Competent Care

I know you’ve seen the reels where someone “gets back” at their partner by “hiding” their things, accomplished by moving them to a slightly different place. The message is that they are so clueless, so helpless around the house that they can’t find what’s right in front of them. 

A complaint I frequently hear from my clients is that they do everything around the house. Their partners will happily express a willingness to help, “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it!” Sound familiar? That is quickly followed with, “I shouldn’t have to tell you what to do, we both live in the same house. You should notice if [insert chore here] needs to be done and just do it.” 

But I’m not here to help you divide household chores (at least not right now).

Here’s what’s getting missed in that exchange: 

“Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.” is saying, “I don’t want to do it wrong.”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you what to do.” is saying, “Show me you care.”

Fear of getting it wrong and being chastised for trying to help stops so many partners from even trying. Why bother if they’re going to get yelled at anyway? If they don’t do anything and get yelled at, at least they haven’t layered on the feeling of being incompetent. Can you really blame them? If they try to contribute and show up, and are rewarded for their efforts with criticism and corrections, that makes trying feel less safe. “Just tell me what to do” creates a built-in safety net: If you tell me exactly what you want, my efforts won’t get rewarded with rejection.

The person asking for help might have made helping feel bad. Because, though they want help, they really want care. And the person trying to do it right is trying to avoid feeling bad because they, too, want their partner to feel good. Round and round we go. No one is to blame when everyone is a participant in the dynamic. 

So what we’re actually working on is a difference in competency versus care in the quality of effort being requested. I can almost promise that if you take it upon yourself to get the towels from the dryer and fold them, even if you fold them “wrong,” it will be appreciated IF you’ve already shown care.

Competency is not the issue. Care is.

The one asking for help, while genuinely seeking it, is, beneath that request, asking not to feel alone. They are asking to feel seen. Acknowledged. Deeply appreciated. Not just, “Good dinner, thanks.” But, “Wow, you did a lot so we could share this meal together. Thank you for thinking about what we’d like to eat, for making sure we have all the ingredients, for preparing the food, and for considering everyone's schedules to ensure we can be here together. That’s a lot of work, so we can just come enjoy and be nourished. Thank you. Because I didn’t have to think about or do any of that, I was able to focus on my work, which has been especially stressful lately. Thank you for that.” 

Can you feel the difference?

This isn’t to say the goal is to offer that level of appreciation for each thing, but to consider all that goes into each thing, to demonstrate care, and to help your partner feel viscerally appreciated. When that happens, efforts will come from a place of deep connection, understanding, and tenderness. Towels get folded not to avoid getting nagged at, but because it’s clear just how much effort (visible and invisible) goes into each thing, and if you can sit and watch TV together without one person simultaneously folding towels, that is a lovely way to fully share an activity.

Wouldn’t it feel nice to be able to rest together? For everything to be done, and it wasn’t all done by you? To not feel like everything falls to you to think of, to plan, to manage, and to do? I bet the thought of that feels amazing. Like a fantasy. …if only it were so simple, right? Because when you really let yourself consider someone else “helping” does it actually feel like helping? Or does it feel like one more thing to manage since they probably won’t do it right anyway? It’s probably easier to just do it yourself. Feel familiar?

When someone said, “If you don’t like how I do it, do it yourself.” You said, “Bet.”

Beneath the drive to do and the idea that only you can do it just right (because, after all, you’ve had the experience to know how to do all the things), be gentle with the part of you who may worry that if you let someone help you and carry some of that weight, that it diminishes you in some way. Maybe you feel valuable through how you show up, how you support, and how you do the things you do, how you manage to do it all. If you let yourself put down some of this overfunctioning, what would that say about you? Is your exhaustion allowed? Are you allowed to rest?

Beneath the desire to do correctly, can you make a mistake without feeling a personal failing? Do you connect a sense of self with your ability to do things competently? Your value is not tied to perfect performance or perfect instruction-following. Competency is not a sign of one’s intrinsic worth. You are not wrong because you folded the towels “wrong.”

The old dance no longer works. Learning a new dance can be intimidating. Changing the steps will be a bit clumsy at first. You will step on each other’s toes. “Rights” and “lefts” will be misinterpreted, maybe even forgotten. 

You, who do it all yourself, your challenge is to let things be done in a way that is not yours.

And you, who doesn’t want to be criticized, your challenge is to try anyway.

Both of you get to practice accepting “mistakes” and remembering that the goal is progress, not perfection.