Ask / Offer / Do: 3 Steps To Meet Each Other’s Needs

Ask / Offer / Do: 3 Steps To Meet Each Other’s Needs

Learning how to meet each other’s needs–sounds pretty basic, right?

It’s probably common sense that anyone in a relationship, even a pretty darn good one, would love to have it be a little better, healthier, or closer. Many couples use therapy as one tool to help make these improvements. But couples often need help getting a little more specific. They might say, “we want to fix our communication.” And what they might actually mean by that is something like, “He knows that mowing the lawn makes my back hurt, so when he does it for me without asking, I feel like he really listened,” or “that makes me feel like he really cares about me.”

What Is Emotional Labor?

To put this in a broader context, we’re living in a society that’s becoming, bit by bit, a little more aware of the way in which healthy relationships work. Part of this awareness is paying attention to what we now call “emotional labor.” Emotional labor contains all the things a partner or household might do, for themselves or each other, that are not physical labor. Emotional labor also means considering another person’s needs when we support them (more on this in a bit). Each relationship is unique, and so there is no right or wrong way to divide the physical and emotional labor of the household. But a common sticking point is that couples simply didn’t decide in advance what type of support they want from one another.

A Useful Tool

I want to invite you to use a tool that has been helpful to couples I work with in clarifying how they support one another, and how they wish to be supported by the other. I don’t have a fancy name for this, so for now we’ll call it the continuum of assistance. It is simply this: talk with your partner and reach a basic agreement on where your different types of assistance begin and end. This goes for both what you’re offering and what you would appreciate receiving. The three markers I use for this conversation are discussing what we can Ask, Offer, or Do. 

How Does This Work?

As I often do, let me start with a silly, dramatic example to drive the point home: Hopefully, you never have to call an ambulance. But, if you do, they’re going to do what medical professionals call triage; that’s their way of figuring out your needs and how urgent they are. If you’re alert and responsive, they’re just going to Ask what’s going on or what you might need. If it’s clear you’re struggling a bit and might need help, and they can tell what the problem is, they’re going to skip asking and Offer a solution for you. If you’re clearly in distress and unable to communicate, they’re going to skip past all of this and just Do what you need; give oxygen, CPR, whatever.

We can do the same emotional triage with our partners using Ask, Offer, and Do. The escalating levels of support also remove some of the emotional labor (the decision) from our partner’s plate:

If dinner time is approaching and my partner and I are both in a good mood, I might just Ask: “Hey, what were you thinking about for dinner?”

If I already know my partner is hungry, and they’ve got their hands full with a meeting or a toddler, I’ll skip asking and just Offer to handle dinner: “I’m starting on the spaghetti, sound good?” (I’m also sparing them the emotional labor of having to decide.)

If my partner is on the couch with a headache, or they seem upset, or anything else that makes it hard to communicate their needs, I’m skipping right past all of the above and just Doing something I know works for them – handing them a plate of spaghetti with a fork and a smile. (Here I’m sparing them the emotional labor of even having to communicate their needs for a moment.)

This continuum of assistance works in part because it causes both partners to slow down and consider not only their own needs but also the other’s. It makes you pay attention, take stock, dial in. Try this tool in a discussion with your spouse or partner and see if it causes you to feel more connected. Over time, and with practice, you may find that this becomes a way of managing the details of your life together in a more symbiotic, cohesive, and intuitive way.

Jason Smith, LMFT-Associate, is a therapist at our Plano and Flower Mound locations and also works virtually. Call or click to schedule a session with Jason today!