Equal relationship can be considered a somewhat misunderstood concept. People think an equal relationship is the one in which both the partners bring equal amount of money or they divide the household chores equally. Essentially, the investment of both parties should be same in the relationship.
However, humans are not numerical values that you can divide into neat halves. Our emotional investment cannot be measured. We are shaped by our unique experiences, and so, there is no one standard of how to have an equal relationship.
For example, if you partner earns 10 times the amount you do, contributing a specific figure to the household income might be your entire salary but chump change for them.
Similarly, your partner might be suffering from sexual health issues that they are dealing with the aid of their sexologist in Lahore. So, while they might be trying their hardest to contribute to your sex life, they might fail on many occasions that you are ready for. So, does that then make it an unequal relationship? Of course not!
Hence, it’s important that you reconceptualize that it entails by an equal relationship.
Salient features of an equal relationship
To understand if your relationship is an equal one, following are some themes that you should be looking at to evaluate your relationship. Even then, since emotions and relationships are messy, varied, and nuanced, this list is not exhaustive by any means!
Respect for differences
You cannot always be on the same page as your partner. In an equal relationship, you don’t have to buy into their perspective or make them conform to yours, but simply respect these differences.
Enjoy the layer of complexity that your unique perspectives bring to the relationship. Be mindful of their set of beliefs and expect the same from them.
Division of labor
You both should be carrying the weight of the relationship, cumulatively, and it should not fall on only one person’s shoulders. Different people have different capacities for things, for example, you can do all the house chores without breaking a sweat, but socializing is your nightmare. In such cases, your partner can take care of sweettalking to people, while you do contribute otherwise.
So, understand each other’s strengths and capitalize on them. Of course, it also means that you both end up doing the messy and unpleasant too, without one being always relegated to the role of bad cop, whereas the other enjoys the status of being the good cop.
Hearing one another
In an equal relationship, both parties are heard. Communication isn’t just relaying your needs to your partner, but it also means that listening to theirs as well.
In the important decisions concerning your relationship, you both should have an equal voice. You should not be manipulating your partner into making the decisions that you want them to, and similarly, you should also not be okay with them doing the same to you.
The ability to hear one another also is imperative for to preserve the essence of true equality in the relationship. If its missing in yours, work on it!
Sexual chemistry
Some people think that there also should be equality when it comes to sex; both partners should be initiating it, both should get to veto it, and both should be deriving pleasure out of it.
While on paper, these are all good, but they fail to take your relationship dynamics into account. Maybe your partner feels shy about starting sex, but they are selfless otherwise.
Point is, you cannot be so precise and neat about something as emotional as sex. There are various factors at play that also then need to be accounted for, like sexual health problems that then require treatment from the best sexologist in Karachi. What matters is that you both are equally vested in it and contributing in ways that are comfortable for you.
