What to do if you find yourself burning out from over-functioning in Dating and Relationships

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO (OR MORE LIKE NOT DO) IF YOU STRUGGLE WITH RELATIONAL BURNOUT AND OVER-FUNCTIONING TO MAKE UP FOR A PARTNER NOT PULLING his WEIGHT, EMOTIONALLY AND MATERIALLY (ALSO RELEVANT TO FOLKS WHO ARE ARE QUIET-QUITTING MARRIAGES):

Many times, without weaponizing silence to punish, what women/nonmen need is to step back, take a witnessing stance and observe how they are being treated day to day, whether their needs are being met, how regularly and to what degree.

Many folks over-function in relationships. There are developmental reasons why we over-function or that may increase our tolerance for the same, such as being parentified in childhood and carrying responsibilities beyond our age, parents and caregivers who reduced our worthiness to our productivity, intergenerational racial trauma around needing to be in service to oppressive groups to survive, and various other factors that will vary based on our lived experience.

It’s important to name here that for women/nonmen, the crux of the reason we over-function, or carry disproportionate cognitive, emotional, domestic load is systemic, a function of patriarchal capitalism that devalues women/nonmen’s unpaid labour, while said labour bolsters men’s ability to progress in the workplace, make and, in many ways, hoard money and critical resources such as sleep, leisure and free time at women/nonmen’s expense.

When this happens persistently, you may find yourself in dead-end conversations with an uncooperative, emotionally unavailable partner, where you are bringing up the same concerns, asking for the same bare minimum requirements to be met, be it emotional supportiveness or stepping up with household chores and parenting labour. This is by design, as I shared above.

When you have an emotionally unavailable partner who isn't committed to the relationship (also true of marriages) and to treating you fairly, they will stonewall by being unresponsive to your requests, needs and asks, no matter how skillfully you may express them.

Then you will likely meet their patriarchal under-functioning with stronger efforts to fix, explain, discuss, protest, help and guide them into doing things they are actively choosing not to do despite being aware of impact on you, while also choosing to not access the support (such as therapy and coaching, where applicable, and hiring people to regularly assist with housework even when it is within their means to do so) needed to show up equitably both emotionally and materially.


However, the answer is to do the nourishing opposite of over-functioning, which is mindful detachment and re-committing to attuning to your own needs, desires and values, instead of resisting reality by attempting to reform/fix/heal a partner and tracking their needs, desires and wants.

Keeping that in mind, one of the most important steps in releasing this dynamic is not taking accountability for things that only your partner can control.

For example, receiving therapy and even coaching that is grounded in anti-patriarchal values, and more importantly, committing to showing up as a decent human being who refuses to get their wants (everything from sex to financial control to leisure) met at the expense of your health, fulfillment and well being, is work that needs to take place on their side of the street without your having to fix, cajole and exhaust yourself in the process.

It's why I remind folks you cannot afford to make yourself responsible for changing their defensiveness, absence of collaboration (while preferring you surrender to their whims and convenience) and initiative in proactively sharing power, resources, access, time and energy with you equitably.

Let me provide a few more examples I have seen in my line of work as a coach, so you may see how these dynamics play out in your life. A partner may be hold financial control at your expense, which often means leaving you to carry the bulk of childrearing work, so you barely have enough time to sleep, rest or pursue career advancement.

It can also look like emotionally withholding when you need emotional support, responsiveness and care, while leaning on you heavily for emotional facilitation, conflict repair, soothing, co-regulation and attunement, social engagement and maintaining relationships with extended family.

It can be helpful to remember in you are not responsible for the above, and the less responsibility you take on for influencing and changing the above exploitative dynamic single handedly (as a lot of mainstream culture and even a lot of therapists and coaches will have you believe), the safer, more secure and fulfilled you will grow to be.

We over-function and sustain patterns of over-functioning for many reasons, including systemic trauma from patriarchy and developmental influences as covered above.

However it's important to remember that a chronically under-functioning partner will, in the systems we live in, require that *someone* pick up their slack, and that someone is likely to be women/nonmen. This is why a critical pattern interrupt is going to be a requirement if you are to safely navigate and, eventually, exit this dynamic.

For a start, maintaining an external boundary, such that you are aware of and take ownership of upholding and communicating your own needs and values, as well as taking action in congruence with the same, and being aware that your partner's choices, needs, values and the actions these result are their own, and not something that is yours to fix is invaluable.

Secondly, it's helpful to scale back on the level of talking, explaining, facilitating, "we need to have a talk" talks you may be holding, and other forms of “efforting” you are doing. Are you trying to list out chores for them? Are you the one trying to set reminders around family/social engagements on their behalf? Are you making yourself emotionally available anytime they need to vent or complain?

