[tyh]

This essay hit me particularly hard because I've been on the opposite side of this where I was the one not realizing my significant other's needs. It makes you question a lot of yourself. To think you can cause another person so much pain through your own action and/or inaction is hard to come to terms with. I don't think I meant to hurt someone else, but that was the result. It is easy to be oblivious or flat out ignore other people's emotional needs.

For me, I realized that what I should have been doing was just communicating my thoughts and feelings better. Meanwhile being able to accept my own limitations. Can you become a romantic overnight? Can you be completely open and honest about all your fears? Of course not, these things take time to learn how to do successfully and naturally. You might realize you cannot fulfill everything for your partner and maybe it won't work.

Realistically there are a lot of relationships that will fail. We tend to think their ending is some sort of cataclysm. The author put's this so well:

"There are ways to be wounded and ways to survive those wounds, but no one can survive denying their own needs."

At some point you need to be honest with yourself about what you need in life at an emotional level. It is very hard to go through life pretending otherwise or constantly sacrificing for nothing in return. For me that is the lesson of the Crane Wife tale.