisfied and happy is exciting.

Now is the time, then, to call to our aid our resourcefulness, creativity, and preferably a good sense of humor. Then we can all sit together and find the best ways to satisfy us all.

Later, we can try our solutions, fail, complain, come up with new ideas, and verify that no one gives up too much.

That we meet all of our significant needs.

That we’re happy.

And by the way, while we identify and share and solve and change, our gratitude and love for each other are growing.

So we better learn to recognize our needs, express them, respect them, and do our best to meet them. Because answering the significant needs of both of us is the only way we can both be happy.

It’s the only way we can be in love forever.