It’s time to step back from performing this labour. Sometimes an under-functioning partner who is, in fact, inclined to step up and sustainably disrupt this dynamic on their end, because he wants to do right by you and uphold antipatriarchal values to treat you with fairness, respect and care, will respond to the removal (or even partial withdrawal) of your efforting by becoming more proactive. They also notice when the consequences of their inaction become more inconvenient because you aren’t making up for the same, even if that may need be easy or intuitive for you.

In other cases, unfortunately the majority of cases, men don’t step up and end the exploitative dynamic. The answer is to resource oneself with the support (trauma informed antipatriarchal therapy, community spaces, like minded friends and so on) needed to take pause, rest and recede from the futile pursuit of fairness and dignity from a person who is content with benefiting from your suffering.

It's because when we take that pause, when we stop filling in the spaces of lack, neglect and non-reciprocation, with our own exhausting efforts to bridge said spaces with everything from people-pleasing to venting to trying dialogue after dialogue out of Couples Communication Handbooks (that keep falling on deaf ears), we will notice with greater clarity (and with more room for attuning to ourselves instead of the fatiguing external tracking we do in such relationships) what it is we truly need, what we just aren't receiving despite betting on potential, and frankly the futility of our efforts.

To reiterate from above, a partner who is ethical, open to receiving influence from you with humility and acting on it consistently, will be more responsive to greater skillfulness and self-advocacy on your end, will continually progress in an equitable direction, day after day, month after month and beyond, instead of intermittent changes that last briefly before reverting to the same harmful patterns or fleeting changes that are ramped up opportunistically when they fear you may leave.

When a partner doesn't see the problem in their ways, or sees it but isn't invested in correcting it, because like I said, it benefits them, it’s time to commit to reality for what it is and remind ourselves that potential is an illusion and betting on potential a shame and trauma conditioned response, not a sustainable strategy for safe, secure and fulfilling relationships. In a healthy, loving relationship, you don’t chance your safety, security and well being or invoke potential to justify settling. You live that safety, security, fulfillment and relational joy consistently.

When you are deprived of the above, remember also that your partner is massively breaching trust by subjugating your needs to their convenience and control. This is felt as abandoning by many women/nonmen I have worked with and understandably so.

When we know, in our soul, that our needs deserve to be met, here and now, but we are deprived of connection, soothing, intimacy, rest and an equitable distribution of power (labour and financial inequity included), that's what becomes fuel for shame (and traumatic shame even).

We may start believing there's something fundamentally wrong with us, with our very reasonable expectations, that it makes us unworthy of love, protection, belonging and relational joy.

Remembering this voice of self-criticism, and sometimes, painful self-doubt is shame, an implant resulting from ongoing oppression and our developmental trauma, not our higher self and ancestral wisdom speaking, can be deeply healing.

And that can be the wake up call we need to step back, witness and observe these dynamics from a place of greater stillness, allowing your minds and bodies to rest, without putting in massive effort to change things that aren't ours to change, while returning focus to our own care, healing and growth.

Listen, all of the above is why I tell folks, including prospective clients in above dynamics all the time, that I can support you and your relationships, with facilitating effective self-attunement, self-advocacy and developing deeper safeness and secureness within yourself, within the relationships you already hold with the self, with the land, with your ancestors and descendants, with your greater wisdom.

I can support you with core relational skill building and healing systemic trust, shame and intimacy wounds (all of which has a sustainable positive impact on your well being and the quality of your relating, from professional to personal, parenting included).

But I cannot, just like you cannot, change a partner, nor should I be trying (for ethical reasons) or claiming I can.

Yes relational skill building and healing on our end (which isn't the same as caretaking/fixing/coaching the partner) can have a positive impact on our own well being and a relationship, primarily with a reasonable, ethical and committed partner who wants to do right by, but you don't do this work so you can "change them". You do this because you deserve care, healing and fulfillment.

You deserve to hold the line on your non negotiables, values, needs, goals and prioritize your well being and secure functioning first, so you are not putting your safety and security needs on hold in service of a partner.

And if one is unwilling to step up and make lasting consistently demonstrable improvements, it's time you begin believing when they show you who they are as challenging as it is to commit to this painful reality.

This piece, then, is a call to step back and rest.

To take the stance of witness and observer.

To resist the urge to facilitate, support, effort, influence and change dynamics on your partner's end that only they can change.

To trust what your body has to do say about love and what you deserve to receive in love.

To trust what your body has to say about love and what you aren't receiving in love.

To trust that your stillness is strength.

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Let me know your questions and thoughts below