“If They Loved Me, They’d Just Know”: How to Get Your Needs Met Without Doing All the Work

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It’s Thursday night and you’re running on fumes.

You did the meetings. You did the pickup. You booked the dentist, figured out dinner, and smiled through a phone call that took everything you had left.

And now you’re standing at the kitchen counter, and your partner is on the couch, scrolling.

You sigh. You wait. For them to look up. To notice your shoulders are up around your ears. To come over and just… do the thing. Whatever the thing is.

They don’t look up.

And you’ve tried asking. You have. But the asking felt like so much work that you kind of stopped. So you turn around and start doing the dishes, a little louder than they need to be done. And when they finally say “Hey, are you okay?” you say “I’m fine!” and keep scrubbing.

Underneath it all is the thought you’d never say out loud: If they really loved me, they’d just know.

Wanting your partner to just know isn’t needy. And it isn’t impossible. It just doesn’t show up out of nowhere like it does in the movies. It gets built, together, and you don’t have to be the one carrying all of it.

About this episode

A while ago I posted a reel about love languages, and someone left a comment I haven’t stopped thinking about. Two neurodivergent partners. One of them isn’t getting their cup filled, but doesn’t want to say what would fill it, because having to say it feels like proof their partner doesn’t care enough to just know. And on top of that, they might not even know what would fill it.

I hear some version of this from the women I work with all the time. So in Episode 25, I tackle the two questions underneath it: can my partner actually learn to just know what I need? And if I do have to ask, how do I do it without ending up doing all the work?

I walk through why asking feels so heavy for us, why pure mind reading doesn’t work (yet), and the good news that real attunement is learned, not magic. Then I give you a five-step way to get there together, one where you share what helps once, and your partner takes over the noticing, the offering and the remembering.

What you’ll learn

• Why “just ask for what you need” is really eight steps for a neurodivergent woman, and why wanting them to “just know” makes so much sense
• Why your partner can’t read your mind right now: your needs keep moving, you’re reading different maps, and you might not know what you need either
• How interoception, alexithymia and a lifetime of tuning in to everyone else can turn your own signal way down
• Why couples who “just know” each other weren’t born that way, and how attunement actually gets built
• The two sets of jobs: what’s yours (share what helps, once) and what’s your partner’s (the noticing, the offering and the remembering)
• A five-step way to get there together: figure out what fills your cup, build a menu together, teach your tells, hand over the noticing, and experiment and update
• The backup move when “what do you need?” feels like an abyss: pick from three to five options instead

Love isn’t intuitively knowing. Love is putting in the effort to understand.

Resources mentioned

• Free quiz, Is It Actually Me?: twelve questions, about five minutes, to sort out whether what’s driving the same stuck place is your wiring, your relationship, or a bit of both.
• Episode 15, Your Partner Thinks You’re Rejecting Them. You’re Just Touched Out.: where we talked about interoception and feeling what’s going on inside your body.
• Episode 16, “Just Communicate Your Needs Better” Is Not a Helpful Strategy: where we talked about alexithymia and why “what do you need?” can draw a blank.
• Episode 23, Invisible Labour, Invisible Love: the neurodivergent love languages episode.
• Follow me on Instagram: @neurodivergentlovelab

Ready to go deeper?

If you’re stuck in the “they should just know” place and can’t tell what’s really going on:

• Take the free quiz: Is It Actually Me? to figure out whether it’s your wiring, your relationship, or both.
• Book a free 15-minute consultation: Work with me if you’re in Alberta and curious about working together one-on-one.

Loved this episode?

Subscribe so you don’t miss what’s coming, leave a rating wherever you listen (it genuinely helps this reach the women who need it), and send this one to the person who’s tired of waiting to be noticed, or to the partner who really wants to get it right and just needs a menu.

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Episode transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.

Open

It’s Thursday night and you’re running on fumes.

You did the meetings. You did the pickup. You answered the group chat invite, telling everyone what you’re bringing to the thing, remembered to book the dentist, figured out dinner, and smiled through a phone call with that person you kinda sorta can’t really stand but still need to tolerate, and it took everything you had left.

And now you’re standing at the kitchen counter, and your partner is on the couch, scrolling.

