Fifty percent of marriages fail.
Over the years I have often heard that relationships are meant to be 50-50, where participants are meant to out in equal amounts of effort. Of course in practice, life runs in various phases, so sometimes one will put in more effort when the other can't and vice versa - but on average, it should balance. It should be fair.
The logic seems sound.
But it isn't.
I have often tried in relationships to find this balance, but it has always escaped me, and it was only relatively recently that I realised why it has been so difficult. Because yes, while there are times that we can't perform at our best and we need help, what is required to reach "fairness" is a near constant monitoring of the score. This means that a score needs to be kept, which requires a scoring system. But the problem with a scoring system for relationships is, that not only are different actions incomparable, each person in the relationship applies a different value weighting to the same action. One action might be important to one, and irrelevant to the other.
What's the score?
For a long time I have talked about how relationships have become very transactional, whether it is between friends, family, or lovers. People seem to only put in when they assume they are going to get something out. A return on their investment. While this might work for business, the problem with this approach in interpersonal relationships is that there is no token of trade, there is no black and white contract, and there is very little visibility into what participants actually value. Transactions happen, but the trade can leave one or both parties dissatisfied, disappointed, feeling used, taken advantage of, unappreciated, and an overall feeling of unfairness.
And this can lead to resentment.
It is no wonder so many relationships fail when human nature tends to take the approach that a person doing the same job as another, believes that they are doing more than the other. If the other person is earning more, than it is very unfair, right? Now, reality has nothing to do with the assessment of who is doing more, it is just a perception.
Who does the most housework in your home?
Who does the better housework?
Me on both of those.
And when we are constantly trying to keep some kind of mental score about who has done what, when and how often, we are going to be observing and evaluating, not actually doing. Or we are doing in the hope of scoring points, like putting "relationship capital" in the bank for some future return. And the other person is doing the same. But, that human nature aspect of belief we are better than we actually are, means that we can overvalue our actions, and undervalue theirs.
But something I came across in a book recently was that the problem with 50-50 relationships is that the best you can hope for over time, is fifty percent. Sure, each person is going to have their strengths and weaknesses, but they are only going to put in when they believe they will get something of value out. That means that if one puts in 30 percent, the other will soon adjust down.
Fair is fair.
This resonated with me in many ways because while I "believe" that we should each put in 100% for a total of 200% - be much stronger together - I am also often guilty of keeping score, and adjusting my behaviour based on the behaviour of my partners - now my wife. This can lead to me doubling down, even when I know I am wrong, and knowing that all I want to do is hold her and say sorry.
But that would unbalance the score.
I was reading a bit of an article the other day saying that the number one predictor as to whether a marriage will last or not, is whether the couple are friends. Ideally, they should be best friends. And I think the benefit of best friends is that they don't always agree, and are often each other's biggest critics, because they want the best for the other, but don't want anything from the other. It can lead to conflict, but that conflict is in service to growth, improvement, and comes from a place of love.
That is the first time I have used "love" in this article.
It is a word too often thrown around these days. But it is a word that should be discussed. Because love has to be unconditional. And what that means is that there is no score possible. You act with love, or you don't.
There is no 50-50 love.
Loving to get love in return is a business strategy. As is withholding love to get your way. But, should the most important relationships in our lives be business transactions? Investments made with an expected ROI?
Or should we love at a hundred percent, and expect nothing in return?
I am not saying that we won't get nothing in return, but if we truly love, then we are going to fully commit to being ourselves through that love too. If it is accepted, fine. If it is reciprocated, fine. If it goes unreturned, fine. If it is rejected, fine.
A lot of our lives has been monetized in some way, which means a lot of our lives are driven by value metrics, whether we like it or not. Pretty much all of our activity on the internet is tokenized. All of our work is evaluated with KPIs. All of our actions are logged, sorted, and sold in some way. And all of this tracking and data has conditioned us to care about the numbers. To keep score.
Love is free to give. And there is no transaction.
There are no numbers. But there are potential costs to our experience when we expect some kind of reciprocation with what we give, especially if we feel that what we got returned was not an even trade. It was unfair. But the problem is, "What does even, even mean?"
Let's say you are standing at the counter at the shops and you are short five dollars. You have plenty of money in the bank, but you don't have your wallet on you and nothing more in your pockets. The man behind you in the line taps you on the shoulder and says, hey, here is the five dollars you need. You refuse, but they insist and say, it is okay, I am happy to help. You thank them profusely, pay the cashier, and walk out feeling good about the world and the kindness of strangers.
What if you later found out the five was all the money he had?
While his kindness saved you some further embarrassment at the shops so you didn't have to put items back, it cost him whatever he was going to spend that five on. And while that five was irrelevant in your grand scheme of life, it might have been significant for him in that moment, yet he still chose to give what he could.
Transactional relationships are a bit like that. Where we are keeping score of the "acts of love" comparing them against our own acts of love. But the evaluation of the importance and the weighting is coming from our perspective, where we are considering if we have received enough for the effort we have put in, in the way we expect and want to be loved.
But what if that is all the love they can give?
I think if we want to keep a clear "love conscience", the safest way is to love fully. At one hundred percent, all of the time. This means that we love the best we can, regardless of what we have received, or will receive. We don't need to compare our love to that of others, because they are incomparable, in the same way that something and nothing are incomparable. After all,
What is "nothing"?
We can answer what it isn't.
Everything else.
So, what is love? Is it an act? is it a present? Is it a thing that can be traded?
What are we giving when we love?
If we don't know what we are giving, how can we attach a value to what we get back?
There is love. There is not love. There is no 50-50.
Taraz
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