Getting your (relational) needs met

5 minute read

Identifying and Meeting Your Needs in Non-Monogamous Relationships

Are you struggling to get your needs met in your non-monogamous relationships? As a depth psychologist and experienced practitioner of non-monogamy, I've seen firsthand how challenging it can be to identify, communicate, and fulfill our needs when navigating multiple partnerships. In this blog post, I'll share some insights and strategies to help you navigate this complex terrain.

Understanding Needs, Wants, and Likes

The foundation of getting your needs met is understanding the difference between needs, wants, and likes:

Needs: These are high-level, often vague requirements that can be met in multiple ways. For example, a need for safety or trust in a relationship.

Wants: These are more specific ways you'd like your needs to be met. For instance, wanting a partner to text you goodnight every day to feel secure. These are preferences that contribute to your overall satisfaction but aren't necessarily tied to fundamental needs and you likely have some flexibility about exactly how these are satisfied.

Identifying Your Needs

Many people struggle to identify their needs, especially in the context of non-monogamous relationships. Here are some strategies to help:

• Use pre-existing lists: Start with lists of common relationship needs or attachment needs to spark your thinking.
• Pay attention to your body: Notice how different experiences make you feel physically and emotionally.
• Practice putting words to sensations: Develop a richer vocabulary for describing your experiences and preferences.
• Write it down: The act of writing can help clarify your thoughts and make your needs more tangible.

Communicating Your Needs

Once you've identified your needs and wants, the next challenge is communicating them effectively:

Be specific: Instead of saying "I need more attention," try "I'd like to have a date night once a week." Give multiple examples and listen to your partner’s ideas for co-creating a relational environment that works for everyone involved.

Use "I" statements: Frame your needs in terms of your own feelings and experiences rather than your partner's actions. This is harder than it sounds–it you’re getting stuck here, you may be needing some relational repair. An imago dialogue can be a valuable tool, check out how to use it in Playing with Fire episode 129

Be open to negotiation: Remember that your partner may not be able to meet all your needs in exactly the way you envision. Having big gaps in your needs being met may mean this relationship needs a significant re-imagining. Check out episode 158 of Playing with Fire

Practice active listening: Understanding your partner's needs is a huge contributor to overall relationship happiness. Listening and working to understand what your partners needs are is the starting point for negotiating about where you can meet them and where you may not be able to. You don’t have to meet every need for each other, but empathizing with your partner can help you collaborate on creative solutions when you’re not quite in alignment.

Navigating Multiple Relationships

Non-monogamy adds an extra layer of complexity to meeting needs, but also far more creative opportunities to get those needs met!

Recognize context: Your needs may vary depending on the specific relationship and situation. Let that be a good thing! Having multiple relationships requires a wider imagination of what relationships can be–you get to co-create with multiple people simultaneously. 

Be clear about relationship structures: Discuss whether each relationship is meant to meet attachment needs or serve other purposes. Don’t assume that everyone is available to be an attachment figure and allow yourself to choose what level of depth to maintain if someone isn’t able to provide connection in a way that works for you.

Manage expectations: Not every partner will be able or willing to meet all your needs. That’s okay! If you can figure out how deep a person is willing to go with you, you can often have a strong connection that works for you instead of a frustrating relationship where you’re constantly pushing for something that just isn’t there. This sometimes means a relationship will need to be de-escalated, re-imagined, or ended, but it is infinitely better than trying to squeeze blood from a stone.

Create a broader support network: Consider how different relationships and connections can collectively contribute to meeting your needs. Many of us unconsciously prioritize romantic relationships over all others, but a community of friends, chosen family, and engaged neighbors can usually provide a more stable experience of interconnection. 

Avoiding Manipulation and Coercion

It's crucial to distinguish between healthy communication of needs and manipulation:

• Be honest with yourself: Are you trying to indirectly influence your partner's behavior instead of directly stating your needs?
• Respect boundaries: Remember that your needs don't create obligations for others.
• Accept "no" gracefully: Be prepared for the possibility that a partner may not be able to meet a particular need.
• Seek consent: Ensure that your partners are willingly entering into the kind of relationship you're proposing.

Building Skills for Better Communication

Improving your ability to identify and communicate needs is an ongoing process:

• Practice regularly: Make discussing needs and wants a normal part of your relationship conversations.
• Seek feedback: Ask your partners how they perceive your communication and be open to improving.
• Learn from others: Engage with resources like books, podcasts, or support groups focused on non-monogamous relationships.
• Be patient with yourself: Developing these skills takes time, especially if you didn't grow up with healthy communication models.

Remember, the goal isn't perfection but progress. By continually working on identifying, communicating, and negotiating your needs, you'll be better equipped to create fulfilling non-monogamous relationships that truly meet your desires and expectations. Listen to Playing with Fire episode 160 to hear more details about getting your needs met. 

