The Erosion of Unseen Needs
Because if I have to ask, I don’t want it anymore.
I won’t ask you to kiss me.
I won’t ask for an apology when you’re wrong.
I won’t ask you to hug me when I need it most.
I won’t ask you to thank me for everything I do.
Because if I have to ask you, I don’t want it anymore.
I recently scrolled past this quote on social media, attributed to Frida Kahlo, claiming it was written to her husband, Diego Rivera. It’s a litany of things she wouldn’t ask for, because needing to ask stripped them of worth. There is no record of this in her letters or journals, however it seems to fit with what’s been written about her life. Regardless, it sent me reflecting through my own days, where what goes unsaid can weigh as much as what’s spoken.
We all have those days that start with a silent dread. I am no different. Maybe it’s a lingering bad dream, the scale mocking my weight-loss grind, or an uninvited memory. Something has affected my mood and in my efforts to rationalize the information, I’m not myself. I mask those feelings with a smile for my husband and a gentle kiss good morning—shielding him from my mood. He’s done nothing wrong, but somehow he knows something is off. He reads my soul before I’ve said a word.
I’ll dodge his “What’s wrong?” with a quick “Nothing,” as if I’m actually fooling him. He pays attention to the subtle signs that I’m stuck inside my head. He’s tuned in to the quiet clues—like a stare that lingers too long out the window or one of those unintended sighs. He’s probably also noticing I’m not sporadically sharing whatever half-thought just popped into my head. Silence isn’t my norm. It might sound like he’s being intrusive, but the truth is, he just doesn’t like to see me stressed. It’s not his job to make me happy—that’s on me. But, it is his job to pay attention when I’m not. And he does that rather well.
As with any problem, if we don’t deal with it, it festers and seeps into everything else. A mood ignored at breakfast turns into snippy answers by lunch. Patience vanishes at the slightest interruption, like a yapping dog or a loud neighbor. This is because the real frustration’s been simmering beneath. We might not realize our own acerbity, but everyone around us does. It’s not just a bad day—it’s what happens when problems we sidestep begin weaving thorns into the fabric of our day.
That “Frida” quote pulled me right back to the stories I’ve been sharing in The Drive Home series. If you’re not following along with those stories, I’m unpacking my previous twenty-one year marriage where I felt completely unseen. Although it was laden with infidelity, what hurt most was my ex-husband’s indifference during the times I was actively trying to reconnect with him. He was unaware of a majority of my affairs, and his was revealed because a women got pregnant. Be that as it may, my personal guilt drove me to dismiss his apathy during those time we should have been good in our relationship.
If I was having a bad day, my ex didn’t ask why. If I was sad, he didn’t ask if there was something he could do. I simply masked my feelings and kept going. This fueled a slow burn of resentment, and over two decades, I stacked a wall of frustration, brick by brick. His indifference didn’t break me—it hardened me. As his anxiety increased due to his personal failures, so did his reliance on me to keep the family together. I had no respect for a man who was unwilling to support his family financially or emotionally.
I hadn’t realized until I remarried that someone could see through my silence. It’s not about grand gestures or clockwork check-ins—though those have their place. It’s a quieter need that comes from truly wanting to know the person in front of you. As I’ve mentioned in past articles, while dating, my current husband and I laid our pasts wide open. All the successes and failures were pieced together to show what shaped our view of a genuine connection. We poked at our limits, asking if they made sense or just held us back. The real hurdle was moving past the stereotypical expectations of a relationship. We created our own expectations that fit who we wanted to be, both together and individually.
When you peel back the clichés, you’ll notice those little cracks that prove people aren’t what we’ve been told. Men don’t feel deeply? Tell that to the guy holding back his emotions to listen rather than argue. Women always nurturing? Many are too busy chasing their own dreams to play everyone’s mom. Men only think about sex? Plenty are thinking of their future, more caught up in who you are rather than your sexual proclivities. Women can’t handle confrontation? Watch one stare down chaos and call the shots without hesitation.
People don’t fit in boxes—nor should we expect them to conform into our curated pigeonholes.
In just over our two decades together, my ex-husband and I navigated our way through usual expectations of marriage. We had careers, had children, bought a house—yet, we never found a way to genuinely know each other. I tried to open up numerous times, offered vulnerability and a genuine desire to connect. However, he stayed guarded, like feelings were something he didn’t want to deal with.
When he realized I was no longer trying, it was too late.
I eventually recognized that he’d cast me as the housewife he grew up with—his mother’s life, tending husband and kids, nothing more. She thrived there. I wanted more. I had dreams, ambitions, a self beyond the walls of our home. But he wouldn’t see that, or encourage it. He didn’t see me, not as I was, only as the role he’d expected of me. That was the entirety of our disconnect—I wanted to be a whole person, and he only needed me to play a part.
When I eventually remarried, everything changed—my voice wasn’t stifled, it was encouraged. My husband wants to know what I’m thinking, even if he interrupts out of sheer enthusiasm. He lifts me up when self-doubt creeps in and always seems to know when I need a little extra support. Some of my favorite moments are the simplest ones—him saying, “I know what you need,” before pulling me into a bear hug. Or turning on my favorite song, grabbing my hand, and twirling me around the living room while singing in my ear. He laughs at my ridiculous observations and always matches my sarcasm with a perfectly timed zinger. I am completely myself with him—and he is, effortlessly, himself with me. He tells me he’s grateful for all I do, but my favorite thing he says? “I love that I get to wake up next to you every morning.”
It may sound cheesy—and honestly, I’m fine with that. I love who I am with him. If we hadn’t been open and vulnerable from the very beginning, I can’t imagine what our relationship would look like now. We talk about the hard things, we sit in the uncomfortable moments, and we move through our days tuned in to each other’s needs. We pay attention. It’s not always perfect—because no relationship is—but we show up. And when we change, as people naturally do, we don’t panic. We adjust. We grow. Recognizing that change, and choosing each other through it, is what makes this marriage work.
Whether Frida said it or not—she wasn’t wrong. Some things lose their meaning when you have to ask for them.
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