How relationships change in value, and when it’s time to move on.
There will come a time when you begin to question some of the relationships in your life.
This will happen when the value that you placed on those relationships is no longer the value you feel comes from them.
If you feel this way, it’s important to recognise that the other person probably does too.
This is because a good relationship works like a perfectly balanced set of scales. Both sides holding an equal weight.
This weight is the value of the relationship.
A good relationship then is one where both sides get equal value.
Value is fundamental to any relationship.
Relationships are like investments.
The value in a relationship works much the same way as an investment.
This is why you must understand the value in your relationships, and how it can change over time.
As with your financial investments, you want to limit the bad ones but continue to invest in the good ones.
Although this may not always be easy to judge, and the answer may be difficult to accept at times, you must. Problems will happen and mistakes will be made if you fail to understand values relativity to a relationship.
The good ones will move you forwards and rise in value. The bad ones will drag you back and lose value.
How the value of a relationship can change.
A relationship is essentially a transaction between two parties, and generally two people.
This applies to all form of relationships — friendships, business-related, romantic or family.
Transactions work when you give something to get something. That’s exactly how relationships work. And the fairer the transaction, the better the relationship.
But this also means that relationships change as the value changes.
A good one, that two parties are committed to, grows in value. They grow as commitment, trust, respect and love grow. They grow because you both value the output and invest time and effort in making them fair.
But relationships often lose value, and this happens in one of two ways — natural erosion, or a bad deal.
Value Erosion
If you look at the way value erodes you will realise that sometimes it’s just a natural occurrence.
Some things only hold value for a limited period. That’s simply the way of them. That’s how they were meant to be.
The latest smartphone, for instance, may hold immediate value. But over the next few years as technology advances, that value erodes.
Some of your relationships will work in the same way.
They will hold value for both parties for a limited period that naturally comes to an end.
Think of school friendships. You thought they would all last forever, but they didn’t. You outgrew most of them and moved on.
And chances are you didn’t overthink this when it happened, but simply accepted it as part of growing up.
As you get older you might struggle to accept that the same pattern exists. But why? You’re always growing up, so why would the pattern change?
You need certain people at certain times as much as certain people need you at certain times.
It might be a 5-minute transaction or a 5-year transaction. There’s nothing sinister in it, it’s just the way life works.
With different seasons come different needs. All the while natural erosion occurs.
Bad Deals
Other relationships lose value because they’re unfairly balanced. You might give a lot more than you get, or you might be guilty of taking more than you get.
Don’t confuse this with the natural ebb and flow of a relationship. Good relationships work this way, going where the need is greatest until the equilibrium is restored.
The problem is when the equilibrium never does get restored. When one side always takes, leaving the other with limited value.
These are the friendships or relationships that are based on win-lose transactions.
They’re not healthy and they drag you down.
These can be with the people who only ever get in touch when they want something, and only then to fulfil their own needs.
Or, these are relationships that keep you returning to habits or patterns of destructive behaviour that stifles your growth.
These can be the hardest to walk away from and the ones I have struggled with the most.
When they’re over, learn to let go or walk away.
I have had many relationships that naturally eroded. These have mainly been through work and have eroded with time as jobs and locations change.
At times I have questioned whether I have mistaken natural erosion for a lack of effort to invest. And although this is possible with some, for the majority the passing with time is right.
Learning from experience
You only really learn from experience how to read your relationships, and it’s important to look at them from both sides too. It’s very easy to become the one who takes too much unless you stop and think about it.
I have also held on when I should have let go, and I have let go when I should have held on. But it’s the holding on when you should let go that causes the most damage.
These relationships either keep you giving for very little in return, or keep you within an environment that you’ve outgrown and that damages your progression.
They need to go, but you need the honesty to see this and the courage to accept it.
I know this because I have wrestled with the same emotions you’re now wrestling with, and I have made the same mistakes you have made, or will make.
Working on my backwards walk
I’ve been working on my backwards walk, trying to ease out of these relationships. All the time not having the courage or compassion to turn my back on them fully as I walk away.
The problem with the backwards walk I’ve learned though is that you can’t properly commit to where you are going whilst you’re clinging to the past.
But commit you must, and in the past is where these relationships need to stay.
This can be difficult to do because you feel like you’re leaving a piece of yourself behind, or that you’re being disloyal to the relationship.
Sometimes you can walk away from the environment but keep the relationship. And if you can, you should, but other times the two are so entwined it’s impossible to leave with without the other.
In either case, if you cannot restore the balance or separate the environment from the relationship you have to walk away.
It’s your decisions that shape your destiny. And as your decisions are influenced by those around you, you have to be surrounded by relationships that support where you’re going, and not where you’ve been.
What I now know.
From these experiences, here’s what I know -
- Relationships are based on value and work like a set of scales. The more balanced they are, the better the relationship. Good relationships require investment to maintain value and balance, but they’re worth the effort.
- People move in and out of your life at different times. This is a natural erosion of value and as common as the changing of the seasons. As the seasons of your own life change, so the relationships within it follow to meet your changing needs.
- Sometimes you have to purposely leave a relationship behind to move on with your life. This happens when the scales are disproportionately balanced. No matter how much you invest, you’re never going to get any value out of the relationship. This is a bad deal that you must walk away from.
What to do.
Apply these lessons to get the best out of the relationships in your life.
Invest in good relationships and work hard to maintain the balance.
When things are amiss, do what you can to restore the balance, but accept that sometimes it’s just natural erosion, and at other times, an unbalanced scale that cannot be corrected.
In either case, it’s time to move on when the value is gone.
And when you do move on, resist the backwards walk, edging out the door still focused on the past. Turn to face your future. Move forwards and don’t look back.
Originally published at http://www.alessonfromlyrics.com on June 12, 2020.