Embracing the complexity of non-monogamy means acknowledging that getting your needs met isn't always straightforward. It requires ongoing effort, self-reflection, and open communication. But with practice and patience, you can create relationships that are deeply satisfying and aligned with your authentic self.

Episode 160 Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated, and may contain some errors.

Ken Hamilton
Hi there,

Joli Hamilton
Hey, what are we talking about?

Ken Hamilton
I would like to talk today about something I hear people talk about in the year of opening all the time, this comes up a lot. How do I how do I, how do I get my needs met? Like, what? And it comes up in all phases of opening up? It does. Right. So this is a good topic.

Joli Hamilton
This is a great topic. And I think you're, you're onto something. So I hear people talk about getting their needs met. It's actually something that I start hearing, often when somebody is interacting with me, like on social media, just They're popping into my DMs to ask a question, or we're in a connect call, because of thinking about joining the year of opening, but they're not sure. I start hearing from people that what, either, like, hey, you know what, I realized that I can't get all my needs met and my current situation, so thinking about opening up as a way to do that. But I also hear about how just because we open up doesn't mean we get any better at figuring out how to get our needs met, it does not automatically happen. If you were struggling before, this will not automatically result in knowing how or even being able to identify what your needs are.

Ken Hamilton
I've been open for a really long time. And I'm starting to maybe get a handle on the beginnings of how to identify my needs well enough to then communicate them well enough to maybe figuring out how to get them met. So it's not simple. It's not like, oh, I'll just put myself out there and my needs will magically get met. Didn't work.

Joli Hamilton
Well, let's start at the top, then I mean, then, the number one hindrance for any of us getting our needs met is identifying what our needs are. And let's maybe broaden this, it's not just about needs, like, needs, from my perspective are. They're fairly high level, they're fairly vague, they can be met in multiple ways. So you can have needs and you can have once and your wants, are these more specific ways that you want your needs to be met? Right. So that's how I differentiate between a need and a want. So if I have a need, say, to feel my partner is supportive of me, well, how that I might have a whole bunch of wants around how that might look how I might feel that how I might receive not feeling. But identifying needs is tricky. And the more I work with this, the more I become aware of that we all we all need so much. We like we all have a lot of really core needs for connection for love for. So like so much. I barely even know how to talk about it without being soldiers generalist that it feels like it loses a bit of meaning. Yeah.

Ken Hamilton
Okay. So so where do we go? So needs very vague. So how

Joli Hamilton
I think of needs is vague, because I'm thinking about, you know, I have a need for safety. I have a need for trust, I have a need to feel valued. I have a need to feel a level of protected or hell yeah. So yeah, I

Ken Hamilton
mean, I think of it is like, well, I need food. But I want a pizza. Could be any number of things. Now I want a pizza. Oh, by the way, I shouldn't have said that.

Joli Hamilton
Okay, but also, okay, let's actually, let's actually back out a little bit further, even because something that's come up recently where there was there's somebody in a cohort who graduated very recently. And there was something that she pointed out, she struggled a lot. This person came in very willing and excited even to learn about opening up. But not knowing what, how to identify any needs. And in fact, in early weeks was very like, who I didn't know what I don't actually believe I get to have needs, like there seems to be a core theme. And here of like, no, no, we don't have needs, we meet other people's needs. So over the course of the year, something that stood out to me as she started identifying her likes, like there's another piece to this puzzle, because we have needs, and we have wants that are the way that we want our needs to be met, but just being able to identify what you like, and and then be able to name what it is you like about that. That's a really powerful tool. It's a really powerful tool to go from. This is what I like. Okay, now I can identify what I like. And now here's what I like about that. Because so often I see people struggling with the vocabulary to actually describe what they they mean, and then their partners wind up feeling overwhelmed, or just like, I can't how how do I meet that need? How do I how do I help you feel safe? If you can't tell me what that looks like? Or how do I

Ken Hamilton
know that I totally like, Okay, how I would like to feel safe. I wouldn't know where to begin. I mean, I would start with what I what helps me feel safe. And I'd be trying to start giving you that might have nothing to do with how you feel safe. Right? So how do we how do we close that gap?

