Give and Take

I once read somewhere, and I'll update this post if I remember where, that, if a relationship feels easy to you, it's because the other person is doing all the heavy lifting.

I'm sure there are exceptions. Some people make it easy, by their very existence, to get along, communicate, maintain boundaries, schedule plans, etc.

I am not one of those people. I'm a mess, and I know it. Maintaining any kind of human connection with me is fucking work.

Neither is my friend, AtoZ. AtoZ has several mental health diagnoses, an alcohol addiction, and one very fucked up childhood which add up to their never having learned the basic skills of being in a relationship. They don't even know what they don't know. On top of that, they're very defensive about this deficit, and will verbally tear down anyone who points out that AtoZ's behavior toward them is not okay.

Which is a shame, because AtoZ is a good person. AtoZ is a mature, responsible, caring adult with their shit together awfully well for someone who's been through what they've been through. But, AtoZ is also exhausting.

AtoZ doesn't understand the give-and-take of relationships. Call them on the emotional burden they've saddled you with, and you're ungrateful and just plain mean. AtoZ will do a lot for you - gifts, errands, lend you money, drive you to an appointment, pick up your grocery order and carry it up the steep, rickety stairs to your apartment, laundry, take your trash out, pick up your mail, even change your oil and make some pricey repairs on your car. But, AtoZ doesn't understand the role of the emotional landscape. AtoZ doesn't even have the capacity to recognize that all the things they do for you fail to cancel out that they don't register you have emotions, and the right to them.

AtoZ will talk their head off about their problems, their turmoil, their stress. Start talking about your bad day, and they'll change the subject. Have two years of accumulated stress and misery, and confront them on their never asking you what's wrong? You're cruel and abusive and how dare you.

True story.

So how relationships are supposed to work is, you're supposed to care about each other. Some days one person will lean a little more on the other, but the times the dynamic is reversed will cancel it out. No one's keeping a scorecard or anything, but you usually have a pretty good idea if one person is all me me me me me me for more than their fair share.

Imagine it like a seesaw. Sometimes your friend will hold your heavy backpack while you play on the seesaw, so you'll get to go flying up in the air when it's your turn to go up. Other times, you'll be the one saddled with all the heavy shit so your friend can feel light and unburdened. Most days, though, you both remember you can put your backpacks down so everyone can have fun.

If one person's always stuck with the work, though, you're not even playing on the seesaw anymore. You're on one of those levers with a moving fulcrum you probably learned about in middle school science. That fulcrum moves closer to the one putting in the effort, which makes it harder and harder for them to get the other person off the ground. Meanwhile, the one who dumped all their shit on their friend is mad the friend isn't getting them in the air like they used to. They don't even understand why their friend is having such a hard time. After all, they're doing it way more easily.

Bit of a tortured metaphor, I know. So let me give an example from my other friendships.

I am chronically late. I have the ADHD time blindness to such a degree, it's a wonder I ever make it anywhere. Things take longer than I anticipate, or I get distracted doing something else, or I have a billion tiny things I forgot to do, and that need to get done before I can leave. Usually it's some combination of all three.

Now, I could make that my friends' problem. More of a problem than it already is, anyway. I could be one of those assholes building my identity around making other people wait for me. I could demand nothing starts without me and that everyone adjust to my fucked up sense of time. Or lack thereof.

I don't do that. Instead, I make sure my friends understand it's nothing personal, it's not on purpose, and that I'm eager to see them. I make sure they know it's not a reflection of my desire to hang out. I ask that they start without me when I'm late, whenever possible, and I do my best to catch up without disrupting things when I do get there. I also take great pains to allow myself more time, plan better, and factor in delays. If a friend tells me a different start time than everyone else just so I'll be on time, I don't take it personally. It's actually a huge relief, to find out you're early when you thought you were late. I recommend the feeling to anyone. For things like show start times or transportation departure, where it's that much more important I get there on time, I write it down in my calendar as an earlier time.

AtoZ has literally no understanding of the concept. To them, leaning heavily on me is to be expected, because they're stressed and struggling and life is hard, dammit. It never seems to occur to them that I might be just as stressed or struggling just as much, if not more. They're not there to support me, they're there to get their needs met. And they don't want to hear that I, too, have needs. They don't understand, and react with such defensiveness when I try to convey, that all their good deeds don't make up for asking me to neglect my own emotional landscape for theirs.

Upcoming: Boundaries, Red Flags, Therapy