How can you tell the difference between being too needy and having the wrong people in your life?

[Fortheloveof83]

When is it a case of expecting too much and when is the case that those in your life aren’t capable of meeting your needs and your needs are healthy. I can’t tell anymore.

My mum is ND so is my partner and his mum. I feel lost currently.

@cannonballz some of us have not been given the tools as children to fledge into adults who can do this. I know I should walk away from people but I don’t have the tools or the know how or the emotional support to do so. You are lucky. I have absolutely no idea which ones of my feelings to acknowledge are the right ones.

But why are you choosing to be around these people who see you as pointless, invisible, dramatic etc?

Agreed, OP. I'm another one who didn't get those tools. But we have to go out and learn how to be emotionally intelligent adults, regardless. Therapy with someone good has been a lifechanger for me. I have had to learn the basics in my 40s.

@HarridansOfUsAll because I think I can do it on my own. I’ve always felt alone. I carry quite a lot alone. I’ve come to understand it’s a trauma response thinking no one can help me.

I think you should unpick your own logic here. 'Help' you with what? Fundamentally, you are responsible for your own emotional wellbeing, and you need to learn the basics of that, which will inevitably include how to manage your interactions with others, how to choose good friendships and relationships -- but they can't, and shouldn't, stand in for your own self-care and health within yourself. You sound as if you're unhappy, and blaming other people for not being 'supportive', despite recognising that these people don't have the capacity to give you what you want.

No one needs a partner that has to do x, y and z. Being single is perfectly fine. But in life, being respected by people you care about, reciprocating affection in one way or another, etc is a need. People manage without those needs being met. Just like people manage without a healthy diet, but a healthy diet is a basic need.

@HarridansOfUsAll that makes sense. I’ve only learnt recently about my mum. Growing up I never knew this and just thought I wasn’t likable despite trying and twisting myself into being likable. It’s a lot to process. Probably why I picked a partner similar. Then his mum is the same as she’s passed it on. The thing is my partner really tries and I can see that and we connect because I can see he tries. The others just seem to far gone. I’ve gone to them because they are all the family I know and I love them. I’ve never really understood until recently that the way they behave may not be “normal”.

You're right which is why I picked a husband who could meet my needs to treat me with respect etc. That doesn't mean he doesn't meet my needs, just that if he stops doing so, the responsibility is on me to manage that.

I don't get this thread at all- your needs seem perfectly normal to me, OP. I have a very caring mum and when my husband was around, he would help me out if I hurt myself, take on more stuff at home, drive me where I wanted to go, look after me. I don't have that now as he's not here (I'm a widow) and I miss it a lot, also someone to share the emotional and everyday side of life with, otherwise I'm not sure why you would be in a relationship!

I wouldn't necessarily express it as a 'need' in that language, which might be what people are latching onto, but having an exchange of care and emotion and interest is what I'm in a relationship for, and I don't find it odd that you wouldn't need those too.

I think it's easier to be alone than with people who can't or won't meet those needs, you don't feel so lonely and you look for nice human connection elsewhere, through pets, friends and family.

I'm not interested in making others responsible for me, I'm self-sufficient because I have to be (lone parent too), but I am interested in being around people who make me feel cared for, and are interested in me, and I offer that to them too. Otherwise there's no point in the relationship or friendship. I'd drive a friend to hospital (and have done!), stayed up with a friend's sick child, come in an emergency- people don't 'need' you very often, but it's nice to know they would step up if you needed it, and I would only be in a relationship that enhanced my life- so if you are feeling more lonely, more distanced and more like 'what's the point' then those aren't very nice at all. Relationships are supposed to be pluses, not minuses.

Therapy, @Fortheloveof83. And learning to make friendships which nourish you emotionally, once you've unpicked and unlearned some of your childhood scripts. You do need to start with you. It's like having to learn how to tell when you're hungry or thirsty, or learning to read. If no one responded to your needs as a child, or was properly attuned to you, you learned compensation mechanisms that helped you survive but aren't conducive to longterm happiness in adulthood.

Ok, so, for a start, a lot of what you've written in you list of your own needs is about other people, and how they let you down. I wonder if you can write it again, but as a list of your own needs. Can you see the difference? My list of needs for lunch, for example, might be 'sandwich, crisps, water, biscuit', rather than 'sandwich, which my mum doesn't give me because she has no bread, a drink, which nobody gives me because nobody realises I want one, and I'm sure I'll still be hungry if I've only had a sandwich but that's because nobody meets my needs'

Just identify YOUR needs. Sounds like you need to have an interest shown in you, and some basic politeness, from what you've said so far. Those are completely reasonable and standard needs. What else? This is about you, and only you. Working out how to meet the needs and who needs to meet them comes after this.

Well you could cut out 2/3 of the problem.