Joli Hamilton
Well, you know, I was reading an article, actually, just this week, it was from a great writer, I really, really respect a quite a bit I've been reading Dan shippers writing. He has a podcast called How to use chat GPT, I happen to like, tech shows. And he also does a bunch of writing. And he was talking about, oh, gosh, like, learning to name what you like about something by really getting close to the sensory experience of it, I'm going to the the you know, I'll put a link to the essay in the show notes. But it was really cool, because he was talking about how he's talking about how he was, you know, in the dark, on bottling spices and smelling them and then trying to identify what the smell was. So this is like he didn't know, but he's uncapped something and he smells it. And he's like, chili powder. And then he caps it again. And he looks Oh, it was actually cumin. He started putting in the interesting thing about this article was, I had never heard this before. But like the olfactory bulb, the bundle of nerves that are the olfactory bulb, they don't have language. Like that's not what they're for. They're for this recognition that happens on a visceral sense. So putting language to the sense, like, totally opens up your sensory vocabulary. So this is what people are doing when they're smelling wine, or, or tasting something. And they're talking about all the notes, they've learned to put words to what they like about the thing. And I loved this article, because it seems so applicable to relationships. He wasn't talking about relationships at all, but Okay,

Ken Hamilton
so you. So if I'm understanding you, I would if I could refine my, my understanding of my likes, by paying attention to like, my, the way my body takes in the experience?

Joli Hamilton
Well, yeah, I mean, more attention, but also putting words to it. And quite literally putting words to it. And this is something you and I could work on a lot more. I mean, we do work on it. But I, for I make meaning by applying words, as much as I can like that is a primary tool that I use. But you have often really embraced being in the moment and sensation, early days

Ken Hamilton
of our relationship. You're like, well, how are you going to be you're not? How are you going to talk about talk to me about this? I got no words for this. And early. I was like, No, I'm not going to use words for these things, which the thing about that is it is a very isolating maneuver. Because if I can't share with you using words, I'm alone in it.

Joli Hamilton
Right. And that was how I experienced it was I was coming into I was trying to relate to you. And let's make this real practical. We were just talking about how we wanted to be touched. So we had started having sex. And it was very clear to me, correct me if I'm wrong, but we were both enjoying it quite a lot.

Ken Hamilton
We were that I was enjoying it. My impression of you. I certainly thought you were enjoying it seemed to me that you were

Joli Hamilton
um, and it's it was so challenging for me to figure out how though to dial it in because I was very aware that we still we were new to each other we didn't know each other's bodies. And it seemed like there was a well, all of the people I had had sex with up until you there was a blockage around using words to describe what you want it to actually give me a really a rich description of suck harder here. Lick here gently. Like I'm I'm getting really really practical like I wasn't looking for fancy words. But clarity around how was how does that feel to you like that and you were struggling? I remember it being this enormous struggle that I mean, there is still a struggle to this day at times too. describe anything more than I think you said to me last night, you said, what you're doing right now feels really, really good. And I remember feeling that when I was first learning to touch myself. And I didn't know what was going to happen exactly. But I knew that my COC wanted something. And it felt very intense. But I didn't know exactly what was going to happen

Ken Hamilton
and listening to you say this. I'm like, you're gonna get to a point soon. Like, okay, there isn't actually know what I mean to say. All of those words that I used, didn't actually communicate to you anything that you could really take in? Well,

Joli Hamilton
I have learned to translate well, yeah. But that's a lot of work to ask you to do. So I've learned to translate that because I know that you struggle to actually name that sensation. And we've talked about this quite a bit. You're like, I don't know. I don't know what it is about what you're doing. That feels good right now.

Ken Hamilton
Oh, this is great. This is a Today I learned kind of thing. Like I hear you talking about this. And all right. So the more the the more vocabulary I have to describe what not just what's good and bad about my experience. But how it got there, like, what are the things? You know, what, what exactly were you doing with your tongue right then, right? And I remember, like, early on, when you were like telling me, I'm like, I can't tell like I like that's good. And I can't seem to get the resolution of sensory processing to say, oh, okay, you're doing this with your tongue do that, you know, keep doing this thing. It would just be odd like that good. Like that. Please do more.

Joli Hamilton
Well, that is actually exactly where we started. Oh, yeah. not overstating it. We did, we did start calling you org for a while, because we talked about how there seems to be a lack of granularity, which is so interesting to me, because you are so much more in your body, then I tend to be like on a day to day minute to minute experience. You're so much more present, but

Ken Hamilton
so much more present, that I don't talk about it. And I don't, and you never

Joli Hamilton
get the words. Yeah, make up the words. That's actually the key. Make up the words. Yeah, it doesn't actually matter what words you use. So you started using a word that did work for me, you, you would just say what you're doing that phrase right there who mean to start looking. So I would start identifying like, oh, what I'm doing right now. And I just by tone of voice you didn't, it didn't even really matter exactly what you said, After that by tone of voice, I could tell whether it was a thumbs up or a thumbs down. And if it was neutral, you probably weren't saying anything at all. And this is part of the the beauty of having a relationship with more than one individual is I get to have a relationship with you, where I experience you. Sharing as best you can, like what you like about this, and then I have sex with other people. And they they talk about their bodies and what they're experiencing what they like differently. Right? They have a different vocabulary. And,

