Are You In A Transactional Relationship?

Do you feel as if your relationship isn’t fulfilled? Do you expect more from the other person? Do you feel as though you are doing more? Perhaps you see your relationship as transactional.

I want to share with you a story of mine, a story about the relationship dynamic between me and one my now really good friends, but it wasn’t always like that. The dynamic between us was one of expectation. One expected the other to call, text or send an invite. Over time this became less and less because if one didn’t do something, the other thought their action had stronger weight than the others. For example, when I invited my friend out for dinner I expected the same invite the following week. When that invite didn’t come or came late, I thought that my invite was better and outweighed their action. I, and probably both of us, were viewing the relationship on a points basis, or transactional. The relationship was built upon transactions in the form of texts, calls or invites. I looked at my other relationships and decided that this wasn’t healthy. So I stopped making it transactional. I would text even I didn’t receive a text. I would call even if I didn’t receive a call and over time the relationship moved away from that and became relational.

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A transactional relationship is one where both people are trading actions which leads to people subconsciously assigning points to each action. For example, in a husband/ wife relationship, if the wife asks for her husband to take out the rubbish, that’s one point compared to her ten points where she’s already cleaned the entire house.

This way of viewing a relationship can be unhealthy as it can lead to both people arguing more, disconnecting from their relationship and comparing their relationship to others. Ultimately, it creates a relationship environment based on expectation, not the relationship.

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So if you’re in this type of relationship what can you do? Here are four tools that massively helped me build stronger relationships, which you can act on right now:

1. Stop focusing on expectations. Take the time to openly speak to the other person about what you are looking for in this relationship
2. Don’t assume. People often assume the other person knows what they want. Most likely they don’t as people aren’t mind readers
3. Stop putting weight to your actions. Focus on connecting and building your relationship mutually, not exclusively
4. Stop expecting to win. They is no winner in a relationship unless you win together. Focus on resolving problems together through communication and understanding.

Now, I know I sometimes can have an idealistic view on things, but that is because these tools do work. However, a relationship requires two people. If someone consistently fails to meet you half way, fails to do what they say, isn’t interested in you, puts their ego before your relationship or isn’t willing to change then you are in a destructive relationship and you can do one of two things. I will cover what these two things are in my blog next week.

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How to reference this page

Toor, J. (2020). Are you in a transactional relationship? Available at: https://pmgrowth.co/are-you-in-a-transactional-relationship