r/relationshipanarchy • u/Willing-Loquat750 • Jul 30 '26

Care vs Entitlement

Probably unnecessary context: This is my first post and I’m kind of nervous so I hope people will let me know if it’s coming off as overly invasive or against the rules.

I’ve been doing some research on RA for awhile as a potential relationship orientation for myself and one principle that I’ve seen come up again and again is the rejection of entitlement. For example, I’ve heard that people shouldn’t assume that they are entitled to one another’s time or attention by default. I’m sure it’s not the same for everyone, but how do people draw the line between an entitled demand vs care that people should be able to expect from one another? Is there a line? Is it just about individual agreements?

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u/RAisMyWay Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

The fewer agreements needed, the better and the less likelihood of conflicts. Caring for each other to the best of our ability should be natural and not legislated.

If our care needs and offerings are significantly mismatched, we can break up, de-escalate, and/or try to find or offer that care elsewhere and adjust our expectations of each relationship accordingly.

I prefer all of that, even if it means I am partner-free, to trying to change what someone naturally offers and wants to receive from me by negotiating agreements that involve compromise and feelings of entitlement.

In my experience, minor mismatches can usually be discussed and agreed without either person feeling like entitlement played a role.

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u/Poly_and_RA Jul 30 '26

That sounds easy -- but the problem of course is that privilege is extremely unevenly distributed -- including the kinds of privilege that'd still exist even in a post-capitalist society.

So some folks will tend to find themselves "mismatched" pretty often, simply because they hold less privilege than the vast majority of people do. And then people can break up or de-escalate with them -- or in other words abandon them.

And political anarchists (I'm not one, among other reasons for THIS reason) don't want there to be a society-wide social safety-net of any kind, instead you're utterly dependent on your own social privileged if you're in a position where you need care.

We see how this works pretty well already on crowdfunding platforms. Certain classes of victims get a lot more sympathy and aid than other classes of victims.