Ken Hamilton
and so yeah, so. So we we started talking about needs, and now we're into wants and likes. So I went to the vocabulary to to, to communicate them to identify for myself and then communicate,

Joli Hamilton
because the thing I see missing most frequently is what are what's the vocabulary for this week, I started giving people a list, a literal list of here are some attachment needs that you might have put these in priority order. Dave Cooley was on the show. And he talks about exactly that, put put those in order. What are what are your top priorities for attachment needs, in this context in this relationship? And that helps. Because when I just say to people, like so what do you need? The number of people who have been able to just state what they need very low, and especially if not given some priming ideas of like, well, what, what can I say about what I need? And this gets us into big trouble, because then we're in a relationship and we say we want to get our needs met. And Instagram has told us all now that we should get our needs met in our relationships, which is like cool. But what does that mean if you don't even know what your needs are? Or how to name them? And if you can't put vocabulary to them, then how are they going to get met? And even more interestingly, how will you even know? And will you know when they're met? Right, cuz it winds up being this ineffable thing, like, I'll just know, because I'll feel good.

Ken Hamilton
And here's the thing that like, Yes, I definitely spent a lot of time relating like that. And I'm not. And you know, to some extent it was consensual and early relationships where Yeah, we just didn't talk about it. And so yep, we're not going to talk about our needs. So we're just going to detect them. And you just said, Well, when I feel good, yeah, that's one way you know what the other way of determining a need is, when you start to feel resentment when you don't get it. That's a dicey game to play to use resentment as the tool to figure out what you need out of your relationship. It's kind of a destructive, it's problematic approach to it.

Joli Hamilton
Well, because often what happens is we start manipulating each other, then it also if I can't name it, you name it. Well, I may unconsciously, like not not in a conscious, I am going to manipulate this person into meeting my needs, in a way that's that is unconscious, and not clearly thought out, but changes the circumstance so that I will get my needs met. So I'm going back to our sex life. Welcome back. So you couldn't describe what you liked about getting a blowjob early on? Yeah. And you couldn't use the word blow job? Or is that true words? I suppose that's two words. You couldn't use that phrase?

Ken Hamilton
I'm not sure. Would you capitalize the B and the J? I don't know. So

Joli Hamilton
we were we were hurting for lack of vocabulary, you were struggling with words with putting words to it. I mean, for the longest time, interacting sexually was more you would use like the words fooling around. And that's about as far as we could go. And so I had to figure out what to do with that, because I didn't want to manipulate you. But if I could go back and tell that girl and call her a girl, cuz she was she was not acting like a woman, much of the time, I would tell her that what he's doing right now is manipulative, but it is not. It is not intentionally harmful. And so somebody's going to have to break this cycle, somebody's gonna have to break this pattern. And I think I did get it. But it took me like, five years to really get through to

Ken Hamilton
you. You started working on it fairly quickly. Well,

Joli Hamilton
I started trying to get you to talk to me. Yep. And I'd already been married to somebody who didn't want to talk in bed. I didn't want to repeat that with any partners. Which Good job.

Ken Hamilton
Good job counteracting, working against the shame that I that I brought into my sexual relationship. And there, which is one of the reasons I wouldn't say any of the words, all my own stuff, right? And you were like, Hey, let's talk about I'm like, that's a thing we can do.

Joli Hamilton
Anything we need, anything we want. Anything we like, can be tied up to shame tied tightly to shame. And, in fact, I think for most of us they are because most of us have some hang ups around being either too much too needy, not good enough. Not enough to deserve this. Like there's a million different, like core beliefs we can have kicking around in there again, unconsciously, we're not thinking to ourselves, like, Yeah, I'm, I'm a piece of crap, and I don't deserve anything. No, it's our unconscious stuff. And I noticed that you started manipulating me to get me to provide to you what you actually wanted. So you didn't know how to describe what you wanted from a blowjob. I was asking you too. I was inviting you to help me understand how exactly you like this. Because I've had plenty of penises in my mouth. They all want something different. There is a there's a pattern, but like there's uniqueness. Trying to figure that out without you telling me was not ideal. But then I started noticing that you were you were telling me you just wouldn't use words. You were angling your body in certain ways. You were touching my body in certain ways. You there were there were a million different subtle cues.

Ken Hamilton
That's a lot of work to do. That's a lot of work to ask you to do.

Joli Hamilton
And it was worth it. And the thing is, I'm sure that I did the same in other areas.

