— Why are you ‘Doing Everything’ in your relationship?
A healthy relationship involves give and take, and in an ideal situation, both parties can feel they are in an equal partnership. Unlike a parent-child or therapist-patient relationship, a healthy romantic adult-to-adult relationship has room for humour, playfulness and honesty. The power balance feels equal, rather than lopsided.
In contrast to a healthy partnership, an unhealthy couple may involve an ‘underfunctioner’ and an ‘overfunctioner’. From the perspective of family system theories, it is not one person’s ‘fault’ that the relationship has become imbalanced. Most of the time, both partners may be playing out ‘scripts’ they carry from their early lives, compensating for childhood trauma. Whilst underfunctioning and overfunction in both serve their functions, when the dynamic becomes polarised it affects the relationship in a negative way. Because most of the time, the happens unconsciously, it is easy for people to miss the signs of when a relationship is deteriorating.
In a general sense, ‘functioning’ is defined by a person’s ability to act maturely, independently and competently as an adult member of society. It also involves a persons’ ability to manage their own mental states and emotional states, as well as sustain education and employment.
What Does an ‘Underfunctioning Person’ look like?
The underfunctioning partner usually exhibits signs of being dependent. They may be financially dependent, or emotionally dependent. For example, they are not able to finish school or stay in a job for long enough.
They may have mental health or other emotional issues that make being effective in the world impossible.
Most of the time, the underfunctioning person is not taking advantage of their partner. Instead, they genuinely want to grow and become a stronger person. However, they are held back by their past conditioning or lack of capacity.
For example, they might have a controlling parent who punishes them whenever they want autonomy. Or, they have a competitive sibling who would punish and alienate the underfunctioner for outshining them. This is not their fault, nor is it a personality defect. It is usually a result of unspeakable trauma.
As society is not usually compassionate towards someone who underfunctions, they also face judgements and criticisms from people around them, including their partner’s families and friends. This further deteriorates the underfunctioning person’s self-esteem, and ironically undermine their ability to function. As things get worse, they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves without checking with their partner or manage their impulsive urges. They may resort to excessive self-soothing or addictive behaviours to cope. As they bottle up shame and self-directed anger, they may even self-harm or become self-destructive.
Underfunctioning is not directly related to intelligence. Many underfunctioners are highly intelligent, have specific talents or are extraordinarily artistic and creative. They are often described by their family as ‘having potential but not fulfilling it’.
It can be tiring and frustrating to be locked in a relationship with an underfunctioner. However much you love them, you may feel exhausted from having to be the emotional caretaker and the one who ‘does everything’. But it is important to remember that they do not intentionally try to hurt you. They want as much as you do to heal and to step up.
Are you an Overfunctioner?
A typical romantic relationship involves two parties. When the dynamics become increasingly polarised, both sides are responsible. The more you overfunction, the more they underfunction, and vice versa. It is often not meaningful to determine ‘who starts what’.
If you find yourself being locked in a relationship with someone who seems to underfunction, it is worth reflecting whether or not you exhibit signs of being an overfunctioning person. Just as it is in the case of the underfunctioner, this is usually unconscious and caused by your childhood experience.
The cause may vary. For example, you might have been ‘parentified’ as a child. This means your role was reversed with your family. Instead of being a carefree and rightfully dependent child, you were forced to grow up very quickly, and physically or emotionally caretake your family members. You might have to be your parents’ confidant, therapist, ‘friend’ in an unhealthy way. As a result of having been a caretaker all your life, this role feels ‘at home’ for you. When you are in a relationship, you naturally want to take care of the other person. When you see someone not performing, being effective or lacking in efforts, you feel the urge to help them, change them, or do things for them.
Signs that someone is an Underfunctioner in the relationship
- Takes on unreasonably lesser responsibility in the relationship, including life tasks and chores.
- Always seeking reassurance, validation and help for almost every decision they do.
- Have low self-esteem and are often plagued withs elf-doubt.
- Often compare themselves to their peers and feel insecure about their lack of achievement.
- Lagging when it comes to their career and personal accomplishment when compared to their peers
- Are clumsy or incompetent when assigned a task.
- Maybe prone to feeling jealous and suspicious in a relationship.
- Tends to get anxious, paranoid, and do not feel safe in the world.
- May set goals but have difficulties achieving them. May start and not finish.
- Have little self-awareness and have difficulties managing their emotional reactions. May lash out at their partner uncontrollably sometimes.
Signs that someone is an Overfunctioner
- Not just in their relationship, but also take on an unreasonable amount of responsibilities at work, with their family, and in their other relationships.
