How To Stop Being 'Needy' In Romantic Relationships

Super helpful, thank you. I'm realizing in my 30s how emotionally immature I've been- and it's bringing up a lot of shame. I was raised by narcisstic parents and not really taught emotional regulation, boundaries, etc. & realizing the level of entitlement I've felt towards others to regulate me, is scary. I'm having to teach myself things I should've been taught as a child, and your channel is super illuminating.

" opposite of needines is not our need being met, but just being present with whatever is happening in a given moment " ❤️

Letting the past become a happy memory instead of a source of pain and loss in the present - what a concept! Thanks for talking about that process.

Girl. Every issue I’ve ever had. You’ve touched on

Needing more from someone than they can give is an issue, yes. But ‘needy’ is a term that can be used by an avoidant to push someone away or to protect themselves from engulfment. It can also be used by narcissistic people to control or shame someone who simply wants human connection. Having said that, I watched all of the video and appreciate it. I have long worked at trying to heal my anxious attachment. Perspectives like yours are helping me understand and move in that direction.

My partner became my ex when he called me needy and lazy, about ten to twenty times in a row. I learned after going into a good and respectful relationship that my level of need was normal. Some people are just jerks.

This channel is one of my favorites, makes me feel uncomfortable as heck but it helps me with navigating emotions in a better way.

The best advice I've ever heard from a therapist around having your needs met is to begin meeting your needs yourself. You cant meet all your needs 100% yourself but meeting them as much as you can prevents you from going into distress. And that's key because if you stop being distressed you won't feel like you're going to die if someone doesn't answer your text or doesn't follow through with plans. Doing an inventory of what all my needs are and finding ways to meet them changed my life. It gave me room to develop nervous system capacity and settle down in my body❤

You are describing the exact situation I am in right now (friendship, not romantic). I was pretty much convinced I was the hurt party in the story, but watching your video made it clear to me that my expectations from the past were driving my resentment towards the friend. Thank you!

The candy bar analogy blew my mind. I feel like every relationship I dive into is with a chocolate bar, I know it’s horrible for me but I’m hungry and don’t want to cook. 😂

I find it much harder to self-regulate myself, when I'm in any kind of romantic relationship or even situationship than when I'm single. As soon as there's another person in my life, who I've been letting very close to myself, I kind of depend on that person for regulation when things go wrong. So I guess I'm actually able to sit with my feelings of unmet needs (which I do when being single, then I'm just fine with sometimes being unsatisfied). But suddenly, when the other person exists in my life, I easily feel needy. Funny thing that helped me to feel overall more contented within such a dynamic: I asked the guy, not to text each other anymore, besides when it's about specific informations, as when to meet where, etc. Suddenly I felt so much freedom! So the anxiousness and kind of neediness that came along with wondering all the time "did he text me now? Why not? Yesterday he already did at that time" went away. What I've learnt from that (as well as from my single example): It's not so much about the contact, connection, etc. itself, that gives me a good feeling. It's the short absent of wondering about when the next small gesture will arrive. The shirt absent if uncertainty, really. So, being in a state when every second there COULD occur some contact - but you never know - is a constant state of a lot of arousal, which switches from excitement to anxiety. So in my case, I think this is the state of feeling unwell, which I look for at the other person to end it (by waiting for them to contact me). But it's really a state, that actually wouldn't be there, if they weren't in my life at the first place (like smokers feel, when smoking, a relief from a feeling - the yearning for it - which wouldn't exist, if they wouldn't be smokers). I'm not saying "let's stop connecting to other people in order to never feel needing them", but the question is, how much power we give this specific kind of contact, to decide about our wellbeing

I really like the chocolate bar analogy! I’m very good at refraining from eating snacks during the day even if I’m starting to get hungry, because I know I will be eating something healthy for actual lunch/dinner — I need to apply this to when I feel romantically/emotionally hungry/panicked.

I'm a couple of months outside of a three year long relationship, and I've been grieving it so hard. I clicked on this video thinking I'd be learning how to be better in my next relationship, but what I got was a detailed gameplan on how to move past what I'm going through now. 😅 Wild how that works out sometimes.

Heidi I’m so appreciative of having come across this video. This feeling of neediness has been such a struggle for me and I felt so unprepared to handle it. I wanted to send this as a small thank you. For making content like this. You’ve directly impacted my life. I hope this small donation helps you continue to make this wonderful content.

Another banger of a video per usual, showing up exactly at the right time! Your ability to communicate potentially confusing/misunderstood concepts & ideas in such a clear, articulate & accessible way is greatly appreciated! I feel very grateful to you & your content. You've helped me more than you know. Thank you Heidi!

An additional point that I think is helpful to make is that when individuals feel like they are strongly in need of something, especially when there is any sense of panic, anxiety & these kinds of feelings associated with it, there is often an underlining deep rooted feeling of abandonment. This feeling of abandonment usually comes from childhood. Feelings of separation and not having one's needs met by a partner, friend or family member as an adult can trigger these feelings of abandonment. Separation occurs in different ways for different reasons within any relationship. (I am talking about every day life circumstances & not someone actually walking out of someone's life altogether). These feelings & fears of abandonment can feel terrifying. They may seem irrational to an outsider, but to the person experiencing them, this feels like a life or death situation. The person experiencing these feelings is feeling like they will not survive unless someone comes to their aid. It is a child's feelings in an adult body/soul/heart/psyche. Reexperiencing states of abandonment & separation from childhood can be acutely painful. This often happens in adult relationships when one or both individuals have not yet healed from these wounds. Anxiously attached and Avoidantly attached individuals usually have struggled with feelings of abandonment & separation. In addition to learning how to self-soothe & to tune into one's own needs & fulfill them, there is often serious healing that needs to take place around issues of abandonment & separation that have to be both cognitively & intuitively understood with a tremendous amount of compassion. Nurturing our own inner child or children in an ongoing way is essential in this healing process as well as having an evolving understanding of what's going on inside of us that causes our behavior, & that stirs up feelings & thoughts that may be challenging to understand or to shift out from.

I would add that a lot of times, what we are afraid of are not just the body sensations but the fixed meanings we have attached to it....ie: feeling sad or lonely means shame or unworthiness or chronic pain or never being loved in the future. I think the moment we question those meanings...we are more able to handle our body sensations without panicking

Wow when you talked about letting go everything seriously just clicked. I lived in a constant state of comparing my relationship to the past honeymoon phase (similar to your friend analogy), expecting it to be like that forever where all of my self-esteem and needs were met 25/7. Once the relationship matured after a couple years and was no longer like that I was upset, needy, unhappy and disappointed all the time blaming him for “changing” and not loving me anymore. I really needed to hear this THANK YOU

What is the difference between tolerating difficult emotions and simply depriving yourself of what you truly need? What's the difference between between being well-nourished and having a type of anorexia nervosa of life. What is the difference between tolerating difficult situations to the point it destroys you? I think that there's a very fine point where we get into anorexic thinking, not just eating.

I usually don't write comments on youtube. But I am watching your videos since a while and this now just maked me "click". Through the clarity of your words and the structured steps you were going through I finally can see and most importantly > sort out/feel < in this moment deeply my underlying emotions and why i am showing neediness in my relationships. Feeling this self connection right now, sitting with the intensity which already subsided mostly and experiencing "I can face it." makes me really grateful right now. Thank you so much Heidi for your work - please keep it up :)!