Once we understand how to remain present without losing ourselves, a next level appears, finer and more complex: what do we do with what we observe in the other person? Presence is the starting point, but understanding the needs behind behaviours is an entirely different matter.

People rarely ask directly for what they need. Not because they are manipulative or deliberately concealing something, but because many of them don't know clearly themselves what it is they are lacking. Needs often live beneath the surface of words, camouflaged in irritation, in withdrawal, in too-frequent jokes or in unusual silences. The capacity to read them there, without projections and without assuming you know better than the other person what they feel, is one of the most valuable relational skills you can develop.

The difference between need and behaviour

The first step is learning to separate behaviour from the need behind it. The behaviour is visible, sometimes annoying, sometimes confusing. The need is hidden and, most of the time, completely different from what the behaviour might suggest at first glance.

A concrete example: your partner becomes critical and finds fault with small things. On the surface, the behaviour appears aggressive or unreasonable. But the need underneath may be entirely different: insecurity, a fear of losing control, a need for connection that they don't know how to ask for directly. Responding to the behaviour, meaning becoming defensive or counter-attacking, resolves nothing. Responding to the need changes the dynamic of the entire interaction.

Marshall Rosenberg, the creator of Nonviolent Communication, built an entire methodology on this distinction. The central idea is that behind any behaviour, however difficult, there is a universal human need: for safety, for connection, for autonomy, for recognition, for meaning. When you respond to the need instead of reacting to the behaviour, you shift the register of the conversation entirely.

Empathy is not magical intuition

I think there is a romanticisation of empathy that does more harm than good. Real empathy is not a mysterious capacity you are either born with or not. It is a skill built through deliberate attention, through genuine curiosity about the other person's inner experience and, paradoxically, through knowing your own emotions.

Researcher Brené Brown makes a distinction I find extremely useful: empathy means climbing down into the hole where the other person is and saying, "I know what it's like down here, you are not alone." Sympathy means looking down from above and saying, "I'm so sorry you're in there." It is not about being a better or worse person, but about a different direction of attention: towards the other, or towards your own reaction to their situation.

Precise empathy, meaning correctly understanding what the other person is experiencing, requires first setting aside your assumptions. We are tempted to interpret others' behaviours through the filter of our own experiences. If for me silence means anger, I will interpret the other person's silence as anger, even if for them it might mean processing, tiredness, or comfortable quiet. This translation error produces an enormous amount of unnecessary conflict in relationships.

The language of unspoken needs

Unexpressed needs have their own language, and the sooner you recognise it, the better you can respond. There are a few recurring patterns I have noticed, and which appear frequently enough to be worth paying attention to.

The need for validation often appears as an excessive need for confirmation, for reassurance that decisions made are correct, that emotions felt are justified. People with this need actively present don't necessarily lack self-confidence; they usually have a history in which their emotions or opinions were frequently invalidated. What they need is not to be convinced they are right, but to feel heard without judgement.

The need for space appears as irritability or sudden withdrawal that seems unmotivated. It isn't about rejecting the other person, but about a need to recharge which, when unmet, produces tension. People who function this way don't want less relationship; they need the relationship to include pauses, without those pauses being interpreted as distancing.

The need for emotional security manifests as jealousy, control, or repeated questions about the other person's feelings. On the surface, these behaviours can seem suffocating. At the level of need, we are talking about a deep fear of abandonment or loss, usually fed by early experiences of insecure relationships. The useful response is not to give in to the behaviour, but to offer, where it is possible and genuine, a consistency that speaks to the underlying need.

Curiosity as a relational tool

The most effective tool I have in relationships is not empathy or patience, but curiosity. Genuine curiosity about the other person's experience disarms, creates space and produces real conversations instead of performative ones.

Open questions, meaning those that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, change the texture of a conversation. "What do you need right now?" is completely different from "are you okay?" "How was that for you?" is completely different from "I understand what you feel." The first formulation invites; the second sometimes closes down without meaning to, because it presupposes you already know.

But curiosity must be genuine. People immediately sense the difference between a question asked as a technique and one asked out of real interest. If you are present, if you are truly curious, you don't need to memorise formulas. The right question arises naturally from attention.

The limits of understanding

I want to say this too, because it seems important to me: understanding the other person's needs does not mean taking responsibility for satisfying all of them. There is a fundamental difference between understanding and making yourself responsible for. You can see that your partner needs more reassurance, you can respond to that need with warmth, without becoming their exclusive source of validation. You can understand that a friend is going through a difficult period without cancelling your own limits in order to support them constantly.

Understanding others' needs, practised healthily, does not exhaust you. On the contrary, it reduces unnecessary friction in relationships, because it replaces reflexive reactions with calibrated responses. And that makes relationships lighter, not heavier.

The most solid relationships I have observed, and lived, are not those without conflict or without difficult needs. They are the ones in which people have developed, over time, a sufficiently accurate map of what the other person needs and a genuine commitment to respond to those needs, as much as they can, honestly and without losing themselves in the process.

Think of someone important in your life. What do you believe their real need is, the one they don't express directly? And what would it mean for your relationship to respond to that need instead of to the behaviour it hides behind?