- Are constantly doing things, completing tasks, taking care of errands in the household.
- May have bottled up tension in their bodies, and feel that they can never relax, or cannot afford to play and indulge in leisure.
- They might be parentified as a child and had to act as their siblings and parents’ parents.
- Tend to be ‘stoic’ and keep their problems to themselves. They don’t usually take up space to express their needs and feelings.
- Finds that if they were to delegate a task to their partner, it may end up becoming more problematic than if they were to do things themselves.
- Believe that things will not get done unless they do it.
- Feel responsible for their partners, constantly thinking of ways to help, motivate or change them.
- Feel close to burnout but don’t how to get out of the situation.
- Deep down, they may feel resentful towards the imbalance in the relationship.
Not surprisingly, an underfunctioning person and an overfunctioning person are often drawn to each other. As an overfunctioner, a part of you is used to, or even enjoy feeling needed. Even it leaves you exhausted sometimes, being indispensable to other people is how you feel loved and have a sense of meaning in the world. This might be why you are drawn to someone who seems to adore you, need you and could benefit from your help.
At the same time that you are drawn to an underfunctioner, they are drawn to your strengths, assertiveness, and power. Deep down, you manifest each others’ shadows or suppressed side of the psyche, which makes the initial attraction electrifying.
Unfortunately, when the initial spark fades you will both begin to feel the heavyweight of a lopsided, codependent relationship. Here are some signs that your relationship is deteriorating due to the unhealthy underfunctioning-overfunctioning co-dependency:
1. The underfunctioner becomes less able to function in the world
As the underfunctioning partner become used to being taken care of, they lose more and more able to act for themselves, make decisions in life, and take calculated risks. They may also not be able to comfort themselves when they are in distress and need the constant reassurance of their partner. They may even become physically ill and no longer able to function in society.
2. the Overfunctioner is exhausted and resentful
Despite being used to carrying the weight of the relationship, the overfunctioner is human too and will feel exhausted after a while. They may not express it to their partner as they worry about coming across as critical, or that it would trigger a strong emotional reaction from them. They may resort to complaining to their friends and family, or passively avoiding their partner.
Since they rarely express their needs and desires to their partner, they also feel emotionally lonely in the relationship. Even they do not want to betray their partner, an affair may become an increasingly attractive idea.
3. Lot of Sexual Attraction To Each Other
The underfunctioner-overfunctioner dynamics make the relationship feel more like that of parent-and-child, or caretaker-and-patient, rather than that of equal partners. As a result, sexual playfulness, experiments and fantasies all become less possible. To make matter worse, the underfunctioner may suffer from low self-esteem, body image issue or toxic shame, and not be able to feel carefree and spontaneous. The overfunctioner may also be so preoccupied with handling life tasks and chores that sex ceases to be a life priority.
4. Implications on Parenting
The lopsided co-dependency between two partners usually affects not just the romantic bond between two adults, but also how they parent. For example, the emotionally vulnerable underfunctioner may resort to using their child as a confidant, treating them more as a friend rather than a child. The overfunctioner may overfunction also as a parent, and become overly strict or controlling with their child. They may do everything for them and deprive them of the opportunities to learn for themselves.
Saving the Relationship
If you are stuck in an overfunctioning- underfunctioning relationship, sometimes it can look as though there is no way out.
But it is important to remember the love that does exist between you. Neither of you is ‘at fault’ for creating the dynamics. On the contrary, you are both trying your very best to make things work. With compassion, you can see that both overfunction and underfunction are simply defence mechanisms that are designed to protect you.
Deep down, the overfunctioner feels they are loved only for their utility.
Deep down, the underfunctioner wants to be independent and feel worthy, but is plagued with fears inherited from their childhood experience.
To change, the overfunctioner must learn to let go, and tolerate the idea that certain things may be chaotic for a while.
The underfunctioner can also take small steps in taking responsibilities and allowing themselves to make decisions for themselves without over-doubting. They do not need to become completely independent in a day, small steps is the key.
To change, both parties must communicate and collaborate. Gaining insights into what is happening is a start, but the real change comes from behavioural experiments that consolidate what you learn.
If you are reading this and you recognise you and your loved ones being trapped in a codependency loop, you might be at a crossroads. Either you allow the unhealthy equilibrium to continue, and wear down the love between you, or you take proactive actions to change it. With sincere efforts and patience, it is possible to rescue, re-energise and rekindle the love that you have.
The original article is posted here on eggshelltherapy.com
