Anticipate the Needs of Your Lover

“Sarah and Tim begin to realize that no one can dance with a partner and not touch each other’s raw spots.”

Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight, page 52

Long-term lovers touch one another’s emotional bruises just by the very nature of how close they are to each other. Johnson’s wisdom always makes me think back to my sister and I sleepily bumping into each other while getting ready for school in the morning in the smallish bathroom we shared growing up. We all bump into our spouses too, and sometimes we hit tender spots. Hurt happens.

Hopefully, though, as often as we inadvertently cause pain, we intentionally cause joy.  Welcome to Love Well Pearl # 5: Anticipate the needs of your lover, a habit that wraps tendrils of love and care around your bond, preserving your closeness even as you brace against inevitable and unrelenting blows.

Hopefully,  as often as we inadvertently cause pain, 
we intentionally cause joy.

As parents we instinctively anticipate our children’s needs regardless of how busy or stressful our own days are. The call to care for our spouse may be less biologically driven but no less possible or powerful.

Anticipating needs isn’t something new lovers can do right off the bat. It’s something, rather, to relish and cultivate as the relationship matures into a more complex, smoother, and silkier love. This is clearly in contrast to the predominant message out there that old love gets stale. Take heart: our love won’t stagnate or spoil if we learn how to age it well.

The blogpost Give and Take outlines three skills lovers can hone right out of the gate to bring reciprocity and balance to their relationships.

1. Letting your partner know what you need.

2. Considering the need of your partner.

3. Taking care of yourself.

Give and Take is the perfect prelude to anticipating the needs of your partner, which builds upon those skills. Here’s how:

1.         Letting your partner know what you need.

You will greatly enhance your partner’s ability to anticipate your needs if you

• Take the time and space to learn and identify what your needs are and
• Inform him or her of them.

Don’t expect from your lover what you haven’t asked for. Letting her know what you need is your gift to her and to the relationship as well as your responsibility. He is not responsible for reading your mind, knowing what you want or need before you ask for it, as romantic as that sounds. . .“I don’t want to have to ask for it!” I so often hear in couple therapy.

Ask for it.

And you will have to ask many times. We all learn through multiple exposures. There is a lot of learning in love. Our partners are constantly training us, and we them, if we’re doing it right.

2 & 3. Considering the need of your partner and taking care of yourself.

Whereas it is true that the other side of the coin of anticipating your partner’s needs is—yes—meeting those needs, this paired commitment isn’t a blanket thrown over all the needs of your partner without question or consideration. You will not be able to meet all of his or her needs. Sometimes a need will conflict with your own self-care, preferences, or even values. This is where deep consideration comes in, which—in and of itself—is a demonstration of intimate love. In your love for your partner, your love for yourself, and your love for your relationship, you will consider, you will choose, and you will act in the best interest of your union, which will sometimes mean prioritizing your own self-care, self-identity, or personal wants and needs:

I hear you; you are looking for a partner who does not travel for work. You want someone who is around more than I am. But I do travel for work. I’m sorry; that is not going to change.

And will sometimes mean sacrificing your own self-care and personal wants and needs:

We eat dinner with her parents every Friday night. It makes her happy to be with them. They are getting older, and she already says she can’t imagine losing them.

Then, after all of that pivotal personal growth work, each of us lovers can deepen the lunge into the practice of anticipating needs.

1. Know our lover’s needs.

2. Anticipate them.

3. Meet them.

Yep. On top of everything else.

Because you deserve a relationship holding you in this way and so does your mate.

Because you were blessed with a childhood in which one or two parents held you in this way, cherished you,

OR

Because you were not blessed with a childhood in which at least one parent cherished you or held you tenderly in this way, but you can have that now. You can create that kind of secure loving bond you always wanted and needed.

If you are daunted, intimidated, or overwhelmed by the Know-Anticipate-Meet triad, greet those emotions with gratefulness. They indicate an authentic eyes-wide-open look at love in the real, in the grind, off stage, off camera, managing-the-house-kids-pets-and-cars-and-squeeze-in-some-sex-wait-what? love.

You are his person. Period. You should know what he most needs. Memorize it. Meditate on it. Know it like the back of your hand. Make it yours. Swallow it whole. Burn it in your brain. When I wake up each morning, can I ask myself, “What does he need?” learn the answer and set about giving it to him that day? (Every day?) If I am being honest when I say my marriage is one of the most important things in my life, wouldn’t I expect anticipating and meeting my spouse’s needs to be part of what I am willing to do?