You let out a sigh. You’re waiting.

Waiting for them to look up. To notice your shoulders are up around your ears. To see it on your face and come over and just… do the thing. Whatever the thing is that you need in that moment.

They don’t look up.

And you know what? You’ve tried asking. You have. You asked for help with that thing back in the spring, and they did it without you having to ask. Twice. And then it slid, and you didn’t want to be the one to bring it up again. You just hoped they’d notice. But they didn’t.

You asked for more help with the stuff around the house that one time, too. But it felt so painful watching them do it all wrong that you kind of wished you hadn’t.

You’ve even gone so far as to ask them to hold your hand more, or rub your back, or give you a hug when you need to feel grounded and safe and okay, and they kinda sorta did, but you always still needed to ask, and the asking felt like so much work, so you just stopped asking.

You feel stuck.

And in this stuckness, option one is to keep waiting for them to figure it out on their own. Which hasn’t happened yet. Option two is to become the project manager of your own love life. Notice the need, name the need, find the words, pick the timing, say it kindly, manage their reaction, and then remind them again next week. Which sounds exhausting. Because it is.

So as you’re standing at the kitchen counter, watching them scroll, waiting for them to notice, you give up and turn around and start doing the dishes. A little louder than they need to be done.

And when they finally say “Hey, are you okay?” you say “I’m fine!” and you keep scrubbing.

A little while ago I posted a reel on Instagram about love languages, and someone left a comment I haven’t stopped thinking about. I’m going to paraphrase it. It went something like this:

My partner and I are both neurodivergent. One of us isn’t getting their cup filled. But they don’t want to tell the other person what would fill it, because having to say it means their partner doesn’t care enough to just know. They feel unheard and tired, and they want their partner to figure it out on their own instead of having to explain how to be loved. And, on top of that, I suspect the person who wants their cup filled doesn’t even know what would fill their cup.

I wrote back a long reply. Honestly, it was way too long for an Instagram comment. And as I was re-reading it before I hit post, I realized there was a whole episode in there. Because I hear some version of this from the women I work with all the time.

So let’s figure it out. Let’s talk about finally getting your needs met without you having to do all of the work.

Intro

This is the Neurodivergent Love Lab. I’m Jenna Dalton, a psychologist who’s AuDHD. I help ADHD, autistic, and AuDHD women feel truly understood and deeply loved. And this is Episode 25: “If They Loved Me, They’d Just Know”: How to Get Your Needs Met Without Doing All the Work.

Now, I’m guessing you already know why you want your partner to just know. You probably grew up on the same rom-coms I did. You were taught that asking makes you needy. You were shown that love means reading your partner’s mind and just intuitively knowing what to do next.

What you probably want to know is what to do about it. And I think it comes down to two questions.

One. Can my partner actually learn to just know what I need, so I don’t have to keep asking?

And two. If I do have to ask, how do I do it in a way that feels supportive, and doesn’t leave me doing all the work?

So let’s tackle both of those questions.

Why asking feels like so much work

Okay. Before we get to the how, I want to name why asking feels so heavy for us.

Because once you know exactly why, this will all make a lot more sense.

When someone says “just ask for what you need,” it sounds like one step. One sentence. Easy.

For a lot of neurodivergent women, it’s more like eight steps.

First you have to notice you have a need. Which isn’t a given, and we’ll come back to that. Then you have to figure out what the need actually is. Then you have to decide whether you’re even allowed to have it, or whether it’s too much. Then you have to find the words. Then pick the right moment. Then say it in a calm, kind, non-blaming voice. Then manage whatever face your partner makes. And then, if they forget, start the whole thing over again next week.

That’s a lot. Right?

So when you think “I just want them to know,” a lot of the time what you really mean is “I don’t want one more thing to manage. I don’t want this to feel like one more huge thing on my to-do list.” And honestly? That’s fair. That’s really fair.

The problem is that waiting for them to guess hasn’t been working. And asking the way you’ve been asking has felt like carrying it alone.

So we need a third option.

Why pure mind reading doesn’t work (yet)

And I’m going to give you that third option. But first, let me quickly cover why your partner can’t just magically know right now.

Your needs keep moving.

