We give and take

The other day I had a real conversation with my 9-year-old daughter. “I am very sad, mummy…”. “What happened, dear?”, I asked. “Alice wasn’t nice to me today. She was laughing at me when I was crying at school. Why didn’t she want to cheer me up? And this is not the first time she has behaved like this. I thought she was my friend. Mummy, I have been giving her different pictures I painted myself and she has never given me one. I saw her giving things to others… Others but not me.” My heart was torn. I have my daughter a hug and said, “Oh, dear. I see you are very sad…” She paused and said, “Yes, I am sad and it feels unfair. You know what, I have a sticker and wanted to give it to her, but now I thought, why should I do that if I am not getting anything from her?”. “Yes, dear, real friendship is about giving to someone and someone giving to you. It is about two people who give and take, in balance…”. With that conversation, I stopped. And reflected on the power of giving and taking in the relationship. How important it is to maintain a real balance. If it is missing, someone will suffer on the way, sooner or later.

Relationships are probably the most complex thing in the world. Because we people are complex. We have our needs, feelings, and hopes. We have our stories. And we bring all this to our relationships in which we give and take. Time, attention, experience, credit, effort, good laughs, and tears. It flows somehow. But there could be moments when something feels wrong. We have that painful feeling that something is not okay. We feel sad and angry. Those feelings help us see that we give more than we take. Perhaps we have always given more, but it took us time to see that clearly. Have you ever been there?

It always takes two to tango, the taker and the giver. Why are we the „giving” person? Are we striving for being seen and heard, loved and accepted? Do we find it hard to set boundaries and ask for what we need? Are we always-nice-person? Always on, for others. No matter what. And why are we taking advantage of what is given, not really “giving back”? There could be million reasons. We are not aware of someone’s needs. We might find that setup is working for us. We are used to “taking” from others. We don’t really care much about the needs of the one giving in the relationship. We have no resources to give someone what they need from us. Other person has never really told us what they need from us. Or we have given up on the relationship. At the end of the day, it could be that the two dancing tango have never had a real conversation about what’s happening between them. They don’t talk, just dance.

It is important to understand if we are not in those relationships in which we give much and we get back little. Sure, we can handle it, hiding that secretly putting a smile on the face. Pretending that all is fine. Yes, we can do that. But, at what cost? The price we pay is high. We end up angry, sad, and hurt. We feel resentful and become very reactive. It is not a nice place to be.

Pause. Take a breath. Do honest check-in. Be close to yourself and your feelings. Could feel scary, risky, difficult, you name it. How much do I give? What do I get back? What’s the balance? What am I really feeling? And it is not that the relationship has to be fifty-fifty, because there are moment when we receive less than we give. And it is perfectly fine. We are people and we have our difficult moments when we simply cannot give much. Yet, when there is a huge imbalance over time, then it is something to go deeper. Once you take the time to see clearly what is happening, you can make a choice about what to do next. Perhaps you can both decide to have a real conversation. To try to recover the relationship. Or perhaps you decide to close the chapter.