Relationships Are Not a “Two-Way” Street

Quit trying so hard to get your needs met

“Relationships are a two-way street” is a convenient cliche we often hear in the world of love. From a conventional wisdom perspective, it just makes sense.

Of course, I do not want to be in a relationship where I am continually working hard to meet someone else’s needs while they persist with little regard for mine. I should get out what I put in.

So looking at the relationship as a “two-way” street makes sense, especially if I am trying to justify the hurt I am experiencing because my needs are not getting met by my “selfish” or “dismissive” partner.

If I put a lot of effort into trying to make someone else happy, but in turn, when I express a need or frustration, I am met with the evaluation that my need is a burden, ridiculous, or unworthy of attention I might find the two-way street metaphor a handy framework to base my defense on. However, I will be building resentment because I have set up a framework based on my own sense of fairness and the expectation that another person should make me happy.

Anytime we want to start a conversation that involves our personal understanding of what is fair, we may find the utility of the dialogue highly unproductive. This is at least in part because values tend to get lost in translation and easily misunderstood, leaving one with a sense of being “unheard,” “uncared for,” or “neglected.”

“Her happiness is not my responsibility. She should be happy, and I should be happy individually. Then we come together and share our happiness. Giving someone a responsibility to make you happy when you can’t do it for yourself is selfish” — Will Smith

Happiness is a difficult word to unpack in the English Language. Much like “love,” we have a distorted way of using it to mean whatever we want. We apply it to whatever we wish to, thus devaluing its effectiveness in communication and mutual understanding. What we should be looking for is growth.

Being happy is not an end goal because there are no end goals in life besides death. Life is about character growth and development through relationships. Goals are merely steps on the ladder that is hopefully aimed in the right direction.

Much energy is wasted in relationships trying to get someone else to see our perspective. Not having your connection needs met is akin to emotional death, so it warrants alarm when we do not experience the sense of intimacy we desire. The alarm system then goes into overdrive, and we mistakenly think that our efforts are best sprang trying to get our own needs met, to soothe the alarm. This is a significant mistake that individuals in relationships make because it actually reverses the framework that successful relationships are built on.

Successful “Relators” know that there is a paradox at work in creating a satisfying relational experience. They understand that their sole purpose is not to figure out how to get their own needs met, but to figure out their partner’s needs and then to work to meet them.

If you just read that statement and are still hung up on how your needs are not getting met, then it is time to ask why you are so needy in the first place. It is a painful truth to accept when we are hurt and defensiveness. However, uncovering the answer to that inquiry is an eye-opening experience that helps make the story of your experience a little more coherent.

Unconditional Love

As an individual existing within a relational system, I am only responsible for my input into the system. In monogamous intimate relationships, I am to provide unconditional love towards my partner. Many people reading this will dispute the existence of unconditional love; however, I will not defend its existence here to appease the bitterness of the folks who struggle to conceptualize the reality of unconditional love, of which resistance is probably mostly caused by issues of semantics anyway.

The idea that our focus should be on meeting someone else’s needs first is not synonymous with suggesting that we should blindly and foolishly provide love to a person who continually hurts and dismisses us.

Surely we are allowed to express our needs and encourage our partners to understand us as well. The problem comes because we tend to mix our needs and their needs together, creating a “conditional” dynamic.

This contract-based way of relating will only fuel conflict and increased disconnect. Communication of our needs is critical, but the words we use, though meaningful to ourselves, may not be accurately interpreted by our partner through their subjective sense of experience and values.

Loving my partner unconditionally is not wasted energy. If we really look closely, and sometimes it might take a trained eye to help, we will always find that our partner’s needs will directly challenge our wounds and needs to grow. So from that perspective, we have something to gain by meeting our partner’s needs, whether or not they reciprocate.

If I can find the value of loving my partner unconditionally, I will grow, whether the relationship does. I may very well outgrow the relationship, but the evidence will be overwhelming at that point. Any breakdown in the relationship will not be based on destructive fighting, but rather the realization that this person simply can not or will not engage. But the growth I experience, due to my engaging in the unconditional love of my partner, will ease and cause contentment amidst the heartache of dissolution.

Giving love unconditionally does not mean appeasing someone else at all costs. It means looking at how my partner is challenging my needs to grow. Self-awareness of these needs involves honestly interpreting the frustrations I am experiencing in my relationship as being directly related to my wounds and defects of character. My growth then stands in direct relation to my partner’s needs.

Stay on the One Way Street

Rather than look at love and relationships as a “two-way” street, we may benefit from looking at it as two parallel “one-way” streets. My job is to maintain my street and keep things moving in that direction fueled by my growth in the context of the relationship.

Two people who are tending to their own needs to grow by loving their partner unconditionally will inadvertently create a beautiful lasting relationship. If one party is not engaging in honest growth, then it becomes a different issue, but one you can’t directly act on. You either outgrow the relationship, or you grow together.