In today’s world, so many people across the globe are disillusioned with relationships. They are asking themselves: Do relationships actually even work? Are good relationships even possible? What does a healthy, mutually feel-good relationship even look like? Left and right, relationships are changing and relationships falling apart. And so many people are confused about why it seems like suddenly what used to work doesn’t work anymore. The collective sentiment is: What is happening?
If we zoom way out, so we can look at human relationships as they have evolved over time, what we see is a lot of change. For example, you would see primitive human relationships looking tribal, where pair bonding is not an element of the structure of the group and sexuality is not controlled. You would see the birth of structured hierarchy within society. You would see the shift from a foraging society to an agrarian society causing a shift where separation of family groups became important. Sexuality was then controlled and marriage was an essential element of that control. You would see the onset of religion and religious changes impacting the societal idea of right and wrong, good and bad, this includes regarding relationships. You would see government structures dictating what relationships must be and must not be. You would see marriage being something that was purely based on practicalities and social advantage shifting to marriage being based off of romance and love. You would see living arrangements change from tribal units to extended families to nuclear families to an individual living alone. You would see gender roles within relationships. Then you would see the destruction of gender roles. You would see people taking care of their old to the old being placed in care facilities. You would see advertising changing from the emphasis being about the family to the emphasis being placed on the single individual. Another way of putting this is that all kinds of things change how humans have relationships. Migrations to new environments cause changes in how people have relationships. Climate change cause changes in how people have relationships. Famine causes changes in how people have relationships. War causes changes in how people have relationships. The introduction of new beliefs, such as those introduced by religions, cause changes in how people have relationships. Cultural movements cause changes in how people have relationships. Travel becoming more and more possible causes changes in how people have relationships. Economic changes cause changes in how people have relationships. Needs that arise within any given society, cause changes in how we have relationships. And none of this takes into account that the evolution of relationships in one location and in one culture, may look totally different than it would look in another. Take for example the fact that in certain areas of the world and certain cultures, harems were a normal structure for relationships. Whereas, that was never a standard relationship structure in other areas of the world and in other cultures.
It is very important that we zoom out and look at relationships across time like this because when we are zoomed in, we think the way that we have been socialized to have relationships is just a given. As if it is the only way to have relationships. And this is an understandable, yet ignorant perspective. Sometimes, there are periods of stability regarding the structure of human relationships. And sometimes, human relationships are in transition to something new. Right now, we are in one of those periods of transition to something new.
Most of you watching this video were socialized to think that relationships look a certain way. It would be a good idea to pause this video and write down what you always thought each significant relationship would and should look like. For example, for many of us watching this video, it was a given that our closest relationships would stop being our parents once we started going to school and would instead be with our peers. It was a given that we would leave home at 18 years old as we were not welcome to live there any longer. We would meet someone of the opposite sex and immediately fall in love and the fact that we fell in love with them was the indication that we were meant to marry them. We would then live together in a house with the children that we would have. Whether to have children or not, was never a question, it was a given. We would see the rest of our family on holidays or in times of crisis. We would have friends, but only for quality time or for help in desperate times of need. We would settle into gender roles, but only kind of, because it was a given that the man in the relationship would have an important career. And it was critical that the woman had more important things going than just home making. Otherwise, she was pathetic. But she would have to wait until the kids were in school to then get a job too. We would do our own thing most of the time, and really only come together at dinner time, on the weekend and on vacations to spend time together. We would go out for dates, to keep the romance alive amidst the chaos of the romance killing demands of life. We would be completely sexually faithful to our partner, no matter what. And learn to suppress and manage any attraction we felt to anyone else. We would have pets, especially for the sake of the kids. Because animals are part of the family. And by following this expected template, we would be happy. You get the point right?
We come to believe that there is one structure and one formula for how to have relationships. Whether that be with our parents, siblings, friends, colleagues, kids, boss, pets or romantic partner. And this WAY to have relationships, is reinforced by everything and everyone around us, from our government, to our advertising, to our religions, to our sources of entertainment to all the people around us who we are in relationship with. And when this template does not work for us, we consider ourselves defective.
In this transition that we are currently a part of, there are several factors that have caused a collapse of the template of what we would consider traditional relationships. These changes have made it so that the traditional model does not work anymore. One of these factors is that women’s values within society changed. Both what they valued in life in general, as well as what they valued in a man and in a relationship with a man. The expectation arose for men to take a more involved role in fatherhood and to display empathy, vulnerability and emotional intelligence. And the expectation arose for women to have a career and to display independence, competence and assertiveness. This coincided with the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This push for equality (really sameness) put human society on a trajectory towards the destruction of gender roles and thus the way that men and women have relationships. This led to the approach of the feminization of men and the masculinization of women. Another factor is the “Disney lie”. Disney movies and romance films set the expectation for children and young people of what to expect in relationships. Only they did not depict the reality. They depicted a perfection that does not exist. A happily ever after. Misleading people in this way meant failing to prepare people for the reality of relationships and when they encountered the reality, there was a mass disillusionment.
