From an early age, I had the belief that if I liked someone, I just had to open up to them and participate in building a relationship, if there was a response from the other side. It didn’t matter who made the first move – me or them. It just had to be mutual attraction. No one told me when I was young that it could just be a traumatic reaction.

Like many of us, I’ve had a lot of disappointments with this one belief of mine that attraction was enough to build a healthy relationship. Because – you know – attraction itself is mostly an emotion, some people even call it chemistry, and Human Design calls it a genetic imperative. Which I can totally understand, because as an emotional being I’ve been there and done that – namely, completely losing my mind over someone and doing things I never thought I was capable of. And I certainly don’t regret any of those experiences.

But when things got serious, like marriage… Well, then it was the same person, even this emotional clouding of consciousness was there, but somehow the sense of duty slowly became more important, and we ended up in the socially conditioned roles of material provider (me) and emotional provider (her). But that was only on a superficial, role-based level. I even thought it must be fair. The reality was different.

Being more emotionally aware, as life showed, it seemed that I had to do most of the emotional work in the relationship. While also maintaining the role of material provider. And I had unwittingly taken on even the most difficult role in order to fulfill my partner’s dreams, figuring out a practical way to achieve them, carrying out the process myself and giving the result to this significant other. And for a while I was even happy that she was happy.

But then… then this sense of injustice started to emerge in me, which I didn’t even realize at first. Which eventually turned into resentment over time. Because somehow I felt like there was no reciprocity in this relationship, but at the time I couldn’t even articulate what exactly was wrong. And I even felt guilty for having this perception sometimes.

Of course, I now know that this is a surefire way to break up with someone, but that’s not what I was thinking. What I discovered years later was that my internal model for building relationships pointed directly to this outcome. Because in fact, every relationship that stands – behind the external attraction – has some kind of structure on which it is based, even when we don’t consciously understand it. And my model was to care about the well-being of my partners on every level – first emotionally, but also practically, finding ways to achieve their dreams. This is my love language – doing things for the person I love (acts of servce). So they took my efforts for granted, because I never showed that this was any kind of effort for me. To them, it seemed like I was perfectly happy to do this, just because I did it so easily and they easily took it for granted.

The problem was that being self-sufficient, I didn’t ask for anything for myself for a long time. And when I did ask for something, my partners felt surprised that I had my own needs or desires. Which they weren’t really able to fulfill or just didn’t want to do. And this is where this strange feeling of imbalance in reciprocity began and it started to grow until it became resentment.

So to some extent it was my fault from the very beginning. I discovered this by chance with a woman who had a pretty insistent desire for us to live together. I just asked her about her vision – how could this happen, because we are from different countries, there are children involved and it’s not just a question of deciding in which country and renting an apartment together. And she didn’t even seem to have a clue about the answer to the question of how. Which really surprised me, because she is a smart and intelligent woman. But what I discovered then was her vague impulse to do something together. Simply because there was an exchange between us. But when I asked how exactly that could happen – with the intention of creating it together… there was no answer. Not only did she have no idea, but she expected me to figure out a way and do it, but in a way that she would like.

Which made me wonder if I wanted to take full responsibility for our relationship and make sure that I fulfilled her dreams myself? Because to me, that seems like delegating at work. The final step is to take orders to generate ideas and fulfill them at her request. And we become a client and a supplier. But for free. Which leads to a strange feeling of tension in the relationship. But on the surface it fits the social stereotype of a couple.

So… being with someone in an equal relationship for me now means creating our relationship together. Taking responsibility for what we want – each of us individually and as a couple, and co-creating this life in which each of us feels good. As well as we can with joint efforts. Without taking on the role of the one who takes care of her, as I tried to take care of my mother emotionally, where does the root of this learned behavior of mine come from.

So… no, not every attraction has the potential to grow into a conscious relationship. At least not without work on yourself and conscious efforts. On both sides.

And yes, refusing to enter into a partnership with someone you truly love is not unfair.