Giving and Receiving in Adult Relationships

Giving and Receiving in Adult Relationships – Introduction

Giving and receiving: relationships are like games of table tennis – someone serves, someone returns, and a pattern of exchanges develops. The rhythm of the rally can reveal something about the relationship—who initiates, who responds, and what happens when one person stands at the table but never lifts the bat.

This article takes about 11–13 minutes to read (2,726 words) and includes an exercise to help you reflect on the balance of giving and receiving in your adult peer-to-peer relationships. At the end there is a link to a free video course, introducing a consent model and touch practice for clearer more authentic communication.

The main content headings all reference giving and receiving and they are:

• What is Being Exchanged?
• Noticing the Patterns of Exchange.
• Playing a Well Matched Game.
• Who is Serving the Ball?
• No One is Serving The Ball.
• How Family Constellations Can Help Restore Balance.
• Family Constellation Groups (in London UK and online).
• 1-2-1 Somatic and Family Constellations Therapy.
• Giving and Receiving – A FREE Video Course (The Wheel of Consent)
• Sources and Notes

I am writing this article as the 2026 Spring Equinox approaches, a time when the hours of dark and light are roughly evenly balanced. The season inspired me to write an article introducing the “Balance of Exchange” – a teaching (source notes at end of article) that underpins Family Constellations groups. Family Constellations is a therapeutic method used to shed light and gain perspective on everyday issues (and has nothing to do with Astrology!). You will find more information and links about Family Constellations, towards the end of the article.

I find these teachings particularly useful when people present in sessions expressing an imbalance in their adult relationships, regarding giving and receiving. Sometimes people might arrive saying “I think I am in a co-dependent relationship”: I find this exercise below can help clarify what is actually happening, as a step towards creating change.

I am going to invite you to imagine an adult relationship in your life, as if it is a game of table tennis. If you want to ‘play’, choose a relatively neutral acquaintance, peer level work colleague or friendship. Please don’t pick your most difficult relationship, or one in which there is a pronounced power dynamic (e.g. your relationship with your child or your manager at work). Healthy exchanges look different in these relationships and the principles below don’t apply (mostly).

Giving and Receiving – What is Being Exchanged?

Relationships are made up of exchanges and in our imaginary game of table tennis – this is represented by the ball going back and forth. Many “balls” can be exchanged in relationship, here are just a few examples:

• Messages (text or phone calls)
• Visiting someone / initiating a meet-up
• Acts of service (e.g. clearing up someone’s dirty dishes)
• Words spoken
• Listening to someone speaking

These are some of the things that can be exchanged. Then there is also a question of how pleasant or unpleasant these exchanges feel to each player. For example:

• A warm message from a good friend can feel welcome.
• The same message from someone we don’t really want to ‘play’ with, can feel like a burden or intrusion.
• Listening to someone for a time might feel supportive to the other person.
• Only listening without talking about yourself might feel painfully isolating, or evasive to the other person.

So the first skill to develop in this game of relationship is to notice that exchanges are taking place. Next we notice if the exchanges feel pleasant or unpleasant, first in our own self. Then we can be curious about how the other person experiences whatever is being exchanged: if we are not sure we can ask them. Simply observing and identifying the patterns of exchange however, can reveal a lot about what often goes unsaid. Read on to learn how to do that.

Giving and Receiving – Noticing the Patterns of Exchange

In this game, here are a few things that could happen (table tennis rules and etiquette aside!), which represent different balances of exchange:

1. Equal balance – there is an equal balance of taking turns to serve. Players are roughly evenly matched in ability. Sometimes an exciting rally takes place, where the ball goes back and forth many times. There is good humour when someone misses or knocks the ball off the table and after a pause, the game starts again. It’s a great and fun game!
2. One sided serving – one person (person A) mainly serves the ball and the other bats back to the best of their ability. Occasionally there is a rally but the game only continues if person A serves.
3. No one is serving the ball – both people are at the table and the bats and ball are there, but nobody picks them up to serve.

Giving and Receiving – Playing a Well Matched Game

We don’t have to be perfect at giving and receiving to have good relationships. The key thing is to practice showing up at the game, and noticing whether there is a good fit with the person we are playing with. This ‘good fit’ is rarely true across our whole life: the balance of exchange in certain relationships can be naturally (or unavoidably) imbalanced. For example if we are a carer, a parent or an employee, then the balance of exchange will be different.

