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Unmet Needs

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 Theevent (original poster new member #85259) posted at 1:37 AM on Sunday, November 17th, 2024

I've been trying to process the idea of the unmet needs fallacy, in relationship to my situation. I usually journal things like this out, but this time I thought I would make a more generic story and see what you all thought of it. I took ideas from various places, including SI, and mashed them all together.

Thought this would help others process this idea. (Also feedback is appreciated smile )

Affairs and Unmet Needs

Often when an affair is revealed, the betrayed partner, dumbfounded, in shock, asks their beloved why they were betrayed. They ask what happened to cause this to occur, and if they are interested in reconciliation they ask what they can do to fix things now. They ask how they can prevent the straying spouse from leaving to make a life with their affair partner.

In most cases the straying partner is eventually able to come up with a list of things they expected from the relationship and were not getting. Needs they had that were going unmet. These unmet needs are often listed as the primary reason they looked elsewhere to fill the needs they were missing. These needs could be anything from behaviors they expected from the betrayed partner, feelings they weren't feeling, or things the betrayed partner did that angered them or pushed them away.

No matter what the needs were, the logic goes like this:

My needs were unmet -> this caused me to be unhappy in the relationship -> this unhappiness left me seeking those needs elsewhere -> those needs were filled by my affair partner.

Lets illustrate this in a story:

Imagine there are two people in a kitchen, the straying partner, and the betrayed partner. We will call them Bob, and Susan.

Bob is sitting at the table with an empty glass in his hand, and Susan is standing by the fridge. Bob asks Susan to get him something to drink. Susan opens the fridge, pulls out some milk, and fills Bobs glass up. Bob looks at the glass, apparently not satisfied, and all of the sudden the glass slips from his hand. It falls to the ground and shatters. Milk and glass flying everywhere. Confused, Susan asks why he dropped the glass. He responds with "you put the wrong thing in my glass. I wanted orange juice not milk. I was so disturbed by what you did that I accidentally lost my grasp on the glass and it slipped from my hand".

In this admittedly implausible story, the glass represents the unmet needs of the straying spouse. The milk represents the [unsuccessful] attempt of the betrayed spouse to fill those unmet needs. The mess on the floor represents the damage done to their relationship by an affair. The floor is slick, and littered with glass. Each step must be taken carefully while either leaving the room or staying to clean the mess up. This represents the danger that results from an affair no matter if reconciliation happens or not.

Bob is using his unmet need as the reason he was shocked into dropping the glass. For Bob, Susan caused him to break the glass. Even if it’s not 100% blame from Bob, Susan is still partially to blame.

Nearly all straying spouses arrive at this line of thinking one way or another after their affair is revealed. It's extremely common. This theme is also prevalent in nearly all of the affair recovery materials out there. People everywhere seem to believe it. All the way from famous authors down to couples therapists, family, friends, and nearly everyone in-between.

This idea is known as the unmet needs fallacy, and has serious problems. Its use is not only harmful to the betrayed partners who are subjected to it, but it's also counterproductive to healing for both partners.

In the story above there are several problems.

The first is that Bob never communicated his needs properly. Instead of clearly asking for a glass of orange juice, he asked for a drink and assumed Susan would know what he wanted to drink. Probably thinking something like: "It's obvious." Or "She should have known what I wanted, it's common knowledge!" Or "If she loved me she would have remembered I preferred orange juice and not milk and given that to me instead!", or "how many times do I need to tell her what I like to drink?". This poor communication is also extremely common in straying spouses. Often the betrayed partners only hear of these "unmet needs" after the affair is revealed.

The second problem is that the Bob didn't "accidentally" let the glass slip from his hand. Affairs at not accidents. Usually there is a fair amount of thought that goes into having one before hand. Bob dropped, and broke the glass on purpose.

The third problem is that Bob didn't communicate the seriousness of his needs. Susan is probably standing there thinking "oh it's just another normal day, and my love is asking for something. I'll give it to him and we can continue on with our day" completely unaware that Bob intends to break the glass on the floor (a metaphor for having an affair), and blame it on Susan. There is no way Susan could have known the seriousness of the situation because Bob concealed that from her. This level of deceit is also very common in straying partners.

Let's update the story:

Again Bob is sitting at the table with a glass in his hand, and Susan is standing by the fridge. Bob shakes the glass at Susan indicating he wants something. Susan, confused, assumes that he wants something to drink. So she goes over to the fridge, pulls out some milk, and fills his glass up. Bob looks at the glass, angry that Susan didn't understand what he wanted, and chooses to throw the glass on the floor. Milk and glass fly everywhere. Confused, and a little scared, Susan asks Bob why he threw the glass on the floor. Bob responds with "I wanted orange juice not milk. I was so hurt and angry that you put the wrong thing in my glass, that I chose to break the glass on the floor".

