Tip for Couples: Make It Easy to Ask

If you want something from your partner, you ask for it. Easy, right? Apparently not, because lots of people who want, never do ask. Instead they sulk, get angry about not receiving what they never bothered to ask for or do for themselves but resent it. What is this not-asking behavior about?

Here are some possibilities: 1) Asking, explaining yourself, maybe discussing the matter, getting an answer and then sometimes enduring a “no” response is what you have to put up elsewhere in life. Some people figure that when you are a couple you shouldn’t have to ask. “You should know what I need” is what is often said.

2) The “I’d rather do it myself than have to ask you” attitude is likely to be held by people who have an antipathy to being either assertive or dependent. Asking straight on for what you want or need does carry a message of self-acceptance and self-valuing – assertive attitudes that, for a variety of reasons, some people can’t manage.

For some, asking – which acknowledges a desire or a need – puts them too close to dependency, which – again for a variety of reasons – they may fear admitting.

When you do want something from your partner and yet won’t say so, you do go without and that does set you up for resentment. In couple relationships people do tend to communicate their resentment – if not in words, then through body language or a display of feelings.

Here is a classic “everybody loses” situation. The partner who wanted goes without. The partner who “didn’t know that you wanted” gets punished for not providing.

A better way: Work it out with your partner so that either of you can ask for what you want, the other person is allowed to say no if that is where s/he is at, and you both agree to respect that right in each other.