Summary
In one of their classic songs, the Rolling Stones sang, “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” While these lyrics make for a memorable song, they also contain an important truth about marriage and relationships.
In one of their classic songs, the Rolling Stones sang, “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” While these lyrics make for a memorable song, they also contain an important truth about marriage and relationships.
One of the complexities of marriage is that we all enter it carrying wounds from our families of origin. The deeper the wound, the greater our hope that our spouse will provide healing and redemption. Unfortunately, partners often disappoint us, and when they do, the pain can intensify. The temptation is to express our disappointment through criticism, demands, or withdrawal.
When there has been significant deprivation in childhood, it can leave an emotional void that creates an almost unconscious sense of entitlement; a belief that our partner should make up for what was missing. Yet the greater the demand, the greater the likelihood of disappointment and disillusionment. Others take the opposite approach: they never express their needs and then feel wounded when their partner fails to move toward them. In both cases, it is easy to conclude that “you can’t always get what you want,” while overlooking the more important possibility that we may still receive what we truly need.
- Recognize the Unconscious Contract: Marriage often involves an unconscious contract. Couples typically discuss careers, finances, children, and other practical matters, but they rarely recognize the unspoken expectation that their partner will heal old emotional wounds.
- Turn the Focus Inward: This work requires self-reflection. It calls us to examine our own emptiness, our own wounds, and the ways they influence our expectations. It also requires the vulnerability to have difficult conversations with our partners.
- Accept the Limits of What a Partner Can Provide: A painful but necessary reality is that no one person can meet all of our needs or compensate for everything we did not receive as children. There is a certain amount of emptiness, longing, and unmet desire that every human being must learn to tolerate.
- Learn to Ask for What You Need: While no partner can meet all of our needs, healthy relationships do involve asking for some of them to be met. The challenge is learning to do so in a mature, realistic, and concrete way.
This is difficult work. It requires courage, self-examination, vulnerability, and acceptance. For many couples, it is not a journey they can take alone and may require the assistance of a skilled therapist.