In this story the mess on the floor was deliberately caused by the Bob because Susan didn't meet his needs. Again Bob is blaming Susan for his actions. This is also a very common reaction of straying spouses after their affair is revealed. They say things like "if you hadn't X, Y, or Z, I wouldn’t have had the affair", or "if you had done X, Y, or Z, I wouldn’t have had the affair"

This story still has a few issues though. There's still the issue of poor communication. Not asking for what he wanted, and not communicating the seriousness of his internal feelings to Susan.

Also, it's not justifiable, or rational, for Bob to throw the glass on the floor when he doesn’t get what he wants. Especially when he doesn’t communicate what he wants clearly. Susan is in a loose loose scenario. Dammed if she doesn’t try to meet his needs, and dammed if she tries and interprets his needs wrong.

It’s the same with affairs. Unmet needs don’t justify destroying the relationship by having an affair. Even if they did, betrayed partners are in a loose loose situation. Poor communication and deception from the straying partner, means they have no good way to meet those needs, even if that were a valid reason to have an affair.

Another issue with the above story is that the betrayed partner can’t control the actions of the straying partner, and visa versa. If the betrayed partner could control the actions of the straying partner then why did the straying partner stray at all? I’m sure the betrayed partner didn’t approve. If people could control the actions of others, then why wasn’t the straying partner able to influence the betrayed partner to meet their needs properly?

No. Everyone has free will and the betraying partner made a very unfortunate choice, but it was still a choice.

Every time Bob, and Susan discuss the mess on the floor, Bob angrily blames Susan for causing it. This is often reflected in real life as well. The betrayed partner, already in extreme pain from the betrayal, is confused, and further traumatized, by accusations of wrong doing, and indirect blame the affair.

Most straying partners (and marriage counselors) don't make the obvious mistake of blaming the affair on the betrayed partner directly. They understand that there is no rational way they could defend that position since the betrayed partner literally was not present. Rather, they adopt the above logic to infer blame instead. They say things like "affairs don’t come from nowhere", and "there was a rift in our marriage that you are partially to blame for", and "happy marriages take two people, you didn’t do your part", etc.

These are all attempts to spread the blame onto the betrayed spouse. If this were not the case, then why is this always brought up in the presence of the betrayed spouse?

Lets revisit the story again:

Bob is again sitting at the table, glass in his hand, and Susan is standing by the fridge. Bob shakes his glass at Susan indicating he wants something. Susan, confused, assumes that he wants something to drink. So she goes over to the fridge, pulls out some milk, and fills his glass up. Bob looks at the glass, angry that Susan didn't understand what he wanted, and then chooses to throw the glass at Susan. The glass shatters against her body, knocking her to the floor, milk and glass flying everywhere. Terrified, injured, and in pain, Susan asks why Bob threw the glass at her. Bob, yelling, says "I wanted orange juice not milk. I was so hurt and angry that you put the wrong thing in my glass, that I chose to throw the glass at you! You deserved it!".

The story has taken a turn for the worse. In this most recent form of the story, it’s clear that Bob is acting extremely irrationally, and is abusing Susan.

Unfortunately this is far closer to the reality of what happens in an affair than the first story. The betrayed partner IS in extreme pain. Their life IS thrown upside down, and shattered. They ARE confused, and shocked, unsure of what to do. The person they trusted most has betrayed and lied to them.

Furthermore, this pain that the betrayed partner is feeling, was caused by the deliberate, and intentional actions of the straying partner. Just like throwing the glass, it was no accident. The straying partner could say that they didn’t intend to hurt the betrayed partner, but they know that their actions are likely to cause significant pain and damage to the relationship. Just like Bob knew that throwing the glass, even if it missed Susan completely, would still create a huge, dangerous, mess.

When couples seek help, sometimes in the form of self help books or websites, sometimes in the form of couples counseling, or friends and family; the betrayed spouse is usually urged to look into themselves and identify the ways they weren’t meeting the needs of their straying spouse. They are encouraged to look at how they could have been better, and encouraged to forgive the straying spouse.

During reconciliation, the betrayed spouse is usually encouraged to change themselves in order to create the conditions necessary for their straying spouse to not stray again. They seek to cause the straying spouse to remain faithful, by getting the betrayed spouse to change. Implying again that the betrayed spouse is part of the reason the straying spouse strayed. If only the betrayed spouse had anticipated and addressed all the concerns of the straying spouse before the affair, the straying spouse wouldn’t have chosen to cheat.

