Transactional Relationships

There was something I read recently that had the opinion that men look at relationships differently than women. That men look at them as transactional, as that’s how society as a whole has trained them. That their partners exist more as meant to serve and give their bodies and constantly give of their time and energy in exchange for a home and protection. That any person could fill that role, in the end. If a woman got fed up and left then the man would simply replace her with someone else to continue that transaction.

I’m not saying it’s true of all men of course, I’ve met a handful that aren’t that way, that buck the set tropes society has instilled in them. But the thought has never left me.

In my own experience it was quite quick that I was replaced in my eleven year marriage. And this relationship was nothing if it wasn’t transactional. He provided the home, and if I wanted it clean then I was the one to clean it. We both worked full time in the beginning, but I soon was swamped with traveling to and from my workplace (as he did), then when I got home I was expected to prepare and cook a meal, as he wouldn’t. I wanted a clean home, and he didn’t care, so I was the one to (after a full day of work) continue to work when I got home. I’d rise before he did, pick up his clothes he tossed ON THE FLOOR AT THE FOOT OF THE HAMPER (seriously, how hard was it to get it in there?! The thing didn’t even have a lid), clean up his hair shavings off the sink, put away the dishes left out the night before because goodness forbid I clean up after working then coming home to work immediately after. Come home, clean, prep, cook, clean, go to bed, wash rinse, repeat. He of course would come home from the day, sit on the couch, and leave water rings on the furniture. That was the summation of his contribution to the housekeeping. So as it was already transactional I made it further so. It got to a point where I refused to work full time just to come home and work full time while he sat on the couch. He would work full time and I’d be his full time maid/wife/mother, and work part time to help with finances. Only one of those roles was one I’d signed up for in the beginning.

Honestly I don’t even blame him for it anymore. I blame society and I blame the religion I was raised in since birth. Even though I was brought up by a mother who read Women Who Run With Wolves and was a former flower child, who took me on women’s only camping trips, and told me empowering women-can-be-independent-and-run-their-own-lives things, my religion taught very much the opposite. And I bought into it. I was raised to believe it. I was brainwashed. There were periods I just wanted to run off to the woods and be my own person, yes, but just as much I did fantasize about white picket fences and 2.5 children and a husband and all the other things we women are told to want as children. And he had the conditioning as well on his end, how could one escape it? Not in the eighties, when we were growing up. We were children when we married, barely nineteen, playing the games of grown-ups without even forming ourselves whole as humans. We hadn’t had the college experience, as a Jehovah’s Witness born and bred I knew that was not an option. I did have a few courses at a small university in middle Tennessee but I didn’t take it seriously really, I was too indoctrinated into believing that we didn’t need an education because this “system of things” wasn’t going to last long anyway. Why waste our time?

So there we were, forming our adult selves while surviving on minimum wage jobs, and being pressured on all sides to be what was expected of us. Me the dutiful wife, keeping house, and he the breadwinner, keeping me safe. I’d exchange my body, my time, my will and my dreams, and he’d exchange his work outside the home. It was transactional from the start and I made it even more so, purposefully, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.

And when our marriage laid broken on the floor between us I went my way, still forcing transactional relationships out of those I fancied, and he replaced me quickly with my best friend. They married less than a year after our divorce was final. I sought out the same things in partners, thinking This Is The Way Things Are, and didn’t question it for over a decade. Men traded us security, a home, their work and time, and women gave of their bodies, their labor, their devotion, their homemaking.

This Is The Way Things Are

Until they simply aren’t.

It took me another decade to get to where I didn’t feel like I had to seek out a relationship. Where I didn’t care if I shared every beautiful wild thing I found with someone I loved. Although I do still share through my stories and photographs, it doesn’t feel empty to enjoy them on my own. I find it never really did, I just felt the pressure from society to pair up, that the enjoyable moments were cheaper if I didn’t have someone else there to experience them with me.

Now I shrink at the thought of entering into transactions again with anyone. After my Last Love I’m done with feeling incomplete or alone with my adventures. I don’t want to transact with anyone, preferring instead to focus on providing for myself in every way possible. It’s been a long time realizing that I came out of childhood codependent (abusive childhoods often result in this), lost, and completely unaware of who I truly am. Relationships always ended up transactional by default, and some very toxic. Every one of us is capable of toxicity in the right environments, and I very much am. Becoming aware of this has been one of the most important realizations of my adult life. So instead of looking to become “whole” by finding my “missing piece” I’m making myself sit in my solitude, which has proven invaluable for the development into a complete human.

I’m not there yet, not sure if I ever shall truly be, but I’m trying.

It’s still difficult to remember that relational connections, truly rewarding bonds with people are possible. That they can be rooted, reciprocal, and rewarding to everyone involved. To me, relationships have forever been transactional, self-serving, temporary, and exhausting to my mind, body and spirit. Perhaps that’s part of why I tend to keep away from anything resembling a romantic relationship these days, or at least that’s what I suspect. Romantic love has always been conditional, a trade of time and services, you use me so I’ll use you. Give me the equal to what I hand you. And it never should have been. Finding my way out of that sort of thinking will take time, and so I remain solitary. I like it here. I truly do. I don’t miss that empty sort of love that left me knowing something just wasn’t settling right. And realizing a lot of that was my own doing is humbling.