I’m not talking 1950s take-care-of-your-man stuff. . .Except, I guess, a little bit, I am—not in a stereotypical “roles” way but rather a nongendered, reciprocal, individualized, “s/he really knows me” way. It’s not flowers and chocolates. Gestures are nice but what I’m talking about is so much nicer.

• Working your butt off to develop better time management because she feels so uncomfortable running late,
• Wearing lingerie,
• Rubbing her feet,
• Making sure the kitchen is clean before she gets home because it makes her feel calm,
• Closing the car door when you hop out to get the mail so he doesn’t get cold,
• Turning all the lights off before you leave the house even though you, personally, couldn’t care less,
• Switching steaks with her because she only likes them medium rare and hers is a little over done,
• Letting him choose the side of the bed,
• Not making plans to go out with another couple without speaking with her first,
• Texting if you are going to be late because he worries. . .

No one partner needs all these things. It all depends. It is all unique to your Dear One. It’s about choosing to love her enough to learn hers. Couples newly together can’t anticipate each other’s needs because they haven’t learned them yet, but if you’ve been at this awhile, you can! We can’t meet all the needs of our lovers, but we can choose a hundred ways to love them. You know her. The ways you choose to care for her will not be random but rather intimately connected to her unique emotional needs. 

Take care of her.

Proudly. Because it’s love. It’s being in love. Waiting to be snatched up by you. Owned. Mastered. Your mate is right there. Available to be cherished and taken care of. Anticipating my needs seems to me like love itself, a level of thoughtfulness and consideration reserved for My One. It is, to me, the most beautiful part of the Learn-Anticipate-Meet triad because it is entirely up to the one who loves me. A choice, pure and special.

Romance Buzz Killer?

If it all sounds unromantic. . .Fair enough. Decades of being a couple therapist and of being married exfoliated my views on romantic love. The highly romanticized bits flaked off.  Now, I say let’s do our jobs, which sounds about as romantic as boot camp. But it gets us out of our prima donna, entitled-to-eternal-bliss mindsets.

Anticipating and seeking to meet your lover’s needs without them asking, is a deep form of love and care. She will feel cherished as she sees your actions, the ones she knows are just for her.

But What About Me? (If you aren’t anticipating your mate’s needs already, this little, innocent-sounding question might be why.)

So often we nearly drown in “But what about me?” What-I-am-not-getting fills our lungs making it difficult to think about anything else. We inhale resentment and exhale bitterness. The life preserver: bringing the focus back to what you can control, yourself, what I give. Do I even know what my lover needs? Why, after all, am I going on about not getting it if I am not giving it? Anticipating the needs of your mate and setting about to meet those needs are oxygen and blood to the beating heart of your relationship, allowing your mate the tender, exhilarating experience of being considered.

Anticipating needs can lead to meeting OR acknowledging them

Anticipating the needs of your lover allows you to acknowledge those needs even when you can’t meet or are struggling to meet them.

I respect your values around living within our means, and I really do appreciate your efforts to manage our budget for our financial security and for our future, which is not my strong suit. I want to make a purchase that will put us over budget this month, and I want to share with you why I think it is worth doing.

Or

This morning was crazy, and I didn’t get a chance to empty out the sink, but I want you to know it is on my radar.

There has to be room in our relationships for flexibility and, really, it just feels good to know that our partners are aware of what feels good to us, even when they aren’t able or willing to give it to us. It feels good to be considered.

The Challenge: Turn callous disregard into cultivated consideration

It is my job to care about my spouse and show that care. Regardless of what I am getting in return in this relationship, I want to do my job because that’s the person I want to be, the spouse I want to be. I want my spouse to know that I know him deeply and uniquely and that I care about him and for him.

It’s my job to care about [spouse’s name] and show [him/her.]

Fill in the blanks with your mate’s name and pronoun. Say it and see how it feels.

If you would like, take a moment to think deeply about what your partner’s needs are and how you can meet them. You know him or her better than any single other person on this earth knows them. What does s/he need from you? Can you pick two things, personal and unique to them, that are within your reach? Can you write them down? Can you commit to doing them?

To anticipate is to imagine or to expect something. Cultivating the habit of imagining and expecting your lover’s needs is no small thing. It may feel daunting, intimidating, or overwhelming.

And

You are capable.

And

You deserve it. You deserve to love like you want to be loved. So go on. Raise that bar.

Featured Illustration by Katherine Streeter for NPR

About Me

I’m Kristen Stone, a licensed clinical psychologist, behavioral sleep specialist and couple therapist with a passion to protect and grow empirically-based wellness services through training, research, and innovation. A born and bred southerner, I have found the Northeast a gracious host of my life and work for over 15 years. New England summers, falls, and—yes!—winters are magical. Then Tennessee springtime calls me home.

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