Rethinking How You’re Met in Relationships

When someone’s way of relating to you is low-effort access and avoiding reciprocity, pulling back your energy forces a choice. They will either lean in with real presence or they will retreat.

As a kid, I was trained to equate being available with being loved. If I made myself useful, if I anticipated needs before they were spoken, if I shape shifted to keep the peace, then maybe I’d be safe. That became my template for connection.

So when I grew older, I carried those same reflexes into every relationship. 

• If a friend texted me at midnight, I answered. 

• If a family member needed something, I rearranged my life to be there. 

• If someone I was dating pulled away, I doubled down to pull them closer. 

Every response felt like proof of intimacy when in reality it was proof that I was still playing the same role I learned in childhood.

Here’s the truth I had to face: access is not connection.

For years I confused responsiveness with closeness. If someone reached out to me because they needed me, I’d always answer, and it felt like intimacy. But access without reciprocity is convenience, not connection.

And connection is not you carrying all the depth while someone else coasts on the ease you provide. Love is not proof if it only survives your exhaustion.

How relationships reveal themselves

Relationships tell the truth in the gap. Not in the moments when you’re carrying the weight, but in the silence that follows when you finally put it down.

When you stop over-functioning, the thread should hold. If it unravels the moment you let go, you were the thread all along. That’s not a partnership. That’s you performing connection while someone else reaps the benefit.

So ask yourself: 

• When I step back, do they step forward or do they vanish into the space I created?

• When I stop holding everything together, do they rise to meet me or do they expose the fact that they never intended to?

Here’s what I’ve learned: healthy relationships will never demand more from you than they are able to give. They don’t confuse your effort with obligation. They recognize the value of your presence, not just your performance.

Your nervous system can confuse survival with safety. What feels steady is often just what’s been rehearsed. But repetition doesn’t make it right. Repetition without reciprocity keeps you trapped in an old performance, playing roles that were written for you, not chosen by you.

Redefining what you allow

This part of healing isn’t about testing people or punishing them. It’s about paying attention to the data that’s already there. If someone retreats every time you stop carrying the weight, believe what that shows you.

You don’t have to overhaul everything at once. Start small:

• Notice who has constant access to you and how you feel after each interaction. Do you feel drained or steady? Seen or invisible? That awareness is your first clue.

• Practice matching effort. If someone brings consistency and care, meet them there. If they don’t, stop pouring yourself out just to keep the connection alive.

• Give yourself a pause between your reflex to fix or overextend and your actual response. Even a few seconds of stillness can become the place where safety starts to rebuild.

Real connection isn’t about who excites you the most in the moment. It’s about who has the capacity to meet you in presence, repair, and reciprocity. More importantly, stop rewarding intermittent attention with full access to your heart.

Capacity outlasts chemistry every time.

See you next Saturday ❤️

Suttida

P.S. If you’re ready to take this work deeper with me, I offer a limited number of 1:1 sessions each month. This is where we focus on your patterns, your healing, and your growth together. Work 1:1 with me →