Here’s something I wrote in my reply to that comment. What you want and need can change with what’s going on that day. With your capacity. Your environment. Where you are in your cycle. The stage of life you’re in.

On a chill Tuesday, maybe what fills your cup is your partner sitting with you and asking about your day. On a Thursday after nine hours of masking, that same thing might feel like way too much, and what you actually need is quiet. The week before your period, maybe you need extra reassurance. In perimenopause, maybe everything you used to need got rearranged and you’re still figuring out your new normal.

That’s a moving target. Even a really attentive partner can’t hit it blindfolded.

You’re also both reading different maps.

The person who left that comment said that both they and their partner are neurodivergent. And a lot of couples where both people are neurodivergent assume they’ll automatically get each other. Sometimes you do, in really lovely ways.

But your wiring isn’t identical. You might notice every tiny shift in the room, and your partner might not pick up on subtle cues at all. They need direct, blunt communication. You hint, and they hear exactly the words you said and nothing underneath. So when you say “I’m fine,” they believe you. You said you were fine, so you must be fine.

We’ve talked about the double empathy problem before. When two people process the world differently, the misreading goes both ways. You’re both speaking English, just different dialects.

And your partner has their own stuff going on. If they’re ADHD, they might be so deep in their own head they didn’t see your face. If they’re autistic, they might be at the bottom of their own battery. You could both be drowning on opposite ends of the same couch, each waiting for the other one to notice.

You also might not even know what you actually need.

And then there’s the part the commenter was so wise to name. They said, “I suspect they might not even know what would fill their cup.”

This is so common. Part of it is interoception, which we talked about in Episode 15. That’s your ability to feel what’s going on inside your body. For a lot of us that signal is fuzzy. Part of it is alexithymia, from Episode 16, which is a big word for having a hard time putting names to your feelings.

And part of it is the women’s version. If you’ve spent your whole life tuned in to everyone else’s needs… reading the room, keeping the peace, remembering everyone’s birthdays and allergies and star sign… your own signal has probably been turned way down. You didn’t do that on purpose. There was only so much room, and everybody else’s needs took up all of it.

So if you’re not sure what you need, that makes so much sense. And it also means your partner has very little chance of guessing it for you. Right now.

I keep saying “right now” on purpose. Because here’s where it gets real good.

The good news: your partner can learn to just know

You know those couples who’ve been together twenty years and seem to read each other’s minds? One of them sighs and the other one is already putting the kettle on?

That isn’t magic. And they didn’t start out that way.

They got there through hundreds, probably thousands, of little moments of one person saying what they needed and the other person paying attention and remembering. Over and over. Until the remembering turned into knowing.

That’s what attunement actually is. It’s learned. It gets built. It’s intentional observation and a curiosity to understand.

Which means the version of love you’ve been wishing for, where they just know, is actually on the table for you. The road there just goes through some asking first. Think of it like your partner learning a new language. At the beginning they need Google Translate. After a while they don’t. They can order a coffee and a pastry in another language without prompts. They just know.

So asking now, building a framework to help your partner understand your needs better, is how you get to ask less later.

And here’s where your rom-com fantasies become reality. When your partner asks, or you simply tell them, and then they listen, and then remember, and then show up for you the way you asked them to… that’s a person choosing you. On purpose. Over and over.

That’s modern romance.

The other good news: you don’t have to do all the work

Now, the second question. How do you ask without carrying the whole thing?

Here’s how I think about it with couples. There are two sets of jobs here, and they belong to two different people.

Your job is pretty simple. Get a rough sense of what helps you, and share it once, outside of the moment you have that need. Give honest feedback when something works or doesn’t. Experiment with different asks until it feels like you’re getting what you need. Work with your partner to come up with shared language around this. For some of my clients this looks like a capacity check, and them using a key word or phrase that signals to their partner that they need support.

“I’m feeling overwhelmed,” or “I’m in the red,” or “I’m at max capacity.”

Your partner’s jobs are the noticing, the offering, and the remembering. Watching for your signals. Paying attention to your verbal cues or the language you agreed on. Being the one to start the check-in. Writing down your needs and how they can best support you so they don’t forget. Bringing it up again next week so you don’t have to. Checking in on what’s working and not working.

