Emotional Needs In Romantic Relationships

You can't expect other people to love you if you haven't first taken responsibility for loving yourself.

It's difficult to promote emotional intimacy when you haven't taken the time to identify your emotional needs. Your emotional needs could be to be touched or held, you may need forgiveness or acceptance, it may be about feeling included, engaged, considered, seen, heard, nurtured, held or understood. Regardless of your emotional needs, you need to know what they are if you expect the need to be filled by the people in your life.

Beyond knowing those needs, you need to be prepared to discuss them, too. How will your partners in life know what you expect if you don't state your expectations? This is particularly important, as is the above point, for men. When straight men don't deal with this appropriately they have a tendency to turn their romantic relationships into maternal ones. No woman wants to mother their partner. It can be challenging for men to determine their emotional needs because society has always told men to be strong and …show more content…
Communication is just as effective as any aphrodisiac. So, get into the habit of turning the television off, putting your phones away, and shutting out all other distractions and sit down and just talk to each other. Make plenty of eye contact as you actively listen to what the other person has to say.

It's also important to feel safe in that conversation, whether it's a romantic relationship or not. So, ensuring that your loved ones know that you have their back, no matter what... is a big part of making them feel safe. Feeling safe with someone is an important part of growing emotional intimacy. Here are a few further tips for you if you are trying to establish emotional intimacy in a romantic relationship, though it may be helpful information to those looking to foster a platonic relationship,