This emotional position has to be one of the most soul-destroying positions to be in.
In today’s post, I’m going to share the problem and give two clients as examples so you can understand what has to change.
This can happen to either person in the marriage at any time.
This person is going to feel uncertain about their future in the relationship; fear is going to be driving their actions at this point.
- They are going to feel insignificant far too often.
- They will constantly feel they don’t matter, and they may feel very alone or disregarded.
- They may feel that everything else is more important than them to their partner.
- They are going to experience significantly more pain than pleasure.
The effect of feeling needy and not needed is their fears will be running their behaviours.
This will change who they are, and they will eventually turn daily pain into long-term suffering.
This will result in them not being able to be who they really are in the marriage.
As a result of all this, they will also feel emotionally and physically exhausted.
Some people in this situation can try to rebalance the situation through pleasing – but it won’t work for either person.
Some will try shutting down – that definitely won’t work.
Others will become passionately more animated about their discomfort – which tends to widen the gap further.
So what should a person in this situation do?
What most people try to do is change their partner’s behaviours.
One of my clients last year was telling me about his time with his counsellor.
He needed help because his wife kept blowing up at him, and he had no idea what to do.
His counsellor’s advice was to talk to her about his boundaries so she could modify her behaviour to what he felt was acceptable.
He said he tried this approach, and she instantly got worse.
He said this wasn’t the first time their instruction had created a worse result or a dead-end.
Frustrated, he felt like he needed a fresh approach.
He asked me about this situation, and I said there is no question she would become worse with that advice.
“Why?” he asked.
I shared this with him.
That advice will 1000% kill the connection and upset her further.
In these situations, you are needing a breakthrough to build a closer connection.
Criticising (which is what she will experience) will only create more distance, plus it puts you in the position of being her judge, and judging isn’t loving.
“But I don’t like her shouting at me?” he said
“I don’t imagine she likes being upset either”, I replied.
So you can judge her or help her?
Which do you want?
“Help her, of course,” he said.
I shared this thinking with him.
Any advice which leads you to try to change your partner so they do things your way will always fail.
Your counsellor helped you set an expectation of her in your mind so she was likely to fail, and it meant you felt worse and attached that feeling to her.
The expectation aligned with what you were already thinking, so you agreed.
This process made your wife wrong and took a bad situation and made it 100 times worse.
The problem is you didn’t know why.
So you started off feeling needy and not needed, and you ended up feeling even worse.
“Exactly!” he said.
The problem, and I see this with a lot of help, is they make the person looking for help needier.
They do this by judging the situation in a way that sets up expectations.
Expectation setting creates needy people and is disempowering.
So you must reset your expectations so you don’t fail.
I gave this gentleman a new way to approach her tailored to him and his situation. It was a step-by-step process of new thinking for a win-win outcome.
He didn’t try to change her; what he changed was his thinking and how he approached her.
He came back to me and said he tried the new approach and she was calmer in a matter of minutes.
He said it felt counterintuitive, and he had to think about what he was doing, but it actually felt good to get a good outcome.
I responded with, “That’s right because she felt cared for, she felt kindness and compassion, and this aligned with your intent.”
I went on…
You never wanted her to feel bad; you just didn’t see the world from her perspective, and it created a disconnect.
Before, she would have felt you were uncaring and lacked empathy which would have scared her.
The way you were loving her disconnected her from who she is when she is with you.
This is why she is so upset so often; she loves you and was trying to get through to you.
It never worked, so she became more and more upset. Her upset was trying to protect the marriage from where she could feel she was going emotionally.
I see many women in pain because they can’t love a partner they love.
This worries them, especially when they can feel their feelings eroding; their upset is her flare going up, telling him she is in trouble.
She settled because you changed.
He said it felt really good to take control back, but in a way she clearly liked.
Almost overnight, he had changed his destructive model of trying to change her into a desire to understand her.
He’s no longer needy, and he now feels needed and empowered.
So great result…
Another client came to me to help her win her husband back.
He was having an affair, and she went into this needy and not needed pattern.
I did the same thing with her.
I showed her how to wake her husband up and then empowered her to be a better and more effective version of herself.
She became an attractive energy again and so difficult to leave.
She now has her husband back, and he is fully invested in her again.
We did this by changing her only; he was never part of the attraction process.
She said to me recently, “Isn’t it interesting; we are all taught it takes two to make a marriage work, but it’s simply not true.”
She said, “By changing myself, I attracted him back, and now he is open, connected and 100% focused on protecting and loving me.
People are simply not seeing their own power, and so they create behaviours that make the situation worse as they let their fear take over.
I can never promise the outcome they are after, but I can significantly stack the odds of success in their favour just like these couples.
Harley Street Expert | Founder & High Performance Coach
With two decades of experience helping couples out of crisis, Stephen the founder of The Marriage Breakthrough Program, uses his proven system for rescuing and rebuilding relationships on the edge of divorce. A trusted advisor to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders globally, his work blends emotional intelligence with strategic clarity. Known for navigating highly complex relationship challenges, Stephen helps individuals and couples find clarity and direction when everything is at stake.
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