Why You Must Prioritize Your Emotional Needs in a Relationship

In his ebook Emotional Needs in Relationships, Mark Manson explains that there are “3 primary emotional motivators when it comes to sex, dating and relationships. These 3 motivators exist for everyone. How we meet them or don’t meet them determines the quality and duration of our interactions and relationships.” They are:

Status: feeling important or superior; feeling challenged.

Connection: feeling understood and appreciated; shared values and experiences.

Security: Feeling safe and reliable; feeling trust.

I’ve recently put this theory into context, and I have to say, it makes a lot of sense.

Imagine your hierarchy of emotional needs looks something like this:

• Connection (by a longshot)
• Security
• Status (like maybe 1%)

And you meet someone whose hierarchy looks like this:

• Status (by a longshot)
• Security
• Connection (like maybe 1%)

You don’t feel the connection with this person initially, but yet, they keep on pursuing you.

And here’s where the plot thickens…

After some time, you start to wonder if you should give this person a chance. After all, you’re well into your 30’s, you should probably settle down with someone, maybe create a family, and have more stability in your life….so you go into the relationship for Security, when that’s not your greatest emotional need.

(Spoiler; this isn’t going to end well.)

Here’s what could happen…

After Status has conquered you, being the challenge that you were, they’re going to continue to show you how important they are and how much you need them.

All 3 of these emotional needs can be healthy in their natural state, and can easily cross the fine line to unhealthy.

In fact, a Status person could escalate into having a full-on superiority complex. They’ll try and dominate you, making all decisions and showing no value for what you think or want, they’ll deem what’s important, not you, and they’ll see all of your pleas for connection and affection as just plain needy.

Because that’s what you’ve become now. Needy. This is what happens when Connection crosses the line to the unhealthy side.

And you’ll stay. You’ll stay because you’ve convinced yourself that you should focus more on Security, and this is what it means to be an adult.

Even though your heart deeply aches for Connection…

You tell yourself that wanting so much connection is child’s play….that now, more adult things matter like a bigger savings account, buying a house, having nice and expensive things, making investments, etc…(and yes, these things do matter!)

You become blinded to the fact that even though you have some of these external things that symbolize “security,” there is absolutely zero security happening on the inside.

On the inside, your world has become the epitome of insecurity.

You feel like shit nearly every single day. The relationship trudges through shit in nearly every moment. Your self-confidence is buried….by a big pile of shit.

SECURITY?? Seems like that plan has backfired, my darling.

There is no connection.

They’re in it to feel important…

You’re in it for something that deep down, isn’t your greatest emotional need…

What you really long for is Connection.

Honey, if they don’t even want to kiss you and prefer to jerk off to porn more often than to be intimate with you, it’s a clear sign this person has very little desire for connection.

And the physical pain and anxiety that you feel in response is your body’s way of trying to wake you up to your truth. You can’t throw your biggest emotional need out of first place and hope that nobody notices. You can’t outsmart your body, no matter how hard you try.

Again, according to this theory, all 3 emotional needs have their natural state and their negative side. Nobody is a better or worse person for the needs that they have in their natural state. (But I would be cautious of Status people over the age of 30.)

Putting it all together

• Relationships won’t work if you don’t claim your most important emotional need.
• They won’t work if you don’t prioritize that need.
• Relationships won’t work if you and your partner don’t communicate your emotional needs to each other.
• And they won’t work if you don’t make the effort to meet each other’s needs.

If you don’t want to make the effort to meet the other person’s needs, that’s not a problem. Just stay single. Forever.

Personally speaking, my best relationships have been with partners who prioritize the same emotional need as I do. But I would say, as long as there’s not too much of a discrepancy in the rankings, it could all work.

If the emotional needs are ranked quite differently, communication and a lot of effort (and respect!) would be critical here. But don’t try to fit a square peg in a round hole either. If it feels too anti-natural, let it go.

The real magic happens when you honor your needs. Then, and only then, will you give someone else the permission to do the same.