Ken Hamilton
Okay, so as humans, our communication runs on multiple levels all the time. There's verbal, there's facial expressions, there's physical cues of various kinds. And when we get into the physical We are interacting directly physically interacting, like with sex. Now we have another, another communication pipeline. And I just use that one, instead of one that can be much more effective and efficient,

Joli Hamilton
and less coercive and less coercive

Ken Hamilton
consent, I can't do the things that I do to try to manipulate you because you have to interpret what I'm doing. And that may not even be accurate. So yeah,

Joli Hamilton
and in the scenario, we were in back then I felt empowered to question and push you only up to a certain degree, we had a massive power imbalance. We've talked about that on the show before, the power imbalance was really, really severe. And so I didn't feel the way I do, like now when somebody won't communicate with me. It's not a problem that I'm unwilling to solve. Right, then, in other words, I'm not going to engage with someone sexually, or even in a friendship, like in a platonic exchange, if they are if I sense that they are trying to get me to meet their needs without talking about them. And some of that's just my own trauma recovery. I'm doing my work and saying, Hey, that's not gonna work for me anymore. I don't, I'm not willing to do that. I want to actually actively negotiate about our needs, wants desires, all that. Okay,

Ken Hamilton
this is, wow, this is awesome. So getting our needs met. Means Yes. In investigating ourselves to find out what our needs and wants and likes are. And yeah, I love the the list of needs a good a good list is a good starting point, rather than just trying to imagine it up out of nowhere. And we can do the same thing with with a wants and likes. I mean, there's the yes no list. Nice. There's actually there's no yes,

Joli Hamilton
no maybe lists, you can do it. You can also do it with any time you go to the Cheesecake Factory. That is just a yes, no, maybe list that goes on for pages. I mean, we are offered the opportunity to identify our ones all the time.

Ken Hamilton
And once we do the having the vocabulary to communicate them is a really important next step.

Joli Hamilton
So let me add that there is an element of of challenge happening inside, like I feel myself feeling challenged, like, how do I help everyone listening understand that this isn't just about sex, sex as a sex is a place where I see it happen all the time, I see the layers of shame. It's like a croissant of shame, right? Like we layer that butter in. And it's just everywhere. But there's another, there's like, there would be like, a whole other conversation if we were talking about the needs, wants and likes and we took sex out of it. I feel like there would be this other layer of Yeah, but you know, relationship. My needs are just supposed to be met. Ah, there's a level of, like, who's responsible exactly for meeting my needs. And we talk a lot about being an active negotiation. Like, which means I need to Yes, identify what my needs wants, what my where my boundaries are, what my limits are, what my bottom line requirements are. The homework assignment, the primary one is for you to do your identification and learn Yes, how to communicate about that. And then there's another layer of like, oh, I have to I also have to figure out who's responsible for this because if I am responsible for meeting my needs, what my needs are relational. If my need is relational, like I have a need to experience a trusting relationship like to experience being able to trust someone being able to trust them to show up when they say they will do what they say they'll do and to make amends or, and hold themselves accountable when they don't. And that's not about sex, though it will impact our sex life and can show up in sacks but that need I like I can't meet it myself. It is literally it happens is in the relating between us Drinking? Yes. And so whose responsibility is it? To meet that need, because also, someone else can't meet that need for me. And this is where the phrase, I want someone to make me feel like I want them to make me feel safe. I want them to make me feel like I like I can trust them. And it's like, it's a tricky, nuanced idea here to say, how do we how do I make you feel that and it's because it's not you. And it's not me. It's a we have to create this in our little micro community here. And I can't do it alone. You can't do it alone. It happens in the space between us. Which makes sense. But I think also gets people into trouble because it in any given moment, I can then push off the responsibility me like you're not meeting my needs, or I can take too much responsibility. me like, See, my needs are too much. It's like, I can't I can't communicate them. Or you might find yourself now in a story in your head like, yeah, see, I'm not I'm not good enough. I don't deserve to have the sexual interaction with you. Because I want I'm not able to communicate it the right like, yeah. So it's not like a cut and dry. How do I get my needs met? It's a, it's going to be an ongoing this like, unfolding of myself and showing myself to you, and having you learn how to read who I am, and be willing to participate in that. Right.

Ken Hamilton
So this is the that that dance of a relationship where you're not? You're not? You're not telling me this is this is how things need to be that's like a different set of things. This is how do we negotiate and work through to a place where we're getting what we want out of the relationship? And how

Joli Hamilton
are we co creating? How do we create actually one and

Ken Hamilton
so so what do you tell people? What if someone, if if someone or somebody comes to you, somebody's comes to you? And they're like, Okay, so in this relationship, I think I have a sense of what I want. I do now. Like, okay, great. So and we've even talked together like these people in this relationship, like, we think we have an idea of what we're looking for. What's the next step? Well,

