Setting Healthy Boundaries in Relationships - The Talk Show - Preetinder Grewal - Ranjodh Singh

There is a particular kind of hurt that shows up quietly, not when someone refuses to help you, but when they simply don't think to. You remember every time you dropped everything for them. They don't remember needing to return the favour, because in their mind, there was never a ledger to begin with. This is the emotional territory at the centre of setting healthy boundaries in relationships, and it is far more common, and far more complicated, than most conversations about boundaries let on.

This topic formed the heart of a recent open-line discussion on The Talk Show, hosted by Preetinder Grewal and Ranjodh Singh on Radio Haanji 1674 AM Melbourne, Australia's Punjabi and Hindi community radio station. Callers and listeners shared their own experiences of giving without receiving, prompting a wider conversation about the psychology behind why we help, and what it costs us when that help is never returned.

Psychologists studying interpersonal relationships have long pointed out that unspoken expectations are one of the most reliable sources of chronic resentment, precisely because the other person is rarely aware an expectation existed at all (American Psychological Association). This article looks at why that gap forms, what a much older piece of Punjabi wisdom has to say about it, and how to protect your own wellbeing without becoming someone who stops giving altogether.

What Is the Expectation Trap in Relationships?

The expectation trap is the pattern where a person invests time, money, or emotional energy into supporting someone else, quietly assuming that support will be returned when they eventually need it, and then feels betrayed or resentful when it isn't. It is called a trap because the person rarely notices they have set the expectation until it goes unmet.

This shows up in ordinary ways. A friend who is always the one organising, driving, lending, and listening starts to notice, months or years later, that when their own life gets hard, the room goes quiet. The resentment that follows rarely gets voiced directly. Instead, it tends to leak out sideways, as passive comments, withdrawal, or a sudden coldness that confuses the very people who were never told an expectation existed in the first place.

The trap is not that helping people is wrong. It is that help given with a silent, unstated condition attached stops being a gift and quietly becomes a transaction that only one party agreed to.

What Does "Neki Kar, Darya Mein Daal" Actually Mean?

"Neki kar, darya mein daal" translates roughly to "do good, and cast it into the river," meaning that good deeds should be done without tracking who owes what in return. Once the good is done, the saying suggests, it should be released entirely, the way a river carries something away for good.

This is not the same as being passive or endlessly self-sacrificing. The philosophy behind it is closer to a mental discipline: separate the act of helping from the outcome of being helped back. Many people who live by this idea report that support does eventually return to them, but rarely from the exact person they helped, and often at a time or in a form they didn't expect. That unpredictability is uncomfortable for people who want fairness to be visible and immediate, but it is also, in practice, closer to how most long-term relationships and communities actually function.

Selflessness vs Transactional Help: Where Is the Line?

Selfless help is given without a private condition attached, while transactional help carries an unspoken expectation of reciprocity, even if that expectation is never stated out loud. The distinction matters less in the moment of giving and more in how a person feels afterward, if they help and feel lighter, it was likely selfless, if they help and quietly start keeping score, it was transactional in disguise.

Neither approach is inherently wrong. Transactional help, done openly and mutually, is simply called reciprocity, and healthy relationships run on some version of it. The problem is not transactional help itself, it is transactional help that is dressed up as selflessness, because the person offering it never feels entitled to ask for anything in return, so the debt just accumulates silently instead.

Why Is Setting Boundaries With Family So Hard?

Setting boundaries with family is difficult because family relationships are built on decades of history, obligation, and identity, which makes any request for space or limits feel, to both sides, like a rejection rather than a normal adjustment. A boundary that would be unremarkable with a colleague can feel seismic with a parent or sibling.

Cultural expectations around family duty add another layer, particularly in communities where looking after relatives is treated as a core marker of good character rather than a personal choice. Saying no in these contexts often triggers guilt that has little to do with the specific request and everything to do with a lifetime of internalised messaging about what a "good" son, daughter, or sibling is supposed to do. Recognising that boundaries protect a relationship's long-term health, rather than threaten it, is often the first real shift needed before a boundary can be held consistently.

How Childhood Roles Shape Adult Boundaries

Children who grow up as the eldest sibling, or as the family's designated "responsible one," are frequently assigned emotional and practical responsibilities well before they are equipped to carry them, and that early conditioning tends to follow them directly into adult relationships. Family systems research has long observed how birth order and assigned family roles shape lifelong patterns of caretaking and self-neglect.

An adult who was praised as a child for being mature, dependable, or easygoing often struggles later to ask for help themselves, because doing so feels like breaking character. They become the friend everyone leans on, the sibling who manages the family crisis, the partner who absorbs everyone's stress, all while quietly starving for the same support they give so freely. Unpacking this pattern usually starts with a simple but uncomfortable question: was this role ever actually chosen, or was it just assigned early and never questioned?

Key Takeaways

• The expectation trap forms when help is given with a silent, unstated assumption of future reciprocity, which the other person is often entirely unaware of.
• "Neki kar, darya mein daal" encourages doing good without tracking a return, while accepting that support often arrives later from an unexpected source rather than the person originally helped.
• Transactional help is not inherently unhealthy, the problem arises when it is presented as selfless while an unspoken debt quietly accumulates.
• Boundaries with family feel harder to set than boundaries elsewhere because they are tangled with identity, obligation, and cultural expectations around duty.
• Childhood roles such as being the eldest or the "responsible one" often condition adults to over-give and under-ask, a pattern that usually needs to be consciously recognised before it can change.

If any part of this reflected a relationship you're currently navigating, you're not alone in it, and recognising the pattern is often the hardest part. Share this with someone who tends to give more than they ask for, and if you want more conversations like this one, tune in to The Talk Show with Preetinder Grewal and Ranjodh Singh on Radio Haanji 1674 AM Melbourne, or listen anytime at haanji.com.au, for future episodes exploring the everyday psychology behind our closest relationships.