Right now, a lot of women are doing both sets of jobs. Or, more often, doing neither and waiting, because they either learned that doing both gets them nowhere, or it just feels impossible. When you split it up between the two of you, asking stops feeling like one more thing on your to-do list. You do your part once. They take it from there.

So let’s build that.

The tool: five steps to get there together

Here’s how to actually make this work.

Step one. Figure out what fills your cup, on your own time.

If you’re not sure what you need, start here, and start alone. Do this when nobody’s waiting on you, because trying to figure it out mid-meltdown with your partner looking at you hopefully is way too much pressure for a brain that needs time and space to process and brainstorm.

Grab your notes app. Think back over the last few months to moments where you felt cared for. Even tiny ones. Be specific.

If you’re having trouble getting started, here are some ideas to get the juices flowing. There will be times when you need help coming down and times when you need a boost. There will be other times as well, more nuanced times that go beyond needing help coming down or being lifted up, but this will help you get started.

When you need to come down:

• Quiet. Your partner turns off the TV, keeps their voice low, or hands you your headphones without you having to ask.
• Deep pressure. Your partner offers a long, firm hug or tucks the weighted blanket around you.
• A warm shower or bath. Your partner runs it for you and handles the kids, the dog, or the dinner while you’re in there.
• Comfy clothes. Your partner grabs your softest hoodie or favourite pajamas so you can change the second you get home.
• Time with no talking. Your partner sits with you without needing conversation, and is okay with the quiet.

When you need a lift:

• Music. Your partner puts on your favourite playlist and maybe pulls you into a dance party.
• A snack. Your partner brings you ice water, frozen grapes, or something crunchy or sour.
• Movement. Your partner says “let’s go for a walk” and grabs both your jackets.
• Something new. Your partner suggests a new coffee shop, a different route, or a recipe you haven’t tried.
• Your special interest. Your partner asks about the thing you love and actually listens while you go deep on it.

How did each of those feel? Some will feel right, others will feel like they don’t fit. Focus on the ones you feel drawn to and build your list from there.

Step two. Build a menu together. Once.

If you’ve already done the work solo, or you simply have a pretty good idea of what your needs are, then it’s time to sit down with your partner and build a list together.

Sit down together, and each of you make a short list of things that might help in different kinds of moments. A menu. Five to ten things each is plenty.

It helps to sort it a little. What helps when I’m overwhelmed? When I’m sad? When I’m bored and lonely and understimulated? When I’m feeling insecure?

You don’t have to tackle every unique instance that could possibly happen, but start with the main ones you often find yourself in.

Your menu might look like:

• “Sit with me and hold my hand or rub my back.”
• “Take over dinner tonight.”
• “A long, firm hug.”
• “Send me something reassuring in the middle of a hard day.”
• “Turn off the TV and the overhead light.”
• “Ask me about my special interest and let me info-dump for a while.”
• “Handle bedtime so I can lie down in a dark room.”

Then put each other’s menus on your phones. Both phones.

And notice what just happened. You did the asking one time. You don’t have to re-explain yourself every Thursday night. The menu does that part for you.

Step three. Teach your tells.

This is the step that gets your partner closer to just knowing.

You have tells. Little signs that show up when you need something. You might not even be aware of all of them, but I promise they’re there.

Maybe when you’re overwhelmed you go quiet and change into your favourite sweats as soon as you get home. Maybe when you’re lonely you end up scrolling in bed at 9pm. Maybe when your capacity is low your answers get really short. Maybe you start pacing or cleaning aggressively when you’re feeling irritated.

So add a second piece to your menu. Your tells, and what they usually mean.

• “When I go quiet and change into my sweats right away, I’m usually overwhelmed.”
• “When I’m scrolling in bed, I’m probably lonely.”
• “When I start answering with one word, my battery’s almost dead.”
• “When I pace or clean aggressively, I’m likely mad.”

Pick three to five common tells you know you do and add them at the bottom of your menu. This way, your partner doesn’t have to guess what your subtle cues mean. They can see you scrolling in bed, look at the menu for answers, and say, “Oh! Are you lonely? You seem lonely.”

You’re turning the hints into a key they can actually read. And once they know the tell, they can start acting on it without you saying a word.

