I have one question: How concrete and spoken is your contract with either your partner or those you care for? Do you know what to expect in your relationships? Do you clearly understand your responsibilities from your partner or those close to you? How often have you fought with those you love because of unmet expectations and assumptions? I want you to stop feeling like those around you do not understand or hear your needs. I want your relationships to be built on a solid and clear foundation so you can grow within those relationships you cultivate daily. If you feel like things were easy and exciting at the beginning of your relationship, and suddenly things changed, and you grew to resent those around you, please take a moment with me to explore a different approach to your relationships.

Understanding Your Role in the Relationship

If your relationships were built upon habits that have not changed in quite some time, and you are unhappy, it is time to address those habits. I would invite you to look at how you act in your relationships. What do you feel is your default role to play within the relationship? Is it to be the comforter, the caretaker, the doer, the advocate, the protector, the adult, the rock, the savior, etc? Once you have figured out how you present in a relationship, I would ask you to dive into where you learned to be that. Is it something you would even like to be doing, or do you feel like you have to, and it is an instinct? For some of us, our developmental trauma narrative and how we learned to survive our environments as children will drastically impact how we are in our adult relationships. For example, let us say that you grew up in a chaotic household, and your caregiver at the time had a large amount of trauma to process, let alone try to take care of you and your needs effectively. As this is happening, you could sense that something was wrong within your environment, and how you learned to make that go away was to take care of that caregiver instead. As a young child, you cannot do much to effect change; however, you can act as if you do not have needs. That way, that caregiver does not have to expend even more energy attending to them, which in effect, cares for them. If this pattern continues, your adult relationships will be strikingly similar. You could always feel an intense need to take care of your partner, but your needs are rarely ever met. Resentment can build exceptionally quickly when the one who gives suddenly feels like they are taken advantage of or used. Now they may isolate, display anger and hostility, and engage with their fight response. Those expressions of negativity can happen without a shred of awareness from the other relationship member, and it can happen fast.

Identifying Unhealthy Habits and Expectations

As a first step, you must figure out how you present in your relationships. Without it, you cannot come to a spoken contractual agreement within your relationship because you will not understand what you feel is not working from your side. Once you have figured this out, it is time to ask yourself what you do not like about the current habits within the relationship and what you feel is expected or assumed of you. If we look at the earlier example, let us say that we are tired of always providing validation and encouragement to our partners, but we never feel like we get any in return because we appear to be "good." Over time, this habit will lead to resentment and, potentially, splitting up.

Expressing Your Needs with DEAR MAN

Once you have figured out what you need, it is time to ask for that need to be met by your partner. If we borrow from the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy playbook, I always encourage looking at the DEAR MAN skill. DEAR MAN is an acronym when asking for something you need or saying no. Let us take a moment to walk through DEAR MAN together. D - stands for describing the situation you are observing. For our example, we will maintain that you feel that you are always the emotional caretaker. So, the situational observance could be something like, "I notice I am always there for you when you have a need, and I do not feel as though I am getting that in return." E - stands for express your feelings or opinions about that observation, which could go something like this; "when my needs are not met or validated, I feel tiny and that I do not matter to you." A - stands for assert. What we want to assert here is what we would like to change. When you ask for what you need; this could look like, "I would love it if you took more time to actively hear me out when I am trying to express something to you and validate how I feel." Once you have asked for what you need, it is time to reinforce (R) that ask by thanking them ahead of time for hearing out your request. Tell them you appreciate them taking the time to listen.

Navigating Defensive Responses

We just asked for what we needed, which is so important, and I cannot stress that enough. However, now comes the hard part. Now we must work with how the person you are communicating with chooses to respond. What happens if they get defensive? Let me walk through that for you. For example, they replied, "I don't know what you are talking about; I am always there for you." Instant invalidation has just occurred. This invalidation happens daily to most people, so take some refuge because you are not alone. This invalidation may bring up some shame on your end and make you want to abandon your need, but I am asking you to do the exact opposite from the bottom of my heart.

Creating the Spoken Contract

What I would encourage you to do is to lean into the latter half of DEAR MAN. MAN is all about how you respond to someone else's response. M stands for being mindful of your goal. In this instance, your goal was to receive more validation and be heard regularly. With this goal in mind, we can revisit that goal. I would advise you to validate them and then restate what you want. It would look like, "I can understand where you may think you are always there for me; that makes sense. However, I would still appreciate it if you validated my feelings more often." Just like that, we are back on target, and our need stays alive. How should you present yourself when you are advocating? Should you apologize beforehand? Should you explain every detail to ensure you do not offend them? No. I would advise you to appear confident in your need. You deserve to get your needs met. You deserve to be validated, and you deserve to be happy in a relationship. That is what the A in MAN represents. Finally, we come to the letter N in MAN. The letter N represents negotiation. Are you willing to negotiate on this need? Sometimes we are, and sometimes it is so essential that there is no room to adjust.

Maintaining Healthy Communication

A new habit can continue and grow once a spoken agreement has been reached. This agreement is what I refer to as making the spoken contractual agreement. This agreement is organic and subject to constant change and growth. Allow it to be fluid, but always remember to keep it spoken. If you do not, you are in danger of expectations and old, negative habits returning. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out and let me know. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to stop by, and I appreciate all your work to make it here. You take care, and I will talk with you next time.