Transactionality

I was going to write a post about transactionality, but it turns out most of what I was about to write, I had already written in a post on reciprocity (note to self to read my own blog more). So, this post is going to be shorter than I had anticipated. Keeping a mental tally of how much you and the opposite person are contributing to a platonic or romantic relationship sounds like a cheerless and even petty exercise. But, reciprocity is important in any relationship. Men are not socialised in reciprocity and my previous post talks about this at more length. I feel like many people are concerned about not taking the opposite person in a relationship for granted. We should also be concerned about not being taking for granted because in the long run, that is unhealthy for everyone involved. Expressing boundaries in a relationship can either salvage a relationship or end a potentially lopsided relationship. Of course, different people have different abilities and capacities to contribute to a relationship. And, if we feel value and cherished in a relationship the mental tallies fade into the background. We only bring them out when we feel taken for granted. And, those mental tallies are useful to assess whether our feelings are justified or without reason. Because sometimes we can simply forgot what the other person has done for us.