How Do I Know If I Am Feeling Love Or Neediness?

How Do I Know If I Am Feeling Love Or Neediness?

Most relationships start from some form of primary need.

A need to be loved.

A need for sex.

A need to be acknowledged.

A need to just have someone to complain to besides the same old people you normally complain to.

There is a difference between having a need and neediness.

Think about your last relationship and what your need was.

Why did you choose to date him?

What was he fulfilling in your life at the time that was lacking?

When you aren’t overly dependent on your partner to fulfill a certain need, it is much easier to feel love as opposed to neediness.

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The love that is felt is based on a much more layered experience you have been having with your partner, and not so much on how they are able to fulfill a particular need.

Again, most people start relationships based on some form of primary need.

Where this need becomes neediness is when the person is overly dependent on what they believe that need entails.

As you get to know someone romantically, you discover more about the person and in the process learn more about yourself.

When you remain stuck on the original need that your partner is satisfying without allowing your relationship to branch out into other healthy areas of discovery, this is where you have a higher tendency to be more likely to fall into neediness.

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When it is love, the original need you had isn’t so much in the forefront of your desires because there are so many more exhilarating aspects to your relationship.

Instead of being so overly focused on a certain need, you are looking at the relationship as a whole.

Let’s say you had an original need for love.

What tends to happen is, when you stay in this mode of thinking, you are more caught up in the idea of being loved than the complex layers of a relationship that enable love to blossom.

Questions that are just too narrow and superficial in scope become your prevalent thoughts.

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Did your partner make you happy that day?

Did you feel like they gave you attention?

Did they tell you how much they love you?

These are all very superficial aspects of love.

On a day where one or none of these are met, you become upset.

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You believe your partner isn’t showing you the love you want.

You lash out or sulk.

This is neediness to the umpteenth degree.

You are more stuck on the original need you had for getting into a relationship instead of taking into account all of the intricate complexities that are present in a relationship.

When you are feeling love, you have taken all those intricate complexities into account.

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It isn’t only about how you feel anymore.

It isn’t about whether your partner did or didn’t say they love you this morning.

Or whether your partner texted you a good morning and good night text.

Love entails so much more.

Whether you received that good morning text or not, your mind and body isn’t influenced by that.

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Instead, there is an overall understanding of what your relationship is about that now transcends solely focusing on the original need you had in getting into the relationship in the first place.

This is where the love feels genuine and unforced.

There is no freaking out over not receiving that good morning text or hearing him say he loves you at the end of a phone call you had today.

None of that even registers in your psyche.

An overarching sense of understanding of the intricacies of your relationship has created equilibrium in how you process external information.

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You aren’t quick to make judgments or feel any sort of way.

You just are.

This sentiment is security.

It’s just there.

This is when you know you are feeling love.

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You have gone about your activities without worry or anger.

When you meet him later that day or later that week for dinner, nothing is mentioned about the missed good morning text or omission of love when he last spoke to you on the phone.

Unequivocal love is in the air when you both see each other at the restaurant and there is absolutely no tension.

When you are feeling love, it comes from a sense of security.

When you are feeling neediness, it comes from a sense of worry.

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Even in a scenario where he did everything you needed him to do to show you that you are loved on that day, worry is still a major factor.

Sure, you received the good morning text and the mention of love at the end of the call, but what about tomorrow?

A feeling of neediness is always laced with a significant degree of anxiety.

What about the next time?

Whereas, a feeling of love is simply secure.

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When you love, you aren’t worried about what he will or won’t do the next time.

Your relationship has gone way beyond the original need to be loved and what you believed that entailed.

It has become far more complex.

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