In other words they are encouraged to discover how they partially brought this betrayal and abuse on themselves. This is very wrong. The straying spouse knowingly chose to take these actions when they had many other options available to them.

No one would try and excuse a wife beater's reasons for beating his wife by saying "he did it because she wasn't meeting his needs". We wouldn't go to the abused woman and ask her to reflect on the ways she could have been better in the marriage, or what she could have done differently to make her abusive spouse happy. And we wouldn’t ask her to forgive him until he made significant changes in himself to become someone she is safe to be around again. Somehow that logic is reserved for intimate betrayal only.

But suppose that Susan had been giving Bob the wrong beverage for years, with Bob continuously telling her what he wanted, and Susan, for whatever reason, continued doing the wrong thing or nothing at all? Does that justify Bobs abusive behavior?

What if Bob was able to keep his glass breaking secret? Maybe he broke glass after glass in another room so Susan wouldn’t see it? Would her not finding out make it any less of a betrayal? Is it only abusive when she finds out about it?

Susans failure to meet Bobs clearly communicated needs should be addressed, but it doesn’t justify Bobs abusive behavior. It’s on Bob to address that missing need in a mature, non abusive way with Susan. If they can’t resolve the issue, whatever it’s core cause, and that need is a deal breaker for Bob, then peacefully dissolving their relationship is the better option.

No relationship can meet all the needs of both partners. Does that mean that every marriage is in one stage of pre-cheating or another? Each partner always on edge, hoping they are able to identify and address enough needs of the other partner to prevent them from choosing to cheat? No this is not the case. There are marriages that have significant difficulties, but neither partner cheats, and there are marriages that have very few issues, where one or both partners cheat.

It’s not about the marriage. It’s about the character of the people in the marriage. If someones character allows cheating to be an option, then it's possible regardless of the conditions of the marriage. If their character doesn't allow cheating to be an option, then it's not possible no matter how bad the marriage gets. Conditions in the marriage, including unmet needs, do not cause cheating.

Me - BH D-day 4/2024 age 42, 19 years marriedHer - WW EA 1/2023, PA 7/2023 - 6/2024, age 41, the Love of my life...still is, trying to reconcile. 2 Teenage Children

posts: 18   ·   registered: Sep. 21st, 2024
id 8854090
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Cooley2here ( member #62939) posted at 5:33 AM on Sunday, November 17th, 2024

I will leave my husband’s cheating out of this because there was/were no affair(s). He had friends in places he traveled to and was either playing golf, working or…. Cheating with people he met through work.
So these are the affairs I know the stories to:

She cared for him, he adored her and begged and begged until she agreed to marry him. Within a few months she knew she could not stay in the marriage but had no idea how to get out. She met a co-worker, had a very short affair, left her husband and is still married to the AP.

He married a woman who was damaged by her childhood and used sarcasm as a weapon. He was also talked into buying a Mac-mansion he never liked, he had a job that was killing him. He connected to a friend. They had a short affair which he admits was an exit affair. She remarried.

Her husband began showing signs of mental illness in his 50s due to a narcissistic mother which made her yearning for some peace. A family friend stepped in. They married.

She realized that she did not love her fiancé enough to marry him but his family is very wealthy. Their business name is very recognizable in elite circles. Her parents more or less pushed her into it. She left for a married co-worker.

Her husband came home from war where he had been shot at every day. He had PTSD. He was always angry. She had a short term affair, realized she could not harm her kids and stopped it. Her bs never has known.

These stories all have an underlying theme. Unhappiness and the affairs were basically the adult version of running away.

When things go wrong, don’t go with them. Elvis

posts: 4410   ·   registered: Mar. 5th, 2018   ·   location: US
id 8854092
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NowWhat106 ( member #35497) posted at 10:05 AM on Sunday, November 17th, 2024

This is an interesting reflection on the unmet needs fallacy, Theevent. My prevailing thought as I read it was, what is it that makes Bob think that Susan is responsible for spoon-feeding his needs. I mean, can’t he get off his ass and get his own f-ing orange juice if it’s so bloody important? One huge part of the fallacy is the notion that your spouse is responsible for meeting your needs as if you’re an emotional child. There is probably already a lot of inequality in a relationship to begin with if a spouse can allow themselves to think this way and put responsibility for their needs on their partner. My experience is that these expectations seldom go both ways in a marriage affected by infidelity. So is it the orange juice that’s important or the act of servitude?