I think I’ve got the term needs wrong. I don’t need others to do something for me or to exchange needs etc. I think I’ve just been so used to having zero emotional connection. When I try to have it it’s never reciprocated and I just assume it’s me because I ask too much because I’ve no idea what actually is too much or too little. I’ve no baseline. I’m clearly looking in the wrong direction then feeling rejected when I don’t get it. I do get irritated because I try hard and it’s like trying to get blood from a stone. I think I’ve got radar for non emotional people who prop up the idea that I don’t deserve it. I have started to pull away from them but I feel lonely and isolated.

That sounds very familiar, OP. I often found myself choosing someone as a friend whose attention made me feel wonderful when I had it and invisible when I didn't, because I both crave attention and feel deeply uneasy when I get it in a sustained way from others. All I can say again is therapy, therapy, therapy. Only when you're strongly balanced and grounded within yourself, and able to think clearly about your needs and how they might be met will you make better relationship choices.

I’ve no idea what actually is too much or too little

There is no too much or too little. You are who you are, and your feelings are representative of that. If you try to minimise or silence your feelings in order to meet a benchmark, you are deciding that your feelings are 'wrong', and that there is something about you that needs to be 'corrected'. But there isn't.

The biggest realisation for me was that I was responsible for myself. I knew, already, I was meant to eat well and get enough exercise etc, but I didn't realise that I was, like everybody else, a child. I didn't realise I had to parent myself. If you parent by making sure your kid eats enough and runs about every day, and nothing else, that's emotional neglect. If, when they have a feeling, you tell them that their feeling is 'too much' and they shouldn't have it, that's cruelty. And that's what you're doing to yourself: neglect and cruelty.

@HarridansOfUsAll I don’t want too much attention. Like parties and things I really don’t like. I’m not asking much at all really I don’t think. Just a balance of too and throw. I Dislike a lot of hugs and cuddles, I suspect because I have never had that growing up.

@Watchkeys I don’t where to go or what to do or who to go to to make any of the unpleasant things I feel go away. I can’t always make the feelings go down on my own. Sometimes it might just be a hug and a yeah that must be tough. There isn’t anyone in my life who does that. Everywhere I turn there is someone who will invalidate me. I suppose I’ve got many wrong people in my life.

Is it not selfish to think right you don’t add anything to my life so you can go?

Op have you had a lot of therapy or do you Read a lot of books of that ilk.?

your wording is very much like therapy bingo , which makes me wonder if this is linked to a much wider focus of yours? If you spend a lot of time thinking about it, reading up on it, talking about it etc?

@Sunnyandsilly I have tried to google some of the things I feel to see if it helps. Whats bingo therapy?

But the OP isn’t just talking about her partner, she’s also talking about her parents and his parents.

I personally don’t ‘need’ anything from my parents or in laws. Whether they check in on how I feel after an injury or sickness is irrelevant to me. I don’t ask for or need anything from them, and take what they are willing to ‘give’ graciously.

I might have ‘needs’ from my partner, but I found a partner by finding someone who doesn’t leave my
’needs’ unmet. One person’s needy is another persons reasonable. Some people like to dote on others and others like independence. I wouldn’t have chosen a partner who doesn’t ‘match’ me in that way.

If I think I’m being too ‘needy’, I ask myself whether I am willing to compromise on that thing. If I wasn’t then I wouldn’t be with a partner who wasn’t willing to accommodate it.

So if OP is saying she’s not willing to compromise on someone who is willing to check in on her wellbeing after illness or injury and her partner isn’t willing to do that - then I would chalk that down as incompatible and move on. Neither is too needy or not empathetic enough, they’re just not a match.

Just you use a lot of buzz words. Nothing wrong with it, but it made me think you’ve spent a lot of time reading up on this and wanting to discuss it with people?

I know a lot of people have mentioned friends can step in, but I think it’s worrying when a life partner isn’t stepping up emotionally and people need to use friends instead. It’s obviously different if someone is single.

I have a friend who leaned far too heavily on me because her partner didn’t support her emotionally or financially. and I actually grew to resent her for it . I get you can’t choose your family but you can choose your partner. She was so starved of having proper emotional support she laid so much of it on me. Yes friends can be part of the equation, and provide some emotional support, but I feel if you’re in a serious relationship it should mostly fall on your partner.

People prioritise their partners over any other adult and quite rightly - so these same people they put first should be expected to provide most of the emotional support.
Not their friends who are not going to be a priority in most cases.

As pp have said you have to question if this is the right person for you. He may be a nice person etc but it’s just that he is more suitable and compatible with someone else.

What an interesting and bizarre thing to say. Of course Adults have needs. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the entire field of psychology posits needs, and pretty much all of literature, economics, and the arts are about adult needs and how to satisfy them.