Is It Wrong to be “Selfish” in a Relationship?

Well, it really depends on how you define “selfishness” and on how much of this exists in your relationship.

Selfishness can be described as a focus on one’s own needs, desires, and interests, typically at the expense or neglect of others. Research by Carlson et al. (2022) proposed several conceptualisations of the term from different schools of thought before theorising it as a “situated desire to act in a self-beneficial way that violates a prevailing social expectation, such that it disregards the desires of others in the situation”. On the other hand, Abraham Maslow (1943) noted that there is a “healthy selfishness” where an individual has respect for their own health, growth, happiness, joy, and freedom which can have a positive impact on the self and others. That said, selfishness depends on your perception of a situation, on the desires, on other people’s circumstances and perceptions, and on any perceived expectations in each situation. To explain this, consider the following scenarios.

Let’s say you’re in a relationship where your partner consistently prioritises their own needs, feelings, and desires without considering your needs, feelings, and desires. For instance, they might resist making a commitment to spending quality time with you over the weekend (on a Friday or Saturday night) because they want to be available incase their friends go out drinking in a local bar. When you really think about this in your relationship, you might discover that they might make this decision without discussing it with you, or without planning to spend time with you on one of the days. You might feel unimportant, neglected, or lonely in this relationship because you aren’t really being considered. In this case, you could say your partner is a “selfish” person because they are overlooking the importance of compromise, of quality time together for even one night on the weekend, and consideration for how you feel about the uncertainty of whether you will see them or not which might make you incredibly anxious in the relationship with them.

In contrast, let’s say you’re in a relationship where your partner has expressed that they really value time with their friends on the weekends but equally, you have expressed that you would like to spend time with them on one of the nights over the weekend and to have this planned in advance. In this situation, it would be important for you both to understand why these elements are important to the other person first. That said, unless you both know how to articulate why this is important to you and unless you both feel fully understood by your partner, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll reach a compromise that respects both of your feelings, needs, and desires. Thus, open, curious, and empathetic communication around this is key.

Now if you’re wondering what a compromise might look like in the above scenario, keep reading on.

In this example, one compromise might look like your partner making a plan to see you one of the nights for a couple of weekends in a row and for them to see their friends the other night. Maybe, you check-in around how this feels after a while and revisit what your weekends look like if it doesn’t feel good to both of you. This could be one win-win scenario where both of your feelings, needs, and desires are being taken into consideration. It’s also an example of you both getting the outcome that you want without sacrificing what’s important to you (or without placing your partner’s needs above yours and essentially viewing your own needs as “less than”). Equally, in this example, neither of you are compromising on your own happiness levels or sacrificing what’s important to you (which can breed negativity between you both). So, this outcome would be considered healthy levels of self-interest or, as Maslow (1943) noted, an example of healthy levels of “selfishness”, depending on how you decide to define that term.

So, all of this considered, it might be controversial to say this but…

Be “selfish” when you’re in a relationship with someone. Start holding your needs, feelings, and desires as equally important to your partner’s rather than viewing it as an “either/or” situation. It’s not supposed to be about you gaining something else, while your partner goes without or sacrifices (or vice versa). It’s supposed to be more like a “both/and” situation when you’re in a relationship with someone else – it’s this dynamic that will prevent any feelings of resentment from building in the relationship.

Has this article brought something up for you? Is it that you struggle to reach a compromise in your relationship? Or is it that you struggle to identify and express your feelings, needs, and desires in a relationship? Regardless of what it is, click the button below to get some support along your journey asap.

References

Carlson, R. W., Adkins, C., Crockett, M. J., & Clark, M. S. (2022). Psychological Selfishness. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1–22.

Maslow, A. H. (1943). Is human nature basically selfish? Future Visions: The Unpublished Papers of Abraham Maslow, 107–114.