# Need or Want (1 Viewer)



## Kat (Jun 9, 2010)

Some of you may be too young or single to answer this question. 

Do you need your significant other or want them? And I'm not talking about financially or any such thing. I mean emotionally, to feel complete or whole, to be happy.


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## darknite_johanne (Jun 10, 2010)

Back when I was with my first GF, the relationship went for about three years, I found a need to share everything with her, my successes my failures, I found myself needing to talk to her about everything. There was a time when our friends got together for an overnight and slept together we just talked until 8 am in the morning. And at the time I felt that I couldn't live without her. 

But now that I'm currently single, I find myself doing okay. I don't feel a need to share things with just someone.


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## Olly Buckle (Jun 10, 2010)

I don't think you know until you lose them, then sometimes it is surprising.


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## MaggieG (Jun 10, 2010)

I actually answered this in your poem to a certain degree. I told my husband when we first got together what defines our relationship for me is that I don't need him, I want him. He, and I are both very self contained, and quite happy with our own company. Having him around just makes the day better so to speak. It is strange though that when our love affair started he was actually getting deployed ( 15 months in Iraq ) He was very proud of how I handled him being so far away. I talked to him twice a day, and I was fine with that. He is about to be deployed again ( another 15 months ), and I find myself far more bothered by this one. It is making me wonder as our relationship lengthens, and deepens, whether or not want turns into need. 

A strange thing indeed


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## alanmt (Jun 10, 2010)

MaggieG said:


> It is making me wonder as our relationship lengthens, and deepens, whether or not want turns into need.


 
I think there is a lot of truth to this.

I don't need *a *significant other, I want one.  But I have lived happily single for years at a time.

But now that I have been with my husband for seven years, and our love has grown and matured, I do need him.


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## MaggieG (Jun 10, 2010)

alanmt said:


> I think there is a lot of truth to this.
> 
> I don't need *a *significant other, I want one.  But I have lived happily single for years at a time.
> 
> But now that I have been with my husband for seven years, and our love has grown and matured, I do need him.



Exactly...  and far better said than I   This very much falls in line with something else I believe ( even substantiating it ) I have loved other men, but there was always a sense that if they went away tomorrow I would be fine. This "Ass" ( my pet name for him lol ) is another matter. Which makes me believe I not only love the man, I am in love with him as well.


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## Kat (Jun 10, 2010)

We will have been married for 10 years this summer. I want him intensely and love him wholeheartedly. But other than help paying the bills and raising the children I don't need him. I'm sure that it is my issue, not wanting to be one of those submissive wives that lose themselves in their husband's identity. More than that I want to be ME and if I need him then I am giving him a part of me, that he has the power to ruin.


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## Blood (Jun 12, 2010)

Kat said:


> Some of you may be too young or single to answer this question.
> 
> Do you need your significant other or want them? And I'm not talking about financially or any such thing. I mean emotionally, to feel complete or whole, to be happy.


Since you mean 'emotionally', what's the difference? You need to want, you want to need?


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## Blood (Jun 12, 2010)

Kat said:


> More than that I want to be ME and if I need him then I am giving him a part of me, that he has the power to ruin.


You know as a man this is just not an issue. Even though I accept the responsibility of being a 'significant other' and father, which I am both, I still can't help but be me.  It's just how I do things.



Current theme song (caution: very deep)...

[video=youtube;lK6wOG_aDl8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK6wOG_aDl8[/video]​


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## Foxee (Jun 12, 2010)

Have to wonder about the strength of the term 'significant' if the significant other isn't really needed.

I am my own person and he is his own person, I don't think that you can be so utterly dependent on someone else for identity that you have nothing without them and have a healthy relationship. On the other side of the coin the fact that I'm his wife is part of my identity that I'm happy to have and the fact that he is my husband apparently doesn't shame him or anything. 

Where I guess I need him the most is that his presence makes wherever we are into home. If I suddenly lost him the house would only be a house, not a home. I would lose my sounding board for thoughts and ideas, my very favorite friend, my lover, and someone who gives me rest (you know, when he's not causing more chores for me  ).

Sometimes when I've had a hard day and I just sit beside him on the couch for a little while, I feel like there is a revitalizing current moving from where our knees touch or his arm is around me. That's something that would be incredibly hard to replace, I'm not sure I really could.

