I’m Okay, But You’re Needy!
How does it feel to be told “You’re just being ‘needy’?” Typically, one’s first reaction will be that it’s a bad thing to be needy. Why is that so? The truth is we’re all needy at some point in time regardless of how emotionally healthy we are. In fact, the more healthy we are emotionally, the more we are able to acknowledge our neediness in any given situation.
How has neediness come to be considered a negative? A husband recently used the word to describe his wife to me. But his understanding of the concept was deeply flawed. He came from a family in which everyone took care of themselves. The even where expected to do this at an early age. To express a need in his family was unthinkable. So clearly, any expression of neediness in his family was considered an extremely negative trait.
But somehow, as is typical, he married someone who came from a family where expressing needs were considered a normal part of life. His wife’s experience as a child was that a person could express a need and it would be met by other family members. Needs were considered normal. But to her husband, it was anything but normal. By anyone else’s standards, his wife was not a needy person. But to her husband, she was almost smothering him with her neediness.
Some think “neediness” is more a woman thing? It’s not, but men tend to see a wife’s expression of her needs more as a negative. In reality, it has a lot to do with what we experienced early in life–it’s called “attachment theory.” Researchers working with John Bowlby’s attachment theory have identified four ways we attach to significant adults in our lives. It’s a pattern we develop in the first year of life. We can attach, or connect in what is called a secure way–which is how God designed us. Or we can attach in one of three other ways: anxiously, avoidently, or fearfully.
Those with a secure attachment style will typically not see neediness as a negative–it’s simply a part of being in a relationship. Those who basically attach in an avoidant way are very sensitive to, and adverse to another person being “needy.” Those who are avoidently attached are seen by others as being very self-sufficient. They live out the “John Wayne” experience of needing no one else in their lives. The husband described above would certainly fit the avoidant attachment style. His experiences since early childhood said he must rely only on himself, and so should everyone else rely on themselves and therefore not express the needs they may have.
Next time, we will look at neediness in the lives of those with an anxious or fearful style of attachment.
Question: Do you think you were taught early-on that you were to rely only on yourself–solve your own problems, and not express your needs?