Responsibility in the Relationship

In a relationship where you want to go to stage 3, it is crucial to take responsibility and avoid over-responsibility. Taking responsibility for your own energy, actions, and reactions is a prerequisite for a mature and equal relationship. It means recognizing your own patterns, needs, and boundaries, as well as communicating them clearly to your partner and working with them.

Over-responsibility, on the other hand, arises when we take responsibility for our partner's feelings, actions, or well-being at the expense of our own. This can happen when we try to please, avoid conflict, or compensate for our partner's lack of responsibility. Over-responsibility can lead to imbalance in the relationship, where one party feels drained and the other party remains immature and dependent. Over-responsibility can also be found in daily practical tasks, where we take over the tasks because we do not trust that the partner can or will take care of them.

Differences Between Over-Responsibility

To put it simply, women may have a tendency to take over responsibility because they have culturally learned to suppress their own needs, seek to maintain harmony in the relationship, or fear being rejected or losing connection. Often she thirsts for his presence, and men often let go of responsibility in the family and relationships more than women do.

Men's over-responsibility can often take the form of an excessive focus on fixing problems and being the 'strong one' in the relationship. This can stem from a need to prove their masculinity, live up to traditional gender roles, but can also arise because men culturally take on the role of trying, and for them, it can also be a way of showing love. At the same time, men may have difficulty showing vulnerability and difficulty asking for help, as they fear that it will be perceived as weakness and may ultimately cause her to withdraw.

Working with responsibility and over-responsibility in the relationship is about becoming aware of your own patterns and setting healthy boundaries. It takes courage to say no, to express your needs, and at the same time allow your partner to take responsibility for their own part of the relationship, or demand that the partner take responsibility where they fail to do so. It goes without saying that it is difficult to work with responsibility and over-responsibility if both parties do not work with responsibility consciously at the same time.

When both parties take responsibility for their own energy and take responsibility for their part of the relationship dynamic and the tasks in the home, a balance can arise that is the foundation for investigating stage 3.

Listen to podcast episodes 11 and 25 for more information. Source: Conversations with my imaginary daughter, by Mette Miriam Sloth.