beyond the score

Dear Reader,

A couple sat in my office last month arguing about dishes. He had a list of everything he'd done around the house for the past two weeks. She had her own mental tally going back months. They were both exhausted, and I watched them realize mid-sentence that they'd stopped making choices about how to show up for each other. They were just reacting to a running count.

Score keeping takes the intentionality out of relating. Once you're tracking who did what and when, you're not choosing how you want to be in each moment anymore. You're just responding to the ledger. Your turn, my turn, who's ahead, who's behind. Every interaction becomes automatic, determined by what came before it rather than by how you actually want to show up.

The tallying usually starts for a reason. Someone feels like they're giving more than they're getting back, and keeping track feels like the only way to prove it's real. You notice you reached out last time, so maybe you'll wait. You drove last week, so it's their turn. You helped them move, so they owe you. It makes sense in the moment. You're just trying to make sure things stay fair. But the score keeping never actually makes things feel fair.

So what are we actually protecting when we keep score? Maybe it's fear of being taken advantage of. Maybe it's trying to prove our hurt is legitimate. Maybe we're just tired of feeling unseen and this is the only way we know to say it.

What would it mean to relate intentionally instead? To notice when you're tempted to check the score and ask a different question: How do I want to show up in this moment, regardless of what they did last time? Not because you're ignoring the imbalance, but because you get to decide what kind of person you want to be in this specific interaction.

Some moments you'll choose generosity. Some moments you'll choose a boundary. Some moments you'll realize this relationship doesn't work anymore and you need to step back. But those are choices you're making about how you want to move through your life, not reactions determined by a tally.

Yours in the journey,

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