What Are the Signs of a Needy Mate?

Ask someone to define a good mate, or a "helpmate," and you'll get a tangle of answers. Some reach for Bible verses. Others start from the assumption that a woman belongs at home, which is a view the culture left behind a long time ago. The question carries more weight than it first appears.

A couple of weeks ago my pastor made a point in his sermon that stuck with me. However independent you believe you are, however convinced you are that you need no one, you're kidding yourself. Social psychology backs him up: people require contact with other people. We want affection and we feel the pull of needing it, even the ones who swear they're too hard for that.

I used to talk that way myself. I'm independent, I don't need anybody, I handle everything on my own. After sitting with the sermon for a while, I came around. Everyone leans on someone now and then, and the older I get the clearer that becomes. We weren't built to be alone.

What has shifted is the shape of a relationship. Women work now; the traditional housewife is mostly gone, and when she does exist, she tends to get little respect. That change moved the goalposts for what men look for in a partner, and one result is more women on their own, feeling as though they traded a relationship for a career.

If your beliefs differ from mine, don't tune this out. Whatever you hold to, you can't truthfully claim you need no one. The need to belong and the need for a mate are wired into us. Picture yourself hauling boxes into a new apartment or wrestling a piece of furniture together, muttering, "I wish somebody were here to help." That's the proof.

So the need is real. My worry is a different one. People keep confusing "I need someone" with attaching themselves to someone who is needy. Those are not the same thing, and the drift toward the second one worries me.

So what does a needy mate look like?

First, poor decision making. Are you the one making every call in the relationship? For a lot of men this feels fine, even flattering. It makes them feel like a man. That's a trap dressed up as confidence. Some men need to feel needed before they'll believe in their own manhood, and plenty of women play the damsel in distress because they think helplessness keeps a partner around. A man shouldn't read that routine as a win for his self-esteem. If you find yourself drawn to women who can't decide anything on their own, the issue is your own unresolved self-worth.

Second, the quiet, timid one. This one unsettles me, because it can signal she's in a violent relationship at home. A woman who shrinks and goes silent the moment her partner is in the room isn't behaving naturally. I saw it myself at a salon. I ran into a guy I knew and said hello to his girlfriend, and she wouldn't say a word. She sat stiff in the chair, her whole body tense, while he kept chatting like nothing was off. The scene made my skin crawl.

Third, total dependence. Everybody has friction in a relationship, and some of it is smaller than it feels in the moment. You don't need to phone your partner every time your in-laws get on your nerves. A woman can settle some things herself. Someone who is reasonably stable emotionally has the reasoning and the social skills to manage that. A woman in this century ought to be able to rely on herself and make big choices without a chaperone.

Too often she can't, or isn't allowed to. Couples skip thinking about the long haul. Many don't grasp that a woman sometimes needs room to resolve old wounds and recover from a past relationship before anything new can work. Men who rush in to play hero think they're sealing the deal, and they don't see the problems they're stacking up for later. Take my word for it: a partner who checks in constantly and hands you every decision stops being charming fast. One day you wake up nineteen years into a marriage with a grown woman who acts like a child.

A helpmate is what the word says. Someone who helps you, not someone forever needing your help. This person stands with you when you're low and turns your weak spots into strong ones. Think about a couple launching a business. A woman sometimes assumes that handing her husband full control and staying quiet counts as support. It doesn't. A business grows when two people put their separate strengths to work. Say the husband is brilliant at drawing up a plan but drags his feet and can't execute. That's the gap the wife fills. That's the helpmate.

So what's your definition of a helpmate?

- Heather Browning, MBA, BA