The Heart of Conflict in Relationships – Misaligned Emotional Needs

I subscribe to a lot of email newsletters, and one of my current favorites is Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Yesterday, in Mark’s weekly email he talked about “When Relationships Suffer” and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect! You can sign up for Mark’s weekly newsletter if you are looking for practical ways to improve your life.

Three Fundamental Emotional Needs

My fiance and I had a disagreement over the weekend, and I was eager to learn how to repair the relationship. A few clicks into his email I had downloaded his free 54-page eBook, Healthy Relationships – Getting the Love You Want Without Compromising Who You Are.

There were so many gems in this eBook, but the main one is about understanding our emotional needs and how we and our partner prioritize those needs. On page 6, Mark describes the three fundamental emotional needs as:

1. Status – feeling important or superior; feeling challenged
2. Connection – feeling understood and appreciated; shared values and experiences
3. Security – feeling safe and reliable; feeling trust

I instantly loved this framework and it provided me with so much clarity into my current situation.

I recognized my fundamental need as connection, followed fairly closely by status, with security a very distant third. There’s nothing that I love more than spending distraction-free one-on-one time in a relationships (value – intimacy) exploring something new (value – growth). In Renata, I recognized her emotional needs as security first, followed closely by connection, with status a distant third. This was interesting! I was getting somewhere!

Mark goes on to say that we have to look deeper than someone’s behavior or even beliefs and get to their fundamental emotional need: “The key to resolving conflicts in your relationship—or any personal conflict for that matter—is compassion. And by compassion I mean seeing past the individual offensive behaviors and looking at the emotional needs that are motivating those behaviors” (29).

Renata had expressed to me that she “wants to feel like we are on a team” and that I have never once said – “We got this!” when it comes to our big move in the week ahead. Before Mark’s framework hit me at this perfect moment, I was trying to solve for behaviors and beliefs, not emotions, meaning I was saying things to Renata like – start looking for a new job (behavior), start recording your podcast (behavior), stop worrying about the future (belief).

What I now realize is that I need to address the emotion that’s driving our conflict right now – the desire for security. Although I believe that I am acting in ways that support the desire for security (i.e. planning my finances for the year, renting the Uhaul, putting in the work on this blog), I have realized that I am not communicating this in a way that Renata can hear it and feel it at an emotional level. Thankfully, this is a relatively easy fix now that I know I don’t have to argue at the level of behavior, but instead on the emotional need. My words of encouragement and support can buoy us here.

I believe that we can orient our relationship around the emotional need of connection since it’s my number one and Renata’s number two, and that I need to flex to support Renata’s need for security while at the same time Renata needs to flex to support my need for status.

Healthy Personal Boundaries

After laying out our fundamental emotional needs, Mark goes on to discuss the second most important thing in a relationship – healthy personal boundaries. I love his clear definition: “Healthy Personal Boundaries = Taking responsibility for your own actions and emotions, while NOT taking responsibility for the actions or emotions of others” (40). This section is super-juicy and really warrants a separate post since he digs into attachment theory and really clarifies victim and saver mentalities — it hits close to home!

Boundaries are something that I have been working on for the last six-plus months, starting with a great course on How to Be a Boundary Queen by my friend Natalie Murray, and I think Mark hit the nail on the head when he wrote:

“A person with strong boundaries understands that a healthy relationship is not controlling one another’s emotions, but rather each partner supporting each other in their growth and path to self-actualization.” (51)

– Mark Manson, Healthy Relationships

Amen and thank you, Mark! I will definitely have to write more about boundaries in a future post – this stuff is critical.

Playing Tourist to Reconnect

I love how when I stay focused on growth and excellence that when I do encounter challenges in my life and relationships, I am much more attuned to solutions. I am grateful that Mark’s email hit my inbox on Monday morning and that it offered me a solution to the challenge in our relationship.

Although Renata and I are still working to better understand and support each other’s emotional needs, we were at least able to reconnect to enjoy a gorgeous day date together playing tourist on a sailboat in the San Francisco Bay.

The day ended at a restaurant on Pier 39 where we met a slightly older couple – Bill and Betty – who were from Palm Beach County, Florida and on their way back East from a Hawaiian cruise. Our conversation inspired us and made us feel super-positive about the journey to Ft. Lauderdale ahead. Serendipitous, perhaps. Or again, just another solution and source of inspiration provided to us when we needed it!