One partner often gives more money, affection, or help with chores while the other gives less, breeding resentment on both sides. The speaker suggests auditing what you give and receive in your relationship to see if the exchange feels fair, across finances, emotions, and daily tasks.
Chapters
How do you measure your value in a relationship? I know that it doesn't sound very romantic, but I've been thinking a lot about it because a lot of the conversations we've been having with various people and a lot of the comments are really revealing that people feel that there's some sort of imbalance in their relationship between what they're giving out and what they're getting back, right? And it could be that, you know, the man is turning up and he's putting money in the bank and he's paying for, you you know, his share of the household expenses, and his partner is turning up and putting money in the bank and doing the cooking and the cleaning and the washing up and everything like that. And so over time, there's some resentment around that because it feels like there's some disparity between what one person is giving and what the other person is giving. Or it could be that a man feels that he's very generous with his feelings, and it's not getting met in the same way from his partner, and he's doing all sorts of loving and wonderful things, and he's not getting appreciated. And again, that might lead to resentment. Or it might be that there's a financial disparity, and that one person is, you know, putting in a lot of money, and the other person maybe isn't putting in any, or isn't able to, and isn't doing what the other person feels is their share for that disparity in finances. And there could be resentment around that, or there could be resentment around lots of things, but I always think to myself, what am I putting into this relationship? You know, what am I giving? What am I able to give? And what do I feel that I'm getting back in return? And is it equal? Because once it starts becoming unequal to me, or what I'm giving, or what I'm being asked to give is more than I want to or am able to give, then again, I often feel quite overwhelmed by that, where I'm not able to provide in the way that I feel I'm being expected to. And similarly, the value that I'm looking for from the other person, I'm not getting in the way that I want. And so there's, there's that form of resentment as well. So I think even though it doesn't sound very romantic, thinking about one's own value and what they are contributing versus what they feel they're getting back— and it doesn't have to be financial value, it could be emotional value, it It could be, you know, just those day-to-day things that we have to do and feeling like one person is doing all of them and the other person isn't doing enough, as an example. And it works on both sides. It's not— this is not any sort of gender bias here. This is just merely stating that thinking about value and thinking about how you can create more equitable value in your relationship has surely got to be one way to getting to a point where you're both happy.