Joli Hamilton
the first thing you said, I think, is actually really important that in the context of that relationship, because I'm not sure we should ever take needs and wants and likes out of context. Right? So in the context of this relationship, and context includes time. So in this context, in this phase, you know, we think we have some ideas. Well, I think at that point, we're entering into some really profound discussions, like, what kind of relationship is this? What is the purpose of this relationship? And one of I love that question. I think question I assign it pretty early on. And it when people are working with me privately, we talk about what is the purpose of relationship for you as an individual. And then for each in each relationship that you have? What is the purpose of this relationship, and that relationship might be between you and one other person, but it might also be I mean, like, our family has a collective relationship. Also, right. And there's a whole bunch of us here, and we co create that and figuring out what the purpose of the relationship is, can help us understand how we're even going to negotiate for all these various needs all these various, that may be contradictory at times, they may actually be at odds. So if I know what the purpose the overall purpose that can help. But you know, earlier, I mentioned attachment needs. And one of the things I see happening right now is a dialogue around attachment needs. That seems to be missing a piece, the really important piece of the puzzle. We're going to do a another episode on attachment and what right now I think it's worth saying that we really need to consent to be in a in a relationship and if we see people as need fulfilling,

Ken Hamilton
that's where I Yeah, that's what I was getting. Yeah. Okay. So purpose is to

Joli Hamilton
fulfill my needs. My like my attachment needs, have they actually consented to that. And I want to actually I will, I'll table most of that discussion because I think it's an important One piece of the puzzle. And I want to get into all about attachment theory and my thoughts on it. But are you in an attachment based relationship? Because if you're talking about meeting attachment needs, with someone who is not available to meet attachment needs, then you may be living in kind of a fantasy of the relationship. And that's tricky because that, you know, we can always walk away from the relationships that we're in as cleanly and easily as we would like. But if, but frequently, I see people not having actually negotiated for what this relationship is for. And whether we're actually going to be meeting like, just because I have a need doesn't mean you're obligated to meet it. So if I have a need to feel safe, I mean, it's, let's like, let's drill down into that. So yes, I would like to feel safe around you. So I was dating somebody last summer, who our first several dates were great, I felt very safe around them very safe. I was super excited, in fact, because I felt very, very safe. And then we had a particular date where there was a consent violation. And it it snapped me in the focus of like, oh, right, we haven't actually negotiated about what it means to be safe for each other. Like we had had safer sex conversations. We had had kink conversations. And we had had some relational boundaries, like availability conversations. And still, that was not enough. So we've had all of those conversations, it was still not enough for me to really come face to face with the fact that this person was not available to meet my need for safety, because the consent violation was actually handled pretty well. Like, yep, like, okay, there was like a half step over a line. I called him on it. He, he's, he pulled himself together, like, Okay, wait, what the ability to repair afterward is what would have really created safety in the relationship. So in the context of that, that sexual scenario, safety was created, and I felt fine enough for that. But it wasn't enough to meet my overall need for how I relate to someone in a, a full on relationship. And then I realized, oh, this person probably wasn't available for that, but didn't know what to tell me.

Ken Hamilton
I didn't know what to tell you. And Alright, so what I'm hearing you say, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you. So you go into a relationship with your own personal needs, wants likes, etc. And those can inform like your, your bottom line requirements, for sure. Because those are about you. Right? And then when, with that, you know, cleared up as best as possible, you talk about them, you share them, those are things those bottom line requirements are things you share, you don't really negotiate about them. But then there's the relational needs, wants and desires. Okay, so we're, what are we doing together here? Now we start a negotiation, because there's, there's give and take, and are we reconfiguration, to see how much we can each get and give to each other. But that requires the conversation and the vocabulary and shared vocabulary, which now if you're starting a new relationship, you have a whole other thing? Well,

Joli Hamilton
actually, at any point, you have a whole thing we have to keep creating, especially if we're Shifting Paradigms to continually shared meaning what does it mean to be special to someone? What does it mean to be valued? We might have to upgrade our whole idea of what it means to be special. If we're shifting away from exclusivity as being the way we show someone they're special. Yeah. To Oh, how will I make them feel special? How will I help them feel special? How will I? Oh, yeah,

Ken Hamilton
what are the verbs I use? I'm confused. I've, I've hit I've been in those conversations, like, I will make help get you. I don't know what to say. Okay, I've run out of the words. But, but, but you do have to start somewhere. So you start having the conversation and then you talk about the conversation if you need to, to say I don't want to. I don't want to talk about how you will make me feel this thing. Let's change that so well, or the negotiation.

