You Don’t Have Fulfil All Your Partner’s Needs (And That’s Okay)
Understanding and accepting you can’t provide everything your partner needs is not only liberating, but it might just save your relationship
How do you tell your partner that you want to explore polyamory without making them feel like they aren't enough for you?
How do you process your partner telling you they want to see other people without thinking you've failed by not being enough for them?
In another article, I discuss how to process and work through your partner asking to open your relationship and how this doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with your relationship. But it can mean that your partner has a need that isn't being met, and now I want to take a moment to discuss how this is neither your fault nor your responsibility and how polyamory can be the tool you use to fix that problem.
So, let's discuss how polyamory can teach us that our partner's happiness is not our responsibility, and we cannot be expected to fulfil every single one of our partner's needs.
I am a big fan of the author Hazel Hayes. I first discovered her as a filmmaker, but it was her first novel, Out of Love, that really resonated with me. It tells the story of a break-up in reverse, beautifully depicting how a once beautiful relationship can slowly come to an end as people grow apart. Her follow-up, Better By Far, also deals with a failing relationship, this time examining a situation where the protagonist slowly comes to the realisation that the problems in her relationships are caused by the unprocessed emotional baggage she is bringing into them.
And there was one line in particular in Better By Far that has really stayed with me, when the protagonist, Kate, is thinking back to all the wonderful things her ex used to do for her and how none of it could make her happy.
"It was like getting a million apples when what I really wanted was five apples and an orange."
This one line encapsulates the problem at the heart of why so many people are dissatisfied in their seemingly perfect relationships. Your partner might be great at providing almost everything they need, but if there is one thing missing, you will not only feel dissatisfied but guilty at feeling that way.
You might be a master apple grower, but that isn't going to help if your partner craves the occasional orange.
No one should be responsible for 100% of someone else’s happiness
Society has many deeply held toxic beliefs around relationships. One of the worst of these is the concept of "The One",; the magical person with whom you are destined to fall in love, with whom everything will be easy, and who will ensure you will never need anyone else to make you happy because they are everything you have ever dreamed of and will ever need.
But The One is a myth. All this concept does is force us to accept unsatisfying or even dangerous relationships because if there is even one problem, then it means the relationship can't be "the real thing", and all the time, effort, and emotion we have put into it was for nothing.
How many people have stayed quiet about something they were missing in a relationship because they didn't want their partner to think they weren't good enough? How many people have felt overwhelmed by the pressure of having to provide every single one of their partner's needs? How many perfectly good relationships have ended because someone thought, "If they can't provide everything I need, it can't be true love"?
But it's okay if your partner can't fulfil all your needs, and it's okay if you can't fulfil all of theirs. No one should be responsible for all our needs. Not our partners and not us. And once you realise that, it can relieve pressure on your relationship that you didn't even realise was there.
And you also don't have to accept that that need will never be fulfilled. Because with ethical non-monogamy, finding people to fulfil those needs does not pose any threat to your existing relationship.
Going outside your relationship doesn’t mean something’s wrong
Not every need requires going "outside" your relationship.
Some needs can be fulfilled by family and friends. Perhaps you can't have children, but your partner can throw themselves into helping raise nieces and nephews. Perhaps your partner hates sport with a passion, but you can go to games with your friends. This is why shared interests and hobbies are a vital part of any healthy relationship.
But then we come to the parts of life that are traditionally restricted to romantic relationships. Anything sexual or touching on a certain level of emotional connection is seen as "special" and reserved for one person. But things like sexual kinks, emotional needs, and physical preferences should never be forced on someone who doesn't enjoy them. So does that mean if you fall for someone who doesn't share those needs, do you give them up, or do they have to do something they are uncomfortable with? Because either way, it's going to cause resentment.
However, with ethical non-monogamy, there is no need to give up on those needs.
Once we accept that our partner needing something we cannot provide doesn't mean we've failed them and isn't a sign something is wrong in our relationships, it frees us. It allows us to enjoy the truth of our relationships and see our partners happy and fulfilled in ways we can't give them, which they will then bring back into our relationship with them.
In Hayes' book, the protagonist's realisation comes from realising why she and her ex were not as perfect as she had always believed. He provided so many of the things that were supposed to make her happy, but she was still unsatisfied because he could never provide everything, and overcompensating by giving too much of what he could provide only highlighted what he couldn't.
Once we step away from the idea that our partner should provide everything we need to be happy, it frees us up to look more honestly at ourselves, what we can provide to others, and what we need from others. And once we are free to do that without guilt, we are free to start building relationships that centre around us rather than the other way around.
No more ignoring your own needs because your partner might get upset because they can't fulfil them, and no more pain at feeling like you are a bad partner because you cannot give them everything they've ever wanted.
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