I don’t want to be dumbfounded when you are in pain. I want to be an expert on how to help you when you are hurting. Help me help you.
I appreciate you as you are
I fundamentally appreciate you, and I need to know how to influence, motivate, and have a positive affect on you.
I don’t want to push your buttons.
I want to know the antidote when things go awry.
It is very similar to when my child has painful feelings.
I want to be able to soothe my child and be competent as a parent. I want to co regulate them. I want to regulate their moods and energy levels. I want to do the same for you as a nurturing human being.
What I need from you is to know you well enough to throw the switch to help, restore balance, and make you feel good. I want our partnership to be a place where we feel excitement, enrichment, and attraction. The kind of attraction that serves as glue to hold the relationship together. I don’t want fear to be the glue holding us together.
I want this relationship, there is no other place in the world that we would both rather be.
Our attraction is based on what we do for one another that no one else can or wants to do.
Tell your partner what you need to hear and why. Your partner generally is not good at anticipating or mind reading.
Once they know what you want, one would hope you wouldn’t have to keep asking for it. But you have to let them know at least once or twice.
When you pull away from me, do I know what to do to be of help?
Do I stand ready whenever your insecurities or perfectionism arise and do I know what to do to help you?
Do I track my partner when we are together?
Do I know what can hurt her?
How she displays that hurt? And what I can do to help when that happens I don’t need to ask what’s wrong. I already know what’s bothering her.
She is predictable, as is he, so both of them know each other well enough to be of help.
Asking your partner “what is wrong?” Is a bit like asking “who are you again?”
As partners, we should have a limited menu of options to choose from. That’s our job is to know who they are.
We care about them so we will guess and let them know what we’re guessing.
Get to know the three or four vulnerabilities, and you will also know the three or four things that you can help in order to heal the past and give her what she most needs in the present. That is emotional connection.
For example, I need to know that I am trusted and trustworthy. When I doubt myself and become frozen, I need to hear that my opinion is respected.
I know what you need to shore up your self-esteem and self-worth and I do so without hesitation, because it benefits both of us.
I can detect whether you have an itch, and how to scratch it to provide relief. Often it takes just a smile or a look, or a touch to calm each other and communicate support.
We get our needs met in ways that could not possibly be met if we were alone.
This is what makes you attractive, even indispensable to me.
No one outside of our “couple bubble” can make my world safer or more protected than my partner.