Which is… them just knowing. Without you needing to ask or explain in that moment.

Step four. Hand over the noticing.

Now we split the work for real.

Have a conversation where you hand your partner the noticing job. Here’s what that could sound like:

“I don’t want to be the only one keeping track of what I need. I’ve made you a menu and a list of my tells. Can you be the one who keeps an eye out and checks in when you see one? You don’t have to get it right every time or notice every single one. I just don’t want to have to wave my hands in the air trying to get your attention every time I’m struggling.”

And then, when your partner spots a tell, they do the reaching out. They pull up the menu, and they do their best to support you in the way they think you’d appreciate being supported in that moment, knowing that you won’t make them wrong for trying, even if they don’t get it totally right. Patience in this process is key!

If there’s no menu handy, or the moment isn’t on it, here’s the backup move. Instead of asking “what do you need?” (which can feel like an abyss of possibilities with no clear answer), your partner shows you your menu and asks you to point, or offers three to five options and asks which one feels closest.

“Do you want me to take the kids out for a bit, give you a hug, make you a tea, or leave you alone for a while? Which one feels most like what you need right now?”

This matters so much for us, because it can be really hard for a neurodivergent brain to come up with ideas out of the blue. Especially when you’re already overwhelmed. Picking from a list is so much easier. Most of us can point at something even when we can’t find the words.

And here’s one more piece of your partner’s job. The remembering. If something on the menu worked really well, they make a note of it. If you asked for something new, they put it in their phone. Remembering is theirs to own, so you can stop being the one always doing the reminding.

Step five. Experiment, check in, update.

This one’s for the woman who’s worried she’ll ask for something and then change her mind, and look flaky.

You’re allowed to try things. You’re allowed to put something on the menu and cross it off later. You’re allowed to want a hug on Monday and want nobody to touch you on Thursday.

So call it an experiment. “Can we try this for a couple of weeks and see how it feels? I might change my mind, and that’s just me figuring it out.”

Then pick a time, maybe once a month, to look at the menu together. What worked? What didn’t? What needs to be added? What needs to be deleted? What needs to shift?

Think of the menu as a living list. It’s going to change as your life changes and as you get to know yourself better.

And here’s what I see happen with couples who stick with this. A few months in, the menu comes out less and less. Because your partner has learned it. They see you wiping the counters and the kettle’s already on.

That’s the mind reading you were hoping for. You both just built it on purpose instead of hoping it would magically happen.

The free quiz

Now, I want to name something before we wrap up.

When you’re stuck in the “they should just know” place, it’s really hard to tell what’s actually going on. Is it me? Am I being needy? Is it them? Do they just not care? Or is it both of our brains tangled up together in a way neither of us can see from the inside?

That’s exactly why I made my free quiz. It’s called Is It Actually Me? It’s twelve questions, takes about five minutes, and helps you sort out what’s really driving the same fight, the same feeling, the same stuck place, over and over. Whether it’s your wiring, your relationship, or a bit of both.

Because “I’m not getting what I need” can come from a lot of different places, and the fix depends on which one you’re in.

Take it free at JennaDalton.com/quiz. That’s JennaDalton.com/quiz.

Close

Okay. Here’s what I want you to take with you today.

Wanting your partner to just know what you need makes total sense. It would feel lovely to just be taken care of without needing to ask, right? And it’s possible. Way more possible than you’ve been led to believe. It just doesn’t show up out of nowhere like it does in the movies. It gets built, one menu and one tell and one check-in at a time.

And you don’t have to be the one carrying all of it. You get to share what helps, once. Your partner gets to do the noticing, the offering and the remembering. That’s teamwork making the dream work.

So this week, start small. Write down three things that have made you feel cared for, and one tell you know you have. Just that. And if it feels okay, show your partner. That might be the very first page of your menu.

And to the person who left that comment, and to anyone who saw themselves in it… I wrote this in my reply and I’m going to say it one more time.

Love isn’t intuitively knowing. Love is putting in the effort to understand.

Thanks for hanging out with me today. Remember, you deserve to feel truly understood and deeply loved. I’ll talk to you soon.

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The Neurodivergent Love Lab is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for therapy or mental health care. If you’re in crisis, please reach out to a local crisis line or emergency service.