Have
you ever had that one crush you let get away and wondered where they were in
life now? I was fortunate enough to have my middle school crush ask me out to
dinner just this past year. We had not seen each other since he moved away after
8th grade. We rekindled our childhood crushes after just one dinner
and we have now been together for over a year. What really won me over was while I was busy studying
for an exam, very tired and hungry, Tyler ordered a pizza and had it delivered
to my apartment. He called me ten
minutes before the deliveryman came with the pizza to tell me there should be a
knock on my door. He was ensuring
that I felt over-benefitted in our
relationship. Over-benefitted is when one partner receives a lot from one partner
without returning the favor and can leave the over-benefitted partner feeling
guilty. This
seemingly small act was extremely meaningful to me and we’ve been together ever
since.
The
only down side to our relationship, is that it’s long-distance. The
long-distance relationship adds another layer of complexity and, at times,
anxiety to a romantic partnership.
Equity is a concept that I never really internalized before reading this
chapter. Equity is the balance of benefits and costs exchanged by you and the
other person. Equity can be equated to the equality or balance, which measures
the proportional justice in a relationship. For there to be a functional and
healthy relationship there needs to be a shared sense of contribution in the
relationship. In a relationship, individuals need to weigh/consider benefits
gained vice contributions made. Benefits and contributions, if not balanced,
will create an inequity. When inequities occur one person is going to feel that
they are giving more than they are receiving creating a feeling of
underappreciated and that they are over contributing.
I find that in my
relationship both Tyler and I are committed to working on making sure that our
contributions and efforts in the relationship remain equal. For example, we
both contribute to choosing locations or activities for dates, movies, and
other activities. It is even more important that we try our best to equally
split the driving we do in order to visit each other. We compromise on
different weekends and try our best to keep the distance we drive equal. I
noticed in some of my friends’ relationships one person usually takes the
dominant role and eventually the relationship fizzles out due to the inequity
in making the relationship work. It’s hard to image putting a cost or benefit analysis
on your relationship, however, it makes a lot of sense. As McCornack (2010)
explains, equity strongly determines the short and long term success of a
relationship. I would argue that contributes to relationships are not only
limited to romantic relationships but to all human relationships. There has to
be give and take in every relationship to keep a healthy bond. For friendships,
peers, classmates, business relationships- all of these relationships need to
find a balance.
Have you ever found
yourself in a relationship that was inequitable and if so what did you do? Did
you terminate the relationship or did work on making it equitable?
References:
McCornack,
S. (2010). Reflect and relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication
(2nd ed.). Boston. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s
