Why we Need to Speak
“It might be our history as infants that predisposes us to think that people can guess our wants and needs. But our wants and needs have grown exponentially over the years.“
Although it might seem like a gross oversimplification of the challenges we face as adults. But, some of the difficulties around our adult relationships would occur less frequently if only we knew how to “speak up.”
We would like our state of mind to be understood and for our moods to be known. But we rely heavily on our partner knowing this intuitively. We might even get mad at them because they don't know something about us that we haven't bothered to tell them.
This is a regression to the years of babyhood when we were mute but somehow our caregivers were able to intuit some of what we needed. We cried when we were hungry and a nipple was instantly available. We stretched towards dad - he picked us up and gently rocked us, reassuring us. But, our needs weren't very much: food & drink, clean clothes, reassurance, sleep, hygiene.
It might be our history as infants that predisposes us to think that people can guess our wants and needs. But our wants and needs have grown exponentially over the years. We don't only need milk, clean clothes, and sleep and reassurance. As adults, we now need to tell people numerous things. We might prefer to keep our bookshelf organized a certain way, or fold the laundry away in a certain closet. Or we might want to tell a partner about our low sex drive.
If we need them to know all these things we will need to instruct them carefully and patiently. We shouldn't expect them to intuitively know our wants and needs, simply because they love and care for us. As adults, we need to communicate properly since the problems we face now are more complicated than those of infancy.