How to Communicate Your Needs to Your Partner Without Coming off Like A Bitch
What I’ve learned in 30 years as a therapist, wife and mom.
I’ve been a licensed marriage and family therapist for over 30 years. In my career, I’ve seen and heard it all. People are fascinating, and communication is a great puzzle to be solved one couple at a time.
We all come into relationships with our own unique set of beliefs, patterns and shaping experiences. Quite often our communication styles turn out to be in direct opposition to getting what we really want in our relationships. It can be so frustrating and defeating when we try again and again with the same requests and end up at odds with each other.
I’m writing a series of essays on what I have learned from being in the trenches with not only my clients, but in my own marriage.
Division of labor
Let’s start with a common one: FAIR division of labor.
Before we had kids it wasn’t that complicated to figure out division of labor.
I’d come into the relationship with a bit of a chip on my shoulder having watched my mom carry out the duties of an indentured servant with her six children and a husband who worked a stressful job.
He might even, on occasion, have the audacity to do something like spill his drink and yell for my mom in a tone that somehow suggested it might have been her fault. That sort of thing really galled me. “Not me”, I would say to myself. “I’m never going to be in that position.”
When Ross and I moved in together, I noticed some of those patterns creeping in. “Hmmm. Wait a second…I’m cooking, shopping and cleaning up.”
Trash would build up and I would just go ahead and take it out. I got this sinking feeling that I was morphing into my mom.
So one day I said,
“Hey, let’s write down a list of the stuff that has to get done around here and we each pick the things we are in charge of. After all, it’s all shit work and someone has to do it.”
I let him pick the half of the list he wanted. I thought that was fair and gracious of me. He saw the logic in that and chose his favorite chores.
Easy peasy. Problem solved. Not my mom…yet.
Cut to, now we’re married and have our first child. It turns out that since I’m the mom and the only one with breasts that produce milk, I’m pretty much on duty 24/7.
My daughter had an insatiable need for breast milk .Yikes, it was a full-time job.
When she started eating solid food around five months old, my breast milk started drying up and by six months she was getting formula along with breast milk.
“Ok”, I thought, “Ross can finally help out in the night!”
A Turning Point
I remember very well one night early on. I’d gotten up at 1:00 am, then again at 3:00 am to feed my daughter. Around 5:00 am she was up again and crying to be fed.
I looked over at Ross who was sleeping and thought, “Wow, isn’t he going to recognize that I’ve already been up twice now and offer to do this feeding?” I let out an annoyed sigh and nudged him more aggressively than I had planned.
“Hey! I’ve already been up twice to feed Naomi. Can you get up?” He looked at me bleary eyed, squinted and shook his head like I had just said something rude to him. Like, “What’s your problem? I don’t need to be yelled at this early in the morning.”
I’m thinking, “It’s just plain fair, buddy, why the attitude?” I guess he didn’t like being woken up by a wife with a pissy tone.
Suffice to say he got up, lumbered out of bed and did the 5:00 am feeding. I was annoyed at his attitude.
I had to figure this out
This was one of the first times I realized I had to figure things out. I expected him to tune into my needs and pick up the slack where it was obvious to me. Made perfect sense to me!
For some reason that wasn’t happening. Instead, I was coming off as a disgruntled bitch in the middle of the night.
“Ok, regroup,” I said to myself. ‘”What’s a better way to do this?”
My new plan
I always start with what is fair. It’s fair to split up the feedings in the night. How do I do that without coming off as a nag?
I came up with this: Fair is that we take turns with the feedings. Every other one is his.
So the next night, after I had done the first feeding and I heard Naomi up for her second one, I GENTLY nudged Ross and said, “Hey, would you mind doing this one?”
He responded by coming out of deep sleep with a dazed and bewildered look and then an “Ughhh, what?”
I was annoyed again. My thought was, “Really? I can’t believe you aren’t just bounding up with an awareness that says, ‘Of course! It’s the fair and right thing to do. My turn, darling!’”
I really wanted to say, “I can’t believe you’re giving me a hard time about this.”
And then he would say, “What hard time? I’m going to do it!”
And I would say, “Yeah, but you’re moaning and groaning about it.”
And he would think, “What a bitch.” And there we would be again.
The new plan in action
Instead, because mommy is starting to figure things out, I said, really nicely, “Thanks, the bottle is in the fridge, just heat it up for 30 seconds.”
Then I heard a few more disgruntled sounds as he headed to the fridge. I ignored them and went back to sleep.
Next night, same thing. And again, rinse and repeat. Ask nicely like the first time and don’t react to his displeasure. About a week later, he was just getting up every other feeding and I didn’t even have to ask.
Wow, I got my needs met without coming off like a bitch! And, a new pattern was set. Brilliant.
This is just the beginning of stories where I started to figure out how to communicate my needs to my partner without starting a fight. Without coming off like a nag.
I realized that hinting at my frustration was not going to turn into a profound new awareness on his part that he needed to change his behavior. I was naive in thinking he would pick up on my cues, do some introspection and turn things around. Though, believe me, it would always be my preferred way of communication.
The takeaway is this: Conveying annoyance to your partner almost never turns into a positive change.
Asking for what you want, after you have thoroughly come to the conclusion that it is fair, is what works.
If and when you get a negative response, ignore it and get grounded by going back to reassuring yourself with “This is fair.” Stay calm and ask nicely again, almost as if it were the first time you were asking.
Don’t think that asking for what you want one time is going to turn into lasting change. In my experience, it takes about three or four repeated requests to change a pattern.
What to do next?
Think of a pattern that you don’t like in your relationship. Analyze how you’ve been going about trying to express your needs.
Has it been critical, frustrated, mocking? Have you tried to get your point across by being cold and silent? Or yelling at him that you’ve told him so many times that you don’t like ‘X.’ Why doesn’t he get that???
Then think of what you really want. Specifically. Write out how you would ask for that, nicely and respectfully, in simple terms. Practice it in your head and then ask for it.
If you get pushback, tell him you think it’s fair, but you are open to hearing his point of view if he thinks it isn’t. Most likely he will see that it is fair. If he has a valid point, take it in and regroup.
Then fasten your seatbelt and get ready to ask nicely, the same way, three or four times.
So, here’s the deal. You can either:
- Get pissed and insist that he SHOULD know what I want and figure out how to meet my needs OR,
- You can ask for what you want without getting into the negativity trap.
Guess what happens if you pick #2?
YOU GET YOUR NEEDS MET!
Again, this may take three or four times before you see a change. But stick with it.
Why? Because this is a classic case of a win-win. You not only get your needs met and benefit from that, but, just as important, you strengthen your relationship.
