When your partner can’t — or won’t — meet your needs

And your three options for moving forward, including leaving the relationship

I’d been in love with my girlfriend since we met. Fine. Maybe it wasn’t true love, but it was something close to it. Or so I thought. It was likely lust and some unhealthy attraction to her unavailability, maybe.

The fact that she was in an open relationship, traveled often, and was too busy to spend much time with me probably contributed to my being hooked from the get-go. I wanted what I couldn’t have.

But, as time went on, we began spending more time together. Her previous relationship ended, and she traveled less. She slowly made more time for me in her life, and we got considerably closer over the next 18 months or so. I was smitten, and I was falling.

Yet, she kept some distance between us, never wanting to go too deep or fast. And she was hesitant to call me her boyfriend or her partner.

She preferred the term lover.

She wanted to keep the label small, so we could grow into a larger one together rather than slap the label ‘partner’ on our relationship. She found that label too big and loaded with expectations she didn’t want to commit to.

And here I was, falling in love and wanting to call her my partner. I’d been single for five years when we met, and I was ready to progress to the next level of partnership. At the same time, I recognized that she wasn’t ready, nor did I know if she ever would be. She wasn’t able to tell me whether she would ever get there.

My need for clarity and commitment conflicted with hers for freedom.

And this is a familiar spot for many of us.

Wanting something that another can’t give us

You might want more quality time with your partner, and they might want more time with their friends and less time at home.

You might want more non-sexual touch from your boyfriend, but he wants more sex and isn’t available for cuddles.

You might want to spend less time cleaning around the house, and he might want to spend Saturday mornings mopping the floors and tidying up.

Or you might be like me — wanting more commitment from someone who couldn’t meet that need.

So, what now?

What options are available when you feel at a standstill in your relationship? How can you get your needs met by someone who can’t or won’t meet that particular need?

My go-to advice for nearly everything is to talk about it.

Assuming you’ve already communicated your needs several times in different ways and your partner has made it clear they can’t meet them, what are your options?

Three options for when your partner won’t meet your needs

1. Get creative with your needs

Here’s the thing about needs: they are your responsibility. That means being creative about ways to meet them.

Sometimes, getting creative means negotiating or compromising.

Ask your partner if they’d be willing to do anything to meet you in the middle.

Is there a way for you to come together?

If you want a clean house and your partner doesn’t value that as much as you do, would they be willing to help you out every other weekend? Or would they be open to pitching in to get a house cleaner once a month?

Getting creative sometimes looks like finding a different way to meet your needs.

Can you think outside the box?

If you want more touch and your partner won’t meet your needs, what else can you do to get more touch in your life? Can you afford a monthly massage? What about asking a friend to exchange foot massages with you every other week? You could join an acro-yoga class and enjoy friendly, high-touch exercise with like-minded folks.

Taking a jujitsu class isn't the same as getting a loving touch from your special person, but can it do the job for now?

I want to emphasize that relationships take compromise.

Ideally, you have a partner who wants to meet your needs as much as possible and is willing to do what it takes to make that happen (as long as they want to meet your needs and aren’t self-abandoning to do so — but that’s a topic for a different article).

If being creative with your needs isn’t an option, consider your second option.

2. Accept that your needs will go unmet

That’s right. Accept that some of your needs will go unmet in your current relationship, and that’s OK.

Your partner can’t (and shouldn’t) meet all your needs. They have a life and their needs to tend to, so they’re limited in the support they can give you.

It’s natural for some of your needs to go unmet. One great way to deal with those unmet needs is to accept that, for now, your partner can’t (or chooses not to) meet your needs.

When you accept that, you’re consciously deciding to move forward in your current relationship, knowing that a significant need is going unmet.

It’s empowering to know that you are deciding to stay, even though things aren’t exactly how you want them to be.

If you want to spend more quality time with your partner, which goes against their need for space and freedom, accept that you spend less time together than you’d like. Make a conscious choice to stay in the relationship, knowing that you’d spend more time together if it were up to you.

It’s a hard choice, but it keeps you connected to reality.

Some people will see this as settling, but it has a different energy. Settling tells yourself, “This is the best I can do, so I might as well take it,” whereas accepting the current reality is rooted in acceptance despite a desire for more. And sometimes, you can't accept the unacceptable, and that’s fine.

When a need is crucial to your happiness, safety, and self-worth, sometimes getting creative about how and who will meet it or accepting it as an unmet need aren’t options.

What then? What if the need you have is non-negotiable?

3. Leave the relationship if your needs are non-negotiable

Leaving your relationship is always an option if your need is non-negotiable and your partner is unwilling or unable to meet it.

If you’ve exhausted all your other options, asked for your needs to be met, gotten creative with your partner (or others who might be able to meet your needs), and tried accepting that they won’t be met, leaving is always an option.

Here’s the reality: you are in charge of your life.

If you want to build the life of your dreams, you do what it takes to create it. And sometimes, that means leaving situations or people holding you back.

Leaving your current relationship because your partner isn’t willing to have sex with you more than once a week, refuses to clean the house, or won’t spend more time with you are all valid reasons to leave.

That said, it’s important to note that no partner can meet all your needs and to expect that is unrealistic. Humans are incredibly needy, and it would be a full-time job for one person to tend to all your unmet needs.

You are in charge of caring for your needs

Ultimately, you’re in charge of caring for yourself and have to do what it takes to meet your needs.

And, life is easier when you’re with a partner willing to do the work to meet you halfway as much as possible.

I want that partner for you.

I want you to have a partner who cares for you while tending to their needs. I want you to have a partner who knows they can’t be everything to you but compromises and finds solutions to meet your needs as much as possible.

And I want you to be with a partner who doesn’t compromise when doing so would go against their essential needs.

Oh, and if you were curious about which option I chose with my then-lover, I’ll tell you. I accepted that she wasn’t ready to commit to me to the level I wanted or needed.

I sat with the discomfort of not getting what I wanted and needed and shared with her how it made me feel. I told her what I wanted and needed and would stay until something changed or it no longer made sense; I chose to take our relationship one day at a time.

“I love spending time with you and will stay as long as it makes sense for me to. If anything changes on your end, you let me know, and if this arrangement no longer works, I’ll let you know.”

Ultimately, we stayed together for a few more lovely years and parted ways when life took us in different directions, and I have no regrets about how it all unfolded.

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