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When You Are Doing All the Relationship Work

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Written by Sarah Love

Tuesday, 18 March 2008

by SarahLove

Relationships require balance. Sometimes, though, that balance can get tipped, and one partner ends up doing all the "work" within the relationship. Are you the one doing everything? Making all the phone calls, planning your dates, initiating intimacy and more?

Soon enough, your fun relationship turns into a lot of work, and you might start to get hostile or needy. You are not getting what you need, and you are overcompensating for that. "Overfunctioning" is the term Rori Raye has coined for this problem, and I think it fits.

That means that you, as a woman, take up the slack for everything in the relationship that is wrong or that he is not doing. The thing is, men see the world differently than women do - and most men don't actually like it when we do things for them, when we baby them and take care of them. They want to be the masculine one - not feminized by being babied.

How it starts is by you wanting to show this man that you are capable of taking care of yourself. You DON'T want to be needy or clingy - you want to be strong and independent. Then it develops into you telling him how to do things orthat he is doing things wrong.

Doing this, we take over the masculine roll in the relationship, which kills the attraction completely. The attraction dies because he wants YOU to be the woman, and you want HIM to be the man, but by trying to prove how strong and independent you are - you have taken that roll from him, and doused the fire.

That does not mean that men like women who have no brain or backbone. What it DOES mean is that he wants you to be you, and let him be HIM. If you take that role from him, it only kills the attraction, but begins putting YOU in the "friend-zone" - which is certainly not where you want to be if you are romantically interested in this fellow because the relationship becomes a male and male relationship, not man and woman.

Fortunately, you can change your behavior. This means that first of all, you must become self-aware. Most of this behavior happens unconciously - you do it and you never even realize it. Start being self-aware, and when you start behaving like the man, step back and relinquish the reigns to the one who wants them.

Then, start noticing when you are feeling any sort of negative emotion. You need to pay attention to this for two reasons. One - because you may take it out on others or two - because you may attempt to make yourself feel better by using attention seeking behavior afterwards. This may be seen as immature or needy to a man.

If you do that, you will also start to notice when you are going to start speaking in a negative way to HIM. You will see when you are going to tell him how to do something, or why, or try to take over for him when he does not want you to. If you can stop this behavior, you can begin to turn your relationship around for the better.

Also start taking your cues from his body language. Your man may not tell you in so many words when you are doing something that takes away his masculine part of your relationship, but his body language will. Pay attention and adjust your behavior accordingly.

If you truly pay attention and start giving your man permission to BE the man, your relationship will start to turn around. You can have the relationship you have always wanted.

About the Author:

Relationship Advice for women by Rori Raye - Help for YOUR Relationship NOW!

Dating Tips for Women by Christian Carter of Catch Him and Keep Him