To have satisfying adult relationships in our life however, it’s good to have some spaces where we can engage in a skilful game, with someone who is well matched to our interests and ability. Here are some examples:

• Two people who like sending voice messages (VMs), each initiating and responding with VMs of a similar length and frequency.
• Two people who like going out to the cinema – the initiative moving back and forth between each – along with a pleasurable ‘digesting’ of the the film afterwards, perhaps with wine and snacks!
• Or there may be balanced difference in what is exchanged – e.g. one person always picks up the dirty dishes at home. But if a housemate or partner notices that – and reciprocates with acts of service that they like doing – then things may all be well.

So exchanges go back and forth, and hopefully much of the time these exchanges feel pleasant. But there will be times when they feel unpleasant too, that’s just part of the game! We can become skilful at noticing and managing these exchanges too.

Example: Imagine a housemate always does the dishes while you always dry and put them away. One day you discover they are cross because the exchange feels imbalanced for them. Them being cross is also an exchange—how might we meet it?

• Initiating a rally here might not be wise if we want to preserve the relationship. If we “bat back” grievances—angrily naming everything we do for the household—we are escalating an unpleasant exchange.
• Conversely, if we completely sidestep their anger—letting their ball fly past us and continuing as if nothing has happened—then the exchange is incomplete.

A good bat‑back might be:

“Oh my gosh I am sorry, I didn’t realise you weren’t happy with how things are. I understand you feel cross. I wonder if we can work together to come up with a rota that we are both happy with?”

A few more exchanges take place and eventually, this play completes itself. It might  not be the most fun and exciting rally when this happens! But an essential practice in a skilful game, is to notice and gently de-escalate unpleasant exchanges, without avoiding them altogether (see “no-one is serving the ball” below).

Giving and Receiving – Who is Serving the Ball?

I find the question “who is serving” to be a very illuminating one. Before an exchange takes place, someone has to serve the ball. Here are a few examples of how that question might illuminate unbalanced exchanges that can happen in adult relationships:

“I am over serving” – is there a relationship in which you are always serving the ball? . Perhaps we always “serve” initiating connection with a friend. The serve could be a text or an invitation to do something together. Sometimes we do this because we hope to build connection: but overusing your serve can actually become a barrier to forming meaningful adult relationships, in which there is a balance of exchange.

If we are often over serving, we may need to put down our bats and pause. Interupting a tendency to try to create connection by endlessly serving the ball, can save us from a lot of hurt and pain. It creates space, so that we can seek out and initiate relationships where there is a better balance.

“I am consciously choosing to over serve” – if there is an imbalance it doesn’t mean the relationship is ‘bad’. Perhaps your friend has had their first child and things were more in balance before that. Perhaps it is your elderly Uncle who doesn’t have the energy to initiate a call! If this is the case, a good question to ask yourself might be “how much initiating can I do that will feel ok for me?”.

That could be an occaisional text, or perhaps you are the kind of person who pops round often with a cake! Being the only person who serves very much depends upon how well you are resourced yourself and therefore, what you can do without building up resentment.

“Someone else is not serving to me” – noticing where someone isn’t serving the ball, can be a warning sign that someone doesn’t want to be playing ball with us, even if they seem to be at the table. If you are at the table with someone who isn’t serving back, then it is wise to pause and reflect.

There may be a mismatch of desire in this relationship. I.e. put simply, you want to spend more time with this person than they do with you. For your own self esteem, it’s good to redirect your energy to someone who enthusiastically appreciates and reciprocates it.

“Is my overserving risking slipping into abuse?” – if we keep serving to someone who does not respond, we can risk slipping into behaviours that can feel controlling or even abusive to another person. For example: if someone responds to our long texts messages with short pleasant replies, they are not reciprocating. Your long text messages will feel burdensome at best – intrusive and scary at worst. So if the other person doesn’t regularly serve similar length communications to you, then stop.

“Someone else over serves to me, what are their intentions?” – having someone who endlessly serves the ball (e.g. showers us with gifts and compliments) might feel very flattering at first, especially when dating. But doing so is not attuned, relational or sustainable. It is wise to consider what is motivating them. Someone might feel insecure about relating: if it feels right you might enquire what’s motivating their gifts and see if they can bat back something more relational. Over serving gifts might also be a form of love bombing: where someone presents as the perfect partner, but it’s a front for something else not yet revealed (whether intentionally or not).

Giving and Receiving – No One is Serving The Ball

A sad situation is when both people are still at the table, but no one is serving the ball. This could be a scenario in a long term relationship which is comfortable but lacks dynamic energy. Two people plod on in their own space, in parallel but exchanging little with one another. In this scenario someone might come into therapy saying “nothing bad is happening in my relationship, but I feel so alone”.

Perhaps life circumstances (working long hours for low pay) mean there is little energy left to exchange at home. There may be a frozen conflict underneath, a time and place where trust broke down and the ball stopped going back and forth. Or perhaps we avoid exchanges that feel unpleasant: some unpleasant feeling exchanges are foundational to the rupture and repair process, that underpins resilient relationships. Underlying trauma can also create relationships which feel a little frozen, foggy or stuck: in that case somatic therapy might be a good go to.

