If I Teach My Partner To Say No, Will They Always Be A No?
Cathy: Have you ever wondered that if you teach your partner and encourage your partner to say ‘no’ that they’ll say no all the time and you’ll never get what you want. This is Reid Mihalko from http://www.ReidAboutSex.com/
Reid: This is Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com/
Cathy: And one of you wonderful viewers wrote in and said I’m concerned if I encourage my partner to start saying ‘no’ does that mean they’ll say no all the time and I’ll never get my needs met.
Reid: Great question.
Cathy: I mean yeah, it really is. It’s a concern.
Reid: So, the fear is my partner is going to get really good at saying no and then always be a no.
Cathy: I’ve had that concern as well and there had been times when I encourage someone to say no and they were much less a yes for some things. If they continue to be a no to a lot of things and I wasn’t getting my needs met then I realized that we were really bad fit or they were going through something. So, I could get my needs met elsewhere realize the relationship isn’t a good fit and if you’re with someone that is a good fit that’s generous, if they’ve never gotten to say no just like a three-year old, they might go through a phase where like they want to practice it and build that muscle up but in general, it seems like I don’t want people to be giving me things they don’t really want to give anyway and when I’m really, really hungry for something I want that like I’m like I don’t really care if you want to give that to me but as long as my tanks are full, I’m genuinely don’t want what other people don’t want to give me. If you could have your tanks fuller, make sure you’re getting your needs met outside the relationship, too. If you’re monogamous and that your agreement, I’m not saying you go sleep with other people but masturbation or getting touch needs met with massage, different things like that. So your tanks are fuller it might make it easier for to you hear their no. And then if you’re really hearing their no and giving them space that gives you both a room to find out if you’re a good fit like if what they want to give is a good fit for what you want to receive and vice versa. I don’t want to be with someone who’s not generous. I don’t want to be with someone that doesn’t want to give to me and receive for me sometimes. And we all go through bad days or bad weeks or whatever. We had bad times or we might just be depleted but in general I want to be with someone who genuinely wants to give me the things I want to receive most of the time.
Reid: I think the challenge in, I’ll speak for American society since I’m American and there’s so many people that watch these videos from all of the world. You know the wonders of the Internet. Here’s where the word for me I think it’s like we’ve been using steam power and in like old machines steampunk which is cool but now we’re using a different kind of engine. Like there’s a different technology has advanced us in a way as humans where so many of us gave things, we came from [Inaudible 00:03:15], right? And then so many of us were taught that we couldn’t say no or that we needed to please mommy and daddy or whomever. So, a lot of us weren’t good with saying no when we needed to say no and we’ve all been taught as Betty Martin who’s a pure artist where I’ve learned this from her like we’ve all been become masters of tolerating things we didn’t want. I’m not saying that you don’t go out of you way sometimes to do something nice for somebody or have to put on your adulting pants and go be an adult and do something that you really don’t want to do but all of this stuff has gotten collapsed on to ideas of generosity and what love means. What it is this quagmire that when you start parsing it out, our fears come up like holy shit, if everyone got good at saying no, people might not say yes but the flip side is we were never taught to be great at how we get our needs met. So, when you know and most of us aren’t great handling disappointment and fear. When you put that all together, obviously yeah oh my god, if my partner says no then they’re never going to say yes but the other side is if you’re really were like, I need to get my needs met like I know how I need to get my needs met. Like I know how to cook for myself. I know how to go shopping and like all the things I need to learn in college- like yeah. But like once I knew I could rely on myself, I could relax and then once I’ve got good at handling my disappointment. What I realized is my disappointment was the signal that what I wanted, I wanted from that person and they’re just not available to give it to me right now. But I have the tools to handle my feelings. I don’t need to try to kill them off but I can have my feelings and that’s me being human. And my partner doesn’t want to go to the movies. I can go to the movies myself because you know what, sometimes I like being alone and I like treating or having a date with myself. Or I have other friend who would go to the movies. Sure, maybe the first five that I called weren’t available. Those bitches they just got their lives together, they can’t come to the movies. But then there’s that six-person, you know or-
Cathy: Putting a message on Facebook, hey want to meet, want to go see this movie?
Reid: So, I have resources to take action rather than feel powerless. That’s the piece that doesn’t get taught at the same time. For the person that wrote in and for everybody’s watching when you encourage people to get better at saying their yes’s and their no’s and for them to taking care of their needs too while you learn how to do it, what happens is yeah some days you have a bad day and you planned it wrong and there’s no food to eat for 6-hours and you are just hungry and that was just bad planning versus my life is ending which is what you know what the hunger could feel like. But it’s not really true and that’s what where I think we haven’t gotten to as a culture. Like we’re still in the steampunk days of you know-
Cathy: If my single monogamous partner is not available, I would probably die.
Reid: Or my best friend moves for a new job, my life ends. Yeah, you can grieve that your best friend’s leaving town but you also know how to get your need met- make new friends. Doesn’t mean you find another bestie immediately. But your life is not over. It just can feel like it’s over sometimes which is usually just processing grieve, surprise, upset, whatever. When you start of getting into that place of like oh yeah like I think I can handle life. Doesn’t mean it’s always going to be good and then you start hanging out with people who are at the same place that set of skillsets, now you’re harnessing something that is way more efficient and you’ll get better gas mileage than steampunk ever would have gotten you. There’s a larger conversation that I just think most cultures haven’t gotten to yet and we’re on the verge of that. I hope these videos are serving people.
Cathy: We really appreciate you asking the question and it is a fear a lot of people have and in general, I found that people that feel like they can say no- I know this is true for me. If I know I have the ability to say no and the other person’s going to be okay with it, it’s easier to be more generous because I’m not worried that they’re going to kind of suck me and pull on me all the time. I encourage you to practice it. If you’re scared of practicing with your partner, practice with a friend for a while and see how that feels. Build up that skills.
Reid: Yeah and its okay not to be good at this stuff. We’re barely good at it and we have a YouTube channel. Questions, comments.