Reciprocity as required for healthy relating

Balancing relational exchange

Lately I have been pondering the essence of reciprocity, and why it is such an essential element of mutually beneficial and balanced adult relationships.

Reciprocity allows us to be fluid in the roles we play without getting stuck in an identity: always being the giver or receiver; the teacher or the student; the needy or the needed. Over time, when reciprocity is present in a dynamic, it naturally balances the energy of exchange so that our interactions are not depleting or extracting.

All our childhood wounds come from expecting our parents to be super human (or at least healed, conscious adults) instead of children. We see our parents as God-like — they were the ones that gave us life after all. But along with that perception, we have some outsized expectations around how they show up for us. And inevitably, they are human and they fall from grace. It is pretty much guaranteed. And we carry the wound of that misplaced expectation for the rest of our lives — encoded into our systems as neglect, rejection, betrayal or abandonment.

The parent-child just happens to be one of those roles that appears to be quite fixed. Even then, the roles reverse as parents age, and former guardians and caregivers become those needing assistance.

Maybe it’s a bit easier to see how fixed roles can create issues when we look at other more malleable pairs of relating dynamics. For example:

• If you are always serving you become the servant, but can you be self loving enough to name your own needs?

• If you are always teaching you become the teacher, but can you be humble enough to listen with curiosity?

• If you are always sacrificing you become the martyr, but can you be honest enough to own your limitations?

• If you are always giving advice you become the counselor, but can you be open enough to ask support and receive?

Reciprocity is a practice that requires us to flip the script on the way that we are relating so that our posture doesn’t get too fixed. Reciprocity ensures we are flexible enough to play both sides, to slip into the role of any character in any story.

The ability to be fluid in the roles that we play also loosens the grip of expectations that we have for others, which of course helps alleviate unnecessary suffering that comes when our expectations are not met.

Expectations are a poor substitute for communication. They are the manifestation of laziness in relating. We assume instead of ask. And you know what happens when we assume — we make both you and me into an a$$.

Instead of making ourselves assess, we want to train a better relational habit: making ourselves ask.

Can you help me with this problem? Do you have the capacity to offer emotional support? What would you like me to do with this information? Is there something you want me to change? How do you feel about the situation now? What do you think is the best way to move forward?

Of course, when we notice reciprocity is not present in a certain relating dynamic, that can be a red flag. In navigating my own life, I see that the absence of reciprocity is a call for the presence of stronger boundaries.

Let’s gate check our fantasy projections and take note of those moments when we are unreasonably expecting perfection; because the more that we pedestal others, the more we set them up for a big fall.

We harm ourselves with our thoughts about things, by thinking people should be different than they are. We can find forgiveness by reminding ourselves that disappointment is simply the byproduct of this mismatch of expectations and reality. This remembrance allows us to stop suffering. But yet even in full forgiveness for the moments where we were not met, we can also recognize that someone lacks the basic qualities or capacities we need for healthy relating.