Marriage Advice: Build a Strong Bond with Emotional Desires

When I was a little girl, we used to play Hide the Thimble with my grandmother. The rule was you had to hide it “in plain sight.” A thimble hidden in plain sight is surprisingly hard to find! Especially if you put it against something silver-colored. The end of the T.V. antenna was my favorite spot.

In marriage, you also search for a prize that’s hidden in plain sight: emotional desires. Support for each other’s emotional desires is the key to what you long for in your relationship: closeness, understanding, and acceptance. And yet I’m sure you keep your desires, at least some of them, well hidden from your partner.

Concrete desires are important to your relationship, too. For example, if you want to lose 20 pounds, take a painting class, or get a raise, you want your partner’s understanding and support. But a concrete desire represents an emotional desire that’s even more important.

Usually, you pursue a concrete goal because you’re after a certain feeling. Think of that feeling as the ‘why’ of your concrete desire. Why do you want to lose 20 pounds? To feel more attractive, experience higher self-esteem and feel more in control of your life? When your partner understands the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’, and treats it with respect, you feel a strong connection.

I say emotional desires are in plain sight because they’re the fuel that drives you through your life. Say you agreed to be in a study that required you to write down what you were doing every time a beeper went off. You’d almost always be pursuing an emotional desire. Or maybe kicking yourself because you weren’t.

I’m writing this article for the alive feeling I get from creativity, the satisfaction of helping people have happier relationships, and let’s be frank, the pleasure of being recognized as an expert.

Pop quiz: What emotional desire are you pursuing right now while you read this article?

Another pop quiz: As you look forward to the next time you see your partner, are you aware of an emotional desire? Maybe to feel supported when you talk about how hard your project at work is? To feel a sense of adventure together when you go hiking on the weekend? Or to feel understood and safe when you tell him how he hurt your feelings last night?

Whatever your desire is, your partner probably understands it perfectly already, right? Yes, that is a joke. I know he doesn’t understand it! Because you don’t explain it. We start saying, “I want, I want-” from the time we learn to talk but now that we’re adults, it’s not so easy any more. We hide our desires, not just from our partners, but even from ourselves.

Why would we do that? Lots of children are taught it’s selfish to want things for themselves. After years of being schooled that way, people often have trouble even knowing what they want.

And voicing your wants can make you feel vulnerable. Unfulfilled desires can feel like a personal deficiency. They can make you feel weak, needy and lacking, when you want to be self-sufficient and successful. There’s always the possibility your partner will wound you by ignoring your desire, criticizing it or even taking advantage of you.

Saying, “I want” commonly brings up doubts about worthiness. “Who am I to ask for more help around the house? Maybe I’m being selfish. Maybe I don’t deserve more help because I’m not ________enough.” The blank is for the weak spot in your self esteem that is triggered by the situation at hand.

Yes, desires have a direct line to your self-esteem. The more valuable and deserving you feel, the easier it is to know what you want. And then to express it. On the other hand, it will be hard for you to voice a desire if it’s connected to an area where you feel insecure. You probably won’t think it through like that in the moment. You might just feel a sudden wave of anxiety, confusion or anger, all feelings that frequently come up when a person’s self-esteem is threatened.

It’s no wonder people keep their desires under wraps. And no surprise that people need gentleness to open up about them.

I think children delight us because they don’t have these doubts. They’re all about desire. That’s what makes them live with such intensity. They see something they want and they go for it. There’s no second guessing for a five-year-old!

My stepdaughter evaluates any activity according to how fun it is. “It was a good sleepover-it was fun.” Or, “Let’s not do that, it doesn’t sound like fun.” It’s bracing. Much more so than a debate about what’s expected, the right thing to do, or good for your health! Now that she’s almost 15, I can see other benchmarks like cool, popular creeping in. Not to the exclusion of fun, I hope.

Desires make your relationship come alive, too. The first step is to recognize your own desires. Think of something you want very much, you’re working toward, or that you’ve been trying to persuade your partner to do. Then ask, Why? Why is this goal so important to you? How will you feel when you have it?

Do the same for your partner. What is something he wants very much? Why does he want it? How do you think he is hoping to feel (whether he can put it into words or not)?

If you can start a conversation about them, that’s great. Just remember to keep it very safe.

When you bring your emotional desires out of hiding, you find your relationship has more juice. And when you genuinely try to help each other fulfill those desires, you feel supported at your core. You’re helping each other get satisfaction you seek out of life. You become irreplaceable to each other. To me, that’s when you really have a mate.