There are a number of must-haves in relationships. You must feel safe, you must feel desired and you must feel reciprocated both in want and compromise to some extent. You also must feel supported.
This is one of those two-way street conversations. In a relationship each party needs to give as well as they get in order to maintain an equal balance of responsibility and satiety, emotionally speaking.
I have had a past online dating relationship in which I lost my feeling of being supported. I spent the first two years of that four year relationship feeling happy and as though we were on an even kilter. I spent the last two years trying to patch up what I increasingly began feeling was more give than get. Being in a relationship with a person that you do not feel supports you when you need it most is like a skyscraper built with a weak base. One leg might be able to support the building for a faltering little while, but eventually the whole thing will just come crashing down. Despite my hardest efforts I was never able to hold my past relationship up by myself. I made it for a couple of years, but the final straw was a sick grandfather and a partner missing in action. I had to draw the line, and so through my heartbreak I did.
Sad as I was the first little while after that break-up, I’ve never felt such freedom in my life as I did when all I had to support was myself. As human beings we need to feel supported. I don’t mean financially, but emotionally. This is more than just a fleeting desire; it’s a necessity for a strong and healthy relationship. Man, woman or child, we all need to know that when push comes to shove we’ll have another person to fall back on, a shoulder to cry on or a sympathetic friend or lover to soothe our wounds.