Are Transactional Relationships All Bad?

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

…and how understanding transaction in relationships can help answer the question, Is Cheating Genetic?

I’ll cut to the chase. No, they are not.

In fact, ALL relationships are transactional in one way or another. The key is figuring out how they are transactional, and if you can live with that.

If you are struggling with a romantic relationship, looking at the transactional nature of your interactions will help to make it better. If you grew up with a parent who cheated and are wondering if your are doomed to the same fate, keep reading to understand why transactions in relationships might be even more difficult for you, and how to have better transactions.

What does ‘Transactional Relationship’ Mean?

Back up. OK, so what does transactional relationship even mean? The word transaction has a few meanings, the simplest being ‘an exchange or interaction between people’. In recent years, the discussion around transactions in relationships has taken on the more capitalistic meaning of the word, ‘an instance of buying or selling something; a business deal’. The idea is that some relationships can be boiled down to ‘I will do this for you if you do that for me’, without any real investment or trust.

Most people accept this concept when it comes to say, the plumber tending to the leaking toilet. The plumber fixes the pipes in exchange for a hefty Venmo transfer. Where it gets tricky is when the emotional entanglements come in.

Because when we fall in love someone, we have all of these ideals about how our connection exists outside of transaction. You really only need to spend a minute or two in the rom com section of Netflix to see that the cultural belief that Love Conquers All is formidable.

My definition of love in relationships is that you take on someone’s else’s heart as your own*. You celebrate when they win, you hurt when they hurt (as my aunt always says, you are only ever as happy as your least happy kid), it is actually not possible to hurt them without equally, deeply, hurting yourself.

And

You still have your own needs and desires both in life, and within the context of your relationship that may be in conflict with your lover’s. To deny these needs only threatens both you happiness and the health of your relationship. Not to mention, as you probably know, is one of the precursors to cheating.

You get these needs met through transactions, and these transactions have to feel fair to you for the relationship to thrive.

In the context of romantic relationships, I find it more helpful to think of the word transaction as an exchange of energy. You can think of it as some invisible Force if that works for you, but you can also break it down to be much more concrete. For example, over the course of my 25 year marriage, I have needed my husband to hold me when I cry and not say a word, I have needed him to make me laugh, and I have needed him to push me to do something that terrified me. Each of those represent different actions on his part, and they also represent very different energies on his part. As in, each action takes a different skill set, willingness, and creativity. Even outside of the love he holds for me.

In the therapysphere right now there is a lot of focus on the purely transactional relationship that is cloaked in love. You know you are in a relationship like this because it feels icky. There is a lot of rhetoric about love, like the ’I love you’ before hanging up the call, but most of the interactions are tit for tat. Examples include, “Sure, I’ll go to your work thing tonight, but next week you owe me a happy hour with my buddies.” Or, “I would be way more attracted to you if you lost 10 pounds.”

But consider the other end. What does it even look like to have a relationship that is not transactional at all?

It would mean no conflict. No responsibility. No challenge and no change. Most importantly, there would be no way to deepen that love relationship. Going back to the above example, my husband didn’t always understand that all he had to do when I cried was hug me, he didn’t need to make me laugh, or even really ask what was going on. It took conflict, communication, and a couple of good ugly cries on my part for him to understand what I needed. He changed because he loves me AND because it serves his personal interest in being a skilled listener and growing his emotional intelligence. But impetus for change in the transaction between us changed only because of conflict. Had I not voiced my needs, we would have. missed this opportunity to deepen our relationship.

The sweet spot is to take your partner’s heart as your own AND to have your wants and needs met in the relationship. This is difficult for all humans, but before I go into a few tips to help, I want to discuss why threading this needle of love and personal needs is particularly difficult for kids who have grown up with a cheating parent.

Why Understanding Transaction in Relationship is imperative for Adult Children of Infidelity

They want desperately to believe in love, while concurrently struggling to trust in relationships. Wrapped up in this is the belief that their parents messed up because of either the people involved (the affair partner made him do it) or because of each parent’s behavior (mom was dishonest, dad didn’t value her enough). So, children of infidelity grow up believing, if I just find the right person and I act the right way, then I will be saved from my parents’ fate. Lord knows I did.

Of course, behavior plays a role, but if you really want to explore the question Is cheating genetic?* then you have to understand that breaking out of your parents’ mold is about understanding patterns, not people. And patterns are about…you guessed it! Transactions! (Read my previous post on Intergenerational Infidelity here)

If your parents’ pattern was that they had bad transactions, that is what you learned to associate with a love relationship. For example, if Mom wants to be a stay-at-home-mom, but Dad has bigger financial dreams that mean a two-income household, then the energy exchange there is problematic. Dad is interested in a kind of support that mom is not interested in providing. So you, as the child, take these roles and run with them, and end up in a relationship with someone who keeps asking you for things that you are not interested in providing, and you blame it on him. If he just loved me enough, he would stop asking for those things.

In that example, neither mom nor dad is wrong, they just have different needs and desires. Now, if dad goes out and cheats as opposed to ending the relationship honestly, then obviously we get into bad behavior. But you, as the adult child who wants a healthy partnership, will go a lot farther worrying less about who did what to whom, and more about what your parents transactions looked like. Were they able to express what they needed? How did they react to each other? Were there certain topics where they repeatedly came to an impasse?

How to have Healthy Transactions

The first step is to become aware that there actually are transactions in your relationship. To do that, ask yourself questions like there: How do I support my partner? Think about specific examples. Then think about how these supporting efforts also help you. For a simple example, I almost always say yes when my husband wants to get away for a hike. It helps him feel better. It also gives me some alone time.

Then flip it. What are ways that your partner supports you? How do those actions, or energy exchanges, if you prefer, also help your partner?

Of course, you can also identify ways that you do not support your partner, or vice versa. But the key is to be sure that you examine how those actions also affect the other person. For example, what do you gain by not letting your husband go hiking every weekend?

The second step is to get really honest with yourself about what you want. Not just in a relationship, but from your life. If you want a fast-moving career as a investment banker AND a partner, then you are going to need someone who is not just ok with you working 100 hours per week, but for whom this arrangement feeds something that they need. This moves the transaction in the relationship from a compromise, which can feel like a lose/lose, to an equation that is a win for both people.

The third step is being able to communicate these wants and needs, and not apologize for them. There are loads of resources out there for communicating with your partner, so find one that resonates with you. Whatever difficult conversation you need to have will be easier if you already know what it is that you need, and have an understanding of how the transactions in your relationship work at present.

Simple maybe, but not easy I know.

I am working on building a program to help with just these kinds of relationship skills. Contact me to sign up for a free 30-minute interview so I can learn more about exactly what kind of help you need.

*this definition and post were inspired by this YouTube video.

*the current research is split on this question. The only data that remains consistent from the 1980s until now is that children who grow up with a cheating parent are indeed more likely (in some cases, twice as likely) to cheat in their own marriages. For more of the relevant studies, see my Research page.