Have We Confused Emotional Debt with Human Decency?
There’s a Netflix show I love, and it’s called The Good Place. It stars Kristen Bell as Eleanor. In the show, Eleanor wants to learn how to be a good person, so she turns to a moral teacher who tells her that we owe it to each other to be good. Upon hearing that, I couldn’t help but wonder, Have we confused emotional debt with human decency? Let’s find out.
A love story
Meet Linda, a woman whose parents spent all their money on hard liquor while she was growing up. As a child, Linda often faced an empty fridge and angry creditors at the door. What she wanted more than anything was to feel safe. She became a control freak. Maybe you know someone like that?
One day, Linda meets a man who is good at making money. She tells him that she’ll take care of everything and all he has to do is to bring home the bacon. Wanting to be king of the castle, he marries her.
Where’s the lie?
During their marriage, Linda took care of the cleaning, cooking, and child-rearing. Her husband handed over the money he made for her to pay the bills and save some for a rainy day.
On the surface, one could argue their relationship was good. Linda took care of everything, and her husband was the king of the castle. Linda believed she owed him a clean house and a warm meal. Her husband believed he owed her his paycheck. Both of them thought they were being good to each other. But what if this is a setup that destroys relationships?
“You owe me!”
Years passed, and Linda’s husband began to resent Linda for taking care of everything and himself for feeling like he had no money of his own. So he started blowing money left and right, which heightened Linda’s need for control. “You owe me!” she shouted, reminding him of the years she had taken care of him. “Bulls!!t!” he yelled back. “I gave you all my money. You’re the one who owes me!”
Step back for a moment. As you observe this couple, what do you feel is being owed, and to whom?
The setup of emotional debt
Emotional debt is putting our needs onto others without conscious agreement (or even self-awareness) on both sides.
It might shock you, but even the most intelligent and enlightened among us have done it. At some point, we’ve all used others to meet our needs without them agreeing to do so. Where does that leave us?
When Linda met her husband, she was out of control. Instead of doing her inner work to feel safe within herself, she thought that if she married someone who made a lot of money, she could put food in the fridge, pay all the bills, and feel in control.
But it’s not one-sided: As for Linda’s husband, what need do you believe he was trying to fulfill by wanting to be king of the castle in Linda’s life? What price did he pay for that setup? If you haven’t guessed, the answer is resentment!
What do we owe each other?
Let me ask you. Do we owe it to each other to be good? Is it okay to create a feeling of owing because we’ve attached some form of shame to being good? Or do we owe it to ourselves to be good?
I say we owe it to ourselves to be good. Not only it’s a decent thing to do, but it also gets us out of emotional debt.
Anne Beaulieu, inspiring the next generation of emotionally intelligent, strategic women through:
- Your personal emotionally intelligent strategic plan
- Developing strategic emotional intelligence
- Financial EQ coaching
- Financial EQ consulting
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- Chartered financial analysis
- Finance economics
- Forbes and The Curious Leader value contributions