Joli Hamilton
Right? So in a negotiation, we're going to use words, words are imperfect. And this is actually why I also ask people to actually write stuff down and I get so much pushback about writing stuff down. But what I learned while I went to school, like I studied psychology for 13 years straight in graduate school and the thing I learned that was not about psychology at all, but it's super important to my life is writing is thinking Writing is thinking. So as I write things down, I'm actually thinking through what are my needs? What how do I articulate those needs? And how do I make them legible to myself first so that I can communicate them? And then I think the hardest part for me is, how do I receive a no, from someone because like I said earlier, just because I have a need doesn't mean someone is obligated to fulfill it. So you, you did not have a need for a blow job. I believe you had a need for connection, closeness and sexual gratification. I believe those were your needs. And I'm gonna put sexual gratification on there. Because I actually think it's completely reasonable to say, this is a need for me. And I have I have this as a need, okay. You, I wasn't obligated to fulfill those needs. With the negotiation required us to come up with language that would allow you to ask me for what you wanted. Allow me to understand what you wanted. And for us to both be able to stay and receive a graceful? No, I'm not available for that. No, I don't have that for you. Or, Yes, I have something similar. Yes, yes. And I would shifted, I need to do it this way, or give you this instead. And so we can make it kind of funny and adorable talking about blowjobs. But when we're talking about like creating safety with each other, feeling attuned to each other emotionally, being able to trust one another. The same exact skills apply. And this is not it. I just don't think it's very easy. I think that we're trying to get to individual psyches, and centers of consciousness to align and create co create meaning that will allow us to Yeah, literally do the thing that we call living a life and not just sleepwalking through it. So this all sounds hard. Yeah. I think it is hard. It's quite a bit of effort.

Ken Hamilton
Well, yeah. In there's, yeah, so me and you, we talk about these things, and we negotiate, we talk and we have imagined and we write, and that's just the two of us now bring in a third or fourth, we still have to deal with our particular dyad as I would for anybody else. Because they're fun, then they'll start for whatever group you have now, but there will there'll be me and you and me and him. And then you and him, and then the three of us together. So

Joli Hamilton
even if we're not all relating, yeah, it's still the dynamic of like, okay, but we all interact with each other systems. It reminds me of that game, we were playing with the kids where we'd toss a ball of yarn around and everybody be left holding the yarn and like, okay, yeah, you move, move your move your right arm move one of you move one right arm, oh, wait, a whole bunch of us felt it. Yeah, we're all going to feel this stuff. And that's something I see. I see there. A fair number of people. And I saw you do this want to make the whole system simpler by by not talking about? Yeah, and one likes rather than? And I don't think I'm wrong here. I think you actually imagined you could just not have them. Like, it's not like, I'm just not going to tell you like no, I will just I will just stop them down. And cause a problem will simplify the system because you had equated simple with good to the in that in that container. And I see people do that all the time. And it's And then sometimes, and somebody just said this in cohort last week. They said, I'm awake. I'm awake. I'm in my late 50s. And I'm, I'm, oh, I'm awake. Now. It's there is no timeline for this. I mean, you were doing this work in your mid 40s. You were just starting to and

Ken Hamilton
that is the same language I use to by the way, felt like I was waking up. So

Joli Hamilton
waking up to your own needs, waking up to being able to articulate them waking up to being able to co create a context where we can help you get those needs met and flip all that because there's more than one person in every relationship. Yeah, I don't I don't think there's anything in my life that I do that is more meaningful to me, though, then than that. And that's true in every relationship that I have the relationships that I had have with my children, the relationships that I had with my now gone parents, I like my friendships. And not everybody's available for the kind of relating that goes this deep. So I remember trying to negotiate about getting needs met with my father, and he just wouldn't he stopped, he just stopped being available for those conversations, like 12 years before I needed him to. And it was really hard. And I had a friend who I specifically asked to work on our attachment based relationship, because we're, I mean, we're, she was in my will, it was like, it was a whole thing. And, and the answer was no. And so, learning to receive the known gracefully and to actually believe the person, if someone's not willing to be in the negotiating and negotiating isn't just about yes or no, but about how, yep, how do we do this together,

Ken Hamilton
which, and this, this goes back to what you said about just because you have a need, it puts no obligation on anyone to meet it.

Joli Hamilton
So I'm a big fan of requests are welcome. And we got to be gentle about what we expect to have happen. So

Ken Hamilton
we've talked about a lot of a lot of different things got really, I would into the edit the details and the weeds, we were in the weeds of what it is to understand and, and work with our needs, wants desires likes, in the context of a relationship. And the the through line through all of it is the talking the communication. The alternative is manipulation is trying to coerce and manipulate into getting needs met from people that may or may not be present for it.

Joli Hamilton
And a lot of people don't love this. I mean, that's, that's what people pleasing is, yep. I mean, you never looked like a coercive. You looked like a kind, generous, caring person. Who was people pleasing to get me to do things. Yeah, the way that you feel a certain

Ken Hamilton
way I have, I have feelings of my particular kind of people pleasing. Because I it's, that's a phrase that I picked up. But in fact, what it was was people manipulating this, that's what I did. I wasn't actually trying to please people trying to get them to do what I wanted. And that might have looked like, you know, being nice to me or being friendly to me, but I wasn't just asking, I was trying to manipulate. But it's and and this is what I have learned is okay. So instead of doing that, I would like to be talking to people and saying, This is what I like, what do you like? What do you need? How are we going to do this? Do you want to do this?