The other thing that has been discussed here many times is that waywards (among others) often confuse wants with needs. So again, returning to your analogy, is drinking exclusively orange juice from his wife’s served hand really a need? Or is it more of an indulgence of a particular kind of desired servitude that constitutes external validation of importance and value to the wayward? And again, is this reciprocal? Usually not. It sounds so much uglier to say that you didn’t give him every small thing that he wanted, so he destroyed the fabric of your life and relationship.

No one can meet and fulfill another person’s every need, let alone all of their wants. We have agency and responsibility for our own happiness and needs. Honestly, had my WH told me that what he needed from me was for me to stroke his ego, cater to his needs (particularly above our children), try to anticipate and prop him up at every turn, I would have told him that he needed to finally grow up and figure out why he thought he needed this externally rather than internally. I didn’t get that opportunity because he decided to look elsewhere, but honestly, I can’t say that I would have scuttled around trying to anticipate his need for "orange juice" at every turn just because he thought that’s what he needed from me.

I’m sure others will have some thoughts because many here have come up against their WS’s unmet needs fallacy in the most personal and terrible ways. I’m one of them. Thanks for sharing your own working through of these ideas. Chamomile Tea has a lot of amazing stuff about the unmet needs fallacy in her profile. I’ve benefited immensely along the way from reminding myself of her wisdom often. You might check her profile out to add to your musings.

[This message edited by NowWhat106 at 10:11 AM, Sunday, November 17th]

Me BS
Him WS
LTEA with old HS GF from 25+ years ago
DD #1: 10/6/2011
DD #2: 10/21/2011
2DS under18
My marriage didn’t survive but I did

posts: 649   ·   registered: May. 2nd, 2012
id 8854098
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BluerThanBlue ( member #74855) posted at 4:13 PM on Sunday, November 17th, 2024

I'll put this in the simplest terms possible.

If your spouse says something like, "You ignored me, so I had an affair!"

Then you could easily retort with something like, "You were constantly nagging me, so that's why I ignored you!"

So how far back can you go assign blame? Does "None of this would've happened if you hadn't been born!" sound remotely reasonable?

Adults take ownership for their own behavior. If your spouse has problems with the relationship, they have a million different options they can explore other than having an affair.

Lastly, more often than not, the "needs" that the WS claims are unmet are really just the WS being annoyed that their BS isn't keeping them constantly stimulated, validated, and entertained 100% of the time. And usually, the WS wasn't to perturbed by their "unmet needs" until they decided to sleep with someone else.

BW, 40s

Divorced WH in 2015; now happily remarried

I edit my comments a lot for spelling, grammar, typos, etc.

posts: 2125   ·   registered: Jul. 13th, 2020
id 8854108
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HouseOfPlane ( member #45739) posted at 4:51 PM on Sunday, November 17th, 2024

In most cases the straying partner is eventually able to come up with a list of things…

My bold font on the word eventually. It is an important "tell".

There is a ton of empirical science that demonstrates that people will do something and then rationalize it on the backside. I’m a firm believer that the unmet needs argument fall squarely into that bucket.

[This message edited by HouseOfPlane at 4:53 PM, Sunday, November 17th]

DDay 1986: R'd, it was hard, hard work.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

posts: 3334   ·   registered: Nov. 25th, 2014
id 8854112
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Notthevictem ( member #44389) posted at 7:22 PM on Sunday, November 17th, 2024

Hmmm. Looks like you put a lot of thought into this.

Idea overall has merit. This part I think needs refining:

Nearly all straying spouses arrive at this line of thinking one way or another after their affair is revealed.

I would replace the 'nearly all' with 'many'.


There might be other spots like that I didn't catch, where the language used implies statistical analysis that is nearly impossible to accurately conduct given the subject matter.

You might also want to include something related to the unmet needs justification being applied retroactively due to a betrayed partners "WHHYYYY?!?!" questions/demands.

Obviously, Theevent it would be pretty easy for me to connect this post and any research you've done for it with your own efforts to answer the that "WHY?!?!" response.

I know, for myself, I really struggled with that question until I came to the conclusion that it just didn't matter.

I mean didn't matter to me why. Ensuring my ww peeled back the onion layers of her why's to become a trustworthy partner were a requirement for me to offer R, but as far as the almost obsessive compulsion to find the answer... for me, there was no reason that I could accept.

Of course, getting to that point mentally is much, much easier than getting to it emotionally.

Either way, you've been heard and we've been there. Hope this helps.

Strength brother!

BH
DDAY Mar 2014
Widowed 2022 - breast cancer

posts: 13532   ·   registered: Aug. 5th, 2014   ·   location: Washington State
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