Givers and Takers

Why do givers end up with takers? You know what I mean--in most marriages or other relationships, one partner almost always is more giving than the other. If the disparity isn't too great, you can have a stable relationship, or at least one that doesn't break up over selfishness.

But oftentimes people who are by nature givers will wind up with someone who is by nature a taker. Here's why.

You have to bear in mind that givers like to be given to every bit as much as takers like it. The difference is that they draw pleasure from mutual giving, whereas takers prefer relationships where the giving is all one way, and in their direction. So if two takers meet and start a relationship, it isn't long before neither of them are having their needs met, the relationship disintegrates, and they are soon back on the market. With two givers, when they form a relationship, and all things being equal, they are both getting their needs satisfied by the mutuality of the relationship, and they tend to stay together and thus are off the market.

So that leaves in the pool unmatched givers and takers, with a surplus of the latter since they cannot form lasting relationships with each other.

But why do givers not recognize takers and avoid them? Why do they become involved with them, only to grow progressively more dissatisfied with their relationship? One reason is that, in the beginning, when love is intense, takers behave very much like givers do. When a giver gives, he derives satisfaction from giving that makes his beloved happy. Indeed, he'll go out of his way to find out what she wants and would like to get. But a taker may also do this. The difference is that the taker isn't all that concerned with the joy of giving; he's looking for the satisfaction he'll take from seeing his beloved happy. But to the giver, this looks like he was very thoughtful and very giving.

As time goes by, with marriage and children and all that a life together brings, the true self will out. Over time, though the taker is satisfied with getting their needs met from their giver, the reverse is not the case. It starts with a vague feeling of unease that something isn't right, that somehow you're not getting what you need. The feeling creeps up on the giver. People get into patterns, stability develops, but it comes at the price of the giver slowly but surely depleting herself.

Eventually there comes a day when the giver accepts that the person they thought they married was never there in the first place. It may come when she looks into her decrepit refrigerator, the one that should have been replaced three years ago, but there was never enough money. She looks in and suddenly pictures the $5000 snowmobile in the garage that hubby couldn't do without, the one he "got for the family" two years ago that the family has enjoyed exactly once since. And she suddenly notes that her husband always sees her needs as wants, and his wants as needs. She recalls how her needs have always been viewed as selfish by him, how he has made out that if she really cared about him, she wouldn't complain when he gets a few things for himself. She'll notice that, all along, her needs were minimized while his wants were amplified, until she herself began to believe that they were needs.

Meanwhile, the refrigerator requires another call to the repairman.

And then she snaps.