There are a lot of things that I don't strictly 'need' him for but I'd sure rather have him than not.


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## JosephB (Jun 12, 2010)

Maybe it's because we married young -- by today's standards -- but so much of who I am has been formed by my relationship with my wife, and I think that's true for her also. And I suppose we are dependent on each other for quite a bit. I'm sure some people would see our relationship as stifling. In fact, my brother calls us the "Siamese Couple." There isn't much we don't to together or without consensus.

The dependence is mutual I think, or maybe it fluctuates with whatever is going on in our lives. I suppose that makes me rather vulnerable, but I accept that as a good trade-off. A risk vs. reword proposition. It all seems to be working anyway. So, yeah, I want her, but there is a great need also. But it's mutual, I think -- so I don't see it as harmful.


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## Foxee (Jun 12, 2010)

That doesn't sound like dependence as much as partnership.


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## Patrick (Jun 12, 2010)

A bizarre concept - that you should need anything other than the bare necessities to survive.


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## JosephB (Jun 12, 2010)

Foxee said:


> That doesn't sound like dependence as much as partnership.



Yes. That might be a better way to say it.


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## Ilasir Maroa (Jun 12, 2010)

Mermaid on the breakwater said:


> A bizarre concept - that you should need anything other than the bare necessities to survive.


 
Well, you could live naked in a cave being fed two meals a day of rice and vitamin pills. I'm not sure how many people would opt for that arrangement. 

I think that having a significant other in an equal partnership is very valuable, but I don't think it is a requirement for emotional health.  I'm assuming we're defining significant other in the most traditional sense.


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## Patrick (Jun 12, 2010)

Ilasir Maroa said:


> Well, you could live naked in a cave being fed two meals a day of rice and vitamin pills. I'm not sure how many people would opt for that arrangement.



Ilasir - understand the difference between desire and need.


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## Like a Fox (Jun 12, 2010)

Mermaid on the breakwater said:


> Ilasir - understand the difference between desire and need.


Talking about what you would _need_ to keep waking up the next day would be a totally different thread. I'm sure this means do you _feel_ as though you want them or need them.
Come on Merman, you get that.


I'm far too single to answer the question myself. Right now I want chocolate, but it feels like I need it. Haha.


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## Ilasir Maroa (Jun 12, 2010)

Mermaid on the breakwater said:


> Ilasir - understand the difference between desire and need.



Patrick - understand the difference between emotional health and survival.


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## Patrick (Jun 13, 2010)

Need is simply the wrong word. It isn't a dispute over the benefits of a  loving relationship. There is simply no such thing as "need person A's love". It's foolish to pretend otherwise.


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## JosephB (Jun 13, 2010)

Need, want -- whatever. I think the OP is really about allowing your identity to become so intertwined with that of your significant other's that you lose it. That kind of emotional dependency, even if you allow it, can cause a lot of resentment to build over time, virtually unnoticed -- until it comes to a head. Usually, it comes as a complete surprise to the person on the other end of it.

It sounds silly when someone says, "I need to find myself," but there can be a lot of truth to it.


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## Patrick (Jun 13, 2010)

I searched my mind to find me, but I was nowhere to be found. I guess I was the one doing the looking afterall.


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## JosephB (Jun 13, 2010)

Did you make that up -- or is that a bad lyric?


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## Patrick (Jun 13, 2010)

JosephB said:


> Did you make that up -- or is that a bad lyric?


 

There's no evidence that I didn't just make it up, so that's most likely correct.

Come on, get some analytical skills, Joseph. There were no quotation marks offered, nor the name of an artist and it sounded bad... If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...


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## JosephB (Jun 13, 2010)

Heh. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.


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## Patrick (Jun 13, 2010)

JosephB said:


> Heh. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.


 
Yeah, thanks. I can understand why you wouldn't think anything of a poor standard came directly from me but don't let your preconceived notions cloud your thinking.


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## Eluixa (Jun 14, 2010)

Water, shelter, food and David. Yes, I need him. He is my best friend. I'd not die if I did not have him near me, but just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat. And I find I am lost far more in my role as mother than as wife. In fact he makes a point to find me.


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