I also find this balance of exchange theory useful for my clients who are living in house shares: a house share in which little is exchanged may create a surface feeling of safety. When thrown in with a bunch of strangers through RightMove, it can seem easier if everyone keeps themselves to themselves. However, being trapped in a situation with no exchanges taking place, is not an energising or invigorating scenario. Although tolerable in the short term, longer term it can become very socially isolating. If this is your situation, I would encourage you to consider how and where in life you can begin to create ‘safe and good enough’ exchanges. This may or may not be the person / people you are living with. Taking small steps towards initiating exchanges somewhere in your world – volunteering, a book club, walking group – can be vital to your mental and emotional wellbeing.

I would like to acknowledge here that there are many intersectional reasons why someone might become isolated. There may not be people who are or feel ‘safe enough’ in your immediate proximity, if the cultural landscape around you is very different to your own identities or values set. In this situation, it becomes even more imperative to find some location for entering into balanced exchanges, perhaps an online support group where sharing your experiences leads to a well matched game and the validation of pleasant feeling exchanges.

Giving and Receiving – How Family Constellations Can Help Restore Balance

In Family Constellations, the balance of giving and receiving in adult relationships is something we can explore. Imbalances often have roots in the past, so we may also look at the flow of giving and receiving you experienced in your childhood. Imbalanced exchange is the norm between parents and infants, in a healthy dynamic the parent gives and the infant receives. Then as we grow into our teens, all things being well, we see balanced exchanges modelled around us to learn from and practice.

A constellation can help identify underlying causes of unbalanced exchanges, beneath the surface of our awareness. Through the healing image of a constellation, we get to identify what will support something different taking place. We get to see (or even stand within) a new healing ‘shape’ – one that we have not felt or experienced before. This can then help us take steps towards something different in life, as the healing image ripples through the coming days, weeks and months.

Sometimes through a Family Constellation, something seemingly magical can happen too. I wrote this article when planning a workshop with my co-facilitator Abi Berger of Healing Constellations. We created an exercise and used it to look at imbalanced exchanges we were each experiencing. I chose a young adult relative with whom I periodically initiate contact, but who rarely initiates contact with me. The one sided serving hurts a little, but I also wholeheartedly accept it is my place as an elder, to maintain the relationship.

Through our constellations exercise, I discovered an additional weight or ‘burden’ unconsciously being expressed, when I ‘serve’ by initiating communication. We used healing sentences to release the burden; the space between myself and the young person (represented by my colleague) felt much more spacious. That evening – to my surprise – she sent me a text message! This is the potential ‘magic’ of a constellation – it doesn’t relieve us of responsibility for developing relationship skills – but blockages can be cleared that skilfulness alone will not resolve.

To conclude: I want to acknowledge complexities not addressed here and the limits of the exercise above. There are many reasons why we engage in the patterns of exchange that we do, especially the imbalanced ones. It may have been vital to our safety in childhood to do so, or it maybe vital to our safety in the present. We are not going to unlearn these patterns over night – and sometimes they are there to keep us safe. But I do find that identifying patterns of exchange that underlie a statement such as “I think I am in a co-dependent relationship” can a good place to begin – and from there we can find out what the best next step is.

Booking a Family Constellation (Groups)

If you are interested to book a Family Constellation for yourself (on any theme) follow the links below for:

• Family Constellation group in London
• Family Constellation group online

1-2-1 Somatic Somatic and Family Constellations Therapy

Sometimes another area of my practice is needed to support healthier and more balanced exchanges in adult relationships. For more information on individual sessions tailored to your unique needs, please go to my home page:

• 1-2-1 Somatic and Family Constellations Therapy, in London (E8) or online.

Sources and Notes

The principle often described as the ‘balance of exchange’ in relationships originates in systemic family therapy, particularly the work of Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, who explored fairness and reciprocity in families through his concepts of “relational ethics” and “invisible loyalties.” These ideas were later incorporated into Family Constellations by Bert Hellinger as part of what he called the “Orders of Love.” Hellinger’s work was also influenced by broader developments in systemic family therapy, psychodrama, and transactional analysis.

In Hellinger’s original formulation the phrase giving and taking is often used. In this article I have chosen the wording giving and receiving, as it is more commonly used in everyday language and more closely reflects how people tend to describe dynamics commonly bought into therapy. My own constellations practice reflects contemporary developments in the field, including an emphasis on client autonomy, inclusivity, and ethical facilitation. See our Constellations Group Guidelines for further information.