Another factor is the LGBTQ movement, which pushed society to normalize relationships that do not fit into the typical male-female box. Another factor is that whereas in the past, divorce was a rarity, divorce became more and more common in the older generations due to many factors and more and more young people experienced their parents divorcing, leaving them with only examples of bad relationships and giving them the impression that marriage doesn’t work. Another factor is a rash of individuals from the older generations, securing positions of power and changing things to be personally financially advantageous in a way that was so financially disadvantageous to younger generations, that the younger generations could not afford a basic living without ceasing to follow the traditional relationship template. For example, many had to work multiple jobs and could not afford rent without a two-person income, so they had to throw gender roles into the trash can and were so maxed out, there was no time for relationships and they began to choose to not have children. This coincided with multiple economic crises.
Another factor is the invention of social media and dating apps, which completely altered the landscape of human interaction, in many ways for the worse. Another factor is the emphasis of societal value being placed on the individual, rather than on the family. In today’s society, everyone is really out for themselves. Another factor is the #metoo movement which dramatically highlighted and changed power dynamics and changed the way women and men interact both positively and negatively. Another factor is that The Covid Crisis worldwide created interpersonal stress and conflict, enforced isolation, disrupted social connections, deepened coping mechanisms, thrust people into mental health crisis, established people as a threat to each other and made people change their priorities and values in life. This list could be much, much longer. But you get the point.
Basically, human relationships may have looked a certain way for a long, long time. But this way does not work anymore. And so, in this transition, human society is back at the drawing boards regarding what relationships should look like. Only there is no new template or example out there to emulate. So, everyone is fumbling around trying to figure out what to do, while trying to cope with the various pain of the things that are so obviously not working. And you are seeing people fighting for a return to the old gender roles alongside people fighting for equality in the form of sameness across the board in their relationships. Alongside people fighting for new templates of relationships, such as polyamory. Alongside people fighting for the idea of living a single, independent life, but engaging in casual hookups. Alongside people fighting for the idea of intentional community.
As a part of this change, what we are seeing is that there is no standard, working exchange in relationships. In relationships, there is always the element of energy exchange. The truth is that every relationship is transactional. Because transaction is a word that we have such a negative association with, you are most likely going to have to re-examine the idea of transaction. A transaction is at its essence, nothing more than an energy exchange. It means each person receives something and each person provides something. What makes a transaction a good one, is if each person gets something that is valued. And value, especially with regards to what we value most, is based on what that person needs and wants. A person has to need and want something to truly value it. Every relationship you enter into, you enter into because you perceive that the relationship would meet a need or fulfill a desire, or many. When one or both people in a relationship start to perceive that they don’t get the needs or wants they value from a relationship; or worse, that one of them or both of them is acting as an antagonist to those needs and wants, the satisfaction they feel in that relationship goes away.
And today, in many cases, because the exchange is now gone, there is no incentive to be in relationships. For example, many women are now in a place where the old gender expectations of the 1950s and earlier are not totally gone. They are simply part of subconscious bias. And yet, there are new post 1960s gender expectations that have been added. And so, they have found themselves in the reality where responsibility is not divided, instead they have to do it all with regards to responsibilities and so there is a very painful collective “what is the point of a man, why be in a relationship at all?”
To truly grasp this concept of energy exchange, you are going to have to separate the concept of loving a person, caring for them, seeing the positive in them and seeing their value in general from the transactional element of a relationship. In other words, you have to separate love from needs in a relationship. If you want to understand more about this concept in depth, you can watch my video titled: Be Consciously Transactional. Why Every Relationship is Transactional.
This belief that love should count for more than personal needs is part of our deep desire for unconditional love. When we are trying to get unconditional love, we are trying to use love to negate, disqualify or deny the transactional element of relationship. We feel greater security in relationships and a greater sense of self-esteem when we feel like a person will love us enough to stay with us no matter what. Including no matter whether their personal needs and desires are met or not. But we don’t understand what unconditional love is and what unconditional love isn’t. For this reason, you would benefit by watching my video titled: The Truth and Myth of Unconditional Love.
Long story short, because of so many factors that have created this transitional space, people today no longer feel like the relationships are meeting their needs or are fulfilling their desires. They aren’t working. And the old template for having relationships, the old structure, no longer works. It is not only an outdated model, it is no longer actually possible for the vast, and I mean vast, vast majority of people.