Joli Hamilton
Can I just say that? It makes perfect sense to me that you would learn to manipulate without talking? It was just as it was just a strategy. It was an it was an unhelpful strategy. But it makes perfect sense to me that given all the stuff that I know about how you grew up, and you had a happy childhood? Oh, yeah. But given like the way talking?

Ken Hamilton
Yeah, I mean, just broad strokes. I had a happy childhood in a house where people hardly ever talked about anything of any of relationships, not at all. And beyond that, not stuff of any particular import. So yeah, I just learned that the strategy was you don't talk about it. And

Joli Hamilton
you were a youngest child. And then your dad was sick. And so there were other things going on, and stuff happened and like I can understand why you would have learned to suppress as many needs as you could. And then to quietly urge you could Yes, I'm thinking all a story here. Certainly you could. And I like it always felt to me very obvious that you were coming from a place of not knowing, yeah, not knowing how to do it any other way because you never did it unkindly. You just were terribly unkind. Wasn't kind it was it was like you were so nice. And you were so gentle. And you never I know. It's She had no bad intention. But the impact,

Ken Hamilton
the impact was always positive or relational point of view. And it

Joli Hamilton
didn't get you what you want. Oh, no, no, that's

Ken Hamilton
the thing. So,

Joli Hamilton
like, stay with that for a second. Oh, I

Ken Hamilton
was Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead.

Joli Hamilton
It like so in all that manipulation? You said a bunch of times early on in this conversation that, that sounds like a lot of work for you. Yeah, wasn't it a shit ton of work for you? Like to constantly be trying to, oh, my God, and like to get like, let me just see if I can make it. And all and not

Ken Hamilton
new mentioned that I had a, I had made a virtue of simplicity. I'd had like, that's a goal. It is not simple to do that to be like trying to corral people into you know, that's not simple. Yeah.

Joli Hamilton
So the proverbial it was Swan

Ken Hamilton
paddling, paddling like mad. I know, it was a strategy that I learned and never reviewed to find out if it was actually working for me, or the people around me. So yeah, I don't vilify myself for, for all the manipulation, I look at it, it's like that was a strategy, then I like you, I can see where it came from. But no, it stopped working. So it must have served a purpose because I learned it. But then the context changed. And it didn't work in those contexts. And it certainly didn't work in the context of my relationship with you. And it did not work for my relationship with my children. So yeah. And the the communication is how I have gotten. Well, I have found that the direct communication has been a far more effective strategy, both for getting my needs met, and for relating to other people without causing harm.

Joli Hamilton
Well, yeah, because if you are, you're actually engaging in consensual relating, then yeah, and non manipulative. And I give you a lot of credit for being able to name it now. And I just want to say, it's not like just because I was talking all the time. It's not like I wasn't also manipulating you. There were all these things that I didn't know how to talk about, we could do a whole episode on how the, like, all the complication, and confusion around talking about money, because that was the big thing I struggled to talk about. So we can flip this, this dialogue around on another episode and talk about how even though I was I looked like I was straight shooting, and I was doing all the things where I was caught by my complex, I was equally manipulative, and equally destructive to our actual being in a consensual relationship. It's just that I think stories about blowjobs are more fun. They are

Ken Hamilton
I have one more self centered thing to say, which is that you mentioned about like flipping this so that we talked about your, your strategies. But that doesn't feel like flipping to me actually. Because when I was when manipulation, people pleasing, whatever you want to call it was my core strategy, it would absolutely feel like flipping it would feel like well, we've just been I don't know, like attacking me or no, this is actually this is the strategy of communication. I don't feel harmed by this. This is the thing that I prefer to do now, which is to actually talk about the things that really happened and so if you want in on that from your side cool, but it's not there's nothing being flipped this is just the conversation we're having

Joli Hamilton
fair would be so proud wouldn't you though? Like I know I really think so. I can't imagine the version of you not just from 15 years ago but even from five years ago being able to sit in the in the in the potential for shame that you go feel from so many different directions and being centered in that conversation that way and you're just being you your noses and even read you're not no I'm not even have the shame sweat from here.

Ken Hamilton
Nope, nothing night. Because when I get when I feel shame, instantly the whole room goes up like 10 degrees. I just got heat the place. That's real. No, that's not what's going on. Because I 100% believe this and this is this is like a throwback to earlier seasons, when I would sign off every episode with keep talking to each other. And I mean, that's that's, that's the technology that has allowed you and I and me and pretty much everybody that I've related to to actually relate and not just do this, this separate Dance with like a wall between us

Joli Hamilton
I don't like that dance either I don't like that love you This is great