What we are being called to do, is to be brave enough to throw the old template and model away. This means we will have to change our own programming regarding relationships and how they should look. And we have to start to consciously create interconnected, interdependent relationships by customizing our relationships according to what uniquely works for us. They must be based off of our authenticity, rather than an external template. They must be based off of the aptitudes that we uniquely offer and what we uniquely need and want. No matter how weird it is. While doing this will require lots of bravery because doing so will cause you to come up against both internal and external resistance, this change must also inevitably occur at a higher level of society. It isn’t going to work for everyone to customize their relationships when the law is still built on the framework of things like marriage. And when men are still only valued and given respect within society for XYZ and women are still only valued and given respect for XYZ. And when the architecture and building of homes are still solely aimed the nuclear family etc.
To do this one of the first things we are going to have to do, is to detach specific values from specific genders. Ready for me to make things complicated? We could divide specific qualities into masculine or feminine. For example, we could say that a quality that is feminine is Intuition. And that a quality that is masculine is protection. But it is also true that each quality has a feminine and masculine expression. For example, both men and women have intuition. Feminine intuition and male intuition is a different expression. And both men and women are protective. Masculine protection and female protection may just take on a different expression. Embracing femininity or masculinity does not prevent you from certain qualities or tasks. If this was the case, it would be unhealthy for both women and men to work out at the gym. Why this is important is that when people get lost in the idea that only men have certain qualities and only women have certain qualities, and worse, when men are only valued for certain qualities and women are only valued for certain qualities, we prevent a person’s authentic expression. And when we do this, we prevent this necessary process of customization. We stay stuck in trying to fit ourselves into a box.
To give you a taste of what I mean, here is an example of customization. Jess has always been obsessed with building things. Because of this, she became an engineer. She loves engineering. She is also a single mother who needs support with the caretaking of her daughter. She also has a deep need for support and availability in a relationship. Jess has tried to fit herself into a traditional relationship model several times and failed each time. Those relationships became a source of extreme pain and disappointment. Jess eventually went to work customizing her relationships. She bought a house that previously belonged to a polygamist which was comprised of four separate apartments. She posted an add in several places for other people looking to co-habitate and share child-care responsibilities. And started taking applications and interviewing people.
Now, she lives with two other single mothers and one couple with a child and another on the way. Each day, a different adult or two have responsibility for the herd of children. And sometimes, when it is needed, they all pitch in financially to hire a nanny. This allows the children to have multiple attachment figures, lots of play with other children, and it gives the adults both connection with their children, and a lot of time for themselves and their careers. They have much less pressure than any parent they know that lives in a two-parent household.
Jess is in a relationship with a man named Parker. Parker was a nurse. He always felt out of place because he was never interested in what he could create for himself. Or what he could achieve. Instead, he has always felt the best when he can see his energy is going towards making other people be at their best. His top value is compassion. Jess and Parker decided that he would only work at a clinic three days a week for half a day. He puts the money he makes towards spoiling Jess and vacations. And Jess covers all the essentials. Jess is a very inspiring person with a very quick mind. She is also amazing in bed. Her job is far more high paying. Parker spends the vast majority of his time supporting Jess. He makes her lunches for the week to take to work. He gives her back massages every night. He arranges new restaurants for them to try. He does the laundry. He is there for Jess’s daughter if she needs anything. And he spends the rest of his time on his physical fitness. On occasion, Jess and Parker go to a swinger’s club together with a clear set of rules for the sake of relationship security.
The exchange is very strong and very clear and very customized. Jess gets the support and prioritization and availability and caretaking and commitment and gifts she has always wanted. Plus, her daughter has a reliable, supportive man in her life. Parker gets to be in a really great house, living a lifestyle that is much more impressive than what he alone could afford. He has the space and time to focus on fitness, which is a real luxury. He has a sense of belonging; he is fully received. He has a fabulous sex life. He feels valued and wanted and needed. He is also mentally stimulated and inspired every day. They both have developed very deep, interconnected relationships with the people they live with.
Yes, lots of people, especially Parker’s mother and brother, negatively judges them rather than trying to understand why it works for them. And occasionally, Jess, who was raised Christian, starts to feel insecure about whether what she is doing is wrong, even though it feels so right. But these are both areas to work on and they are both super satisfied in their partnership and their various relationships. Both of them are thriving.
Each and every one of us is back at the drawing boards so to speak regarding relationships. And the sooner we realize this, and start to customize, the better. Of course, we have to be very, very honest with ourselves, in order to do this.
