My partner (32F) and I (38F) have been together for about 2 years. She officially moved in 6 weeks ago. For context, this is my first relationship, and the first time she has lived separate from her family.
Due to a lot of trauma, my partner is an extreme people-pleaser. She is in therapy, and I hope this is something she is working on. My problem is that I get a little tired of her attitude towards me. She puts me on a bit of a pedestal, acting like I deserve to be waited on hand and foot. She says I only deserve good things, and shouldn’t have to worry or work or anything. But if I try to do nice things for her, it is always met with “you didn’t have to do that” or treated like it was a burden for me.
I get tired of reassuring her that no, it is not a big deal for me to fold her laundry. That she is not expected to cook for me all the time. That living together means that there are things we just do, not just for each other but for our household. To be honest, it feels a bit infantilizing. I know it isn’t because she doesn’t trust me to do things myself, but the constant back and forth is exhausting. Healthy adult relationships means that you just do things for each other.
She works extremely hard and is the kind of person who always puts herself last, because no one else in her life has ever made her a priority. We’ve made some progress over our time together, as I’m working to show her that she has value and is just as deserving of good things as I am. But it is slow going, and now that we live together I am starting to feel like I am losing my mind.
I have a few chronic health conditions and yes, there are times when I am too tired or hurting too much to do much around the house. But part of it is also just the habits I’ve established living on my own. I guess what it boils down to is I want us to be a relationship of equals. I don’t mind the sweet-talk, but sometimes I just want to be a person, not the brilliant beautiful goddess she paints me as. If she had her way I would never lift a finger, and it’s frustrating because I’m not built that way. I believe in hard work. I’ve taken care of myself for a long time. Yes, I want a partner I can lean on, because being an adult is hard. But I want that person to lean on me back.
I’m struggling with effective ways to communicate my feelings to her. I already tell her that she deserves to be taken care of as well, and that most of what I do isn’t a big deal. It is just being a supportive partner. I don’t need or want for her to feel like I have to be taken care of all the time.
So do I stay the course, and just keep offering up reassurances as it happens? Do I have a hard sit-down and let my frustrations come out? Or is there some other option that I’m missing just because I don’t have a lot of experience to pull from.
TL;DR: my partner feels like she should do everything for me but that I shouldn’t be burdened with doing things for her. How can I communicate that I want us to be equal partners?
Comments
> How can I communicate that I want us to be equal partners?
You already have.
You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make her drink. Likewise, you can lead a person to a conclusion, but you cannot make her embrace it.
The problem here is not your lack of clarity in communication, it’s in her lack of either ability or willingness to accept what you are communicating.
When someone is unwilling or unable to accept something, there are no magic words or incantations we can use to make them…because it’s not about you, it’s about her.
This is who she is.
If she is working to change that via therapy, that’s great, but unless and until she does change it, this is who she will remain, and no matter how much you tell her things, if she’s not ready to accept them, she will not accept them.
You have to accept that this is who she is, and that this is who she is likely to remain (at least in the near term, and possibly in the long term as well, since you don’t know whether she’s even attempting to address it via therapy).
If that’s not the person that you need to be in a partnership with, then she may not be someone you can be in a partnership with. It really comes down to two things: 1) is she actually putting in the work to change in a way that would make her a more viable partner for you, and 2) if she is, is that change going to happen on a timetable that makes waiting around for it to happen worth your while?
If the answer to either of those questions is “no”, then this is not your girl.
If the answer to both of them is “yes”, then be patient, and allow her to change at the pace that her therapeutic process causes her to change.
That pattern was part of her survival mechanism at home. What she knows to be true , like what you’re telling her, I’ll have a hard time thinking in because how strongly her formation was. That’s what she thinks love looks like. Couples counseling maybe?
It’s extremely hard to rewrite these sorts of thought processes even with therapy. There are no magic words you can spout to just fix it. You’ll just have to repeat yourself forever and hope a bit of it sticks.
It is part of who she is, maybe she can adjust for her own health but don’t count on it.
This is her first time not living with her parents, so it seems like she is a bit stunted and not sure what is normal for a partnership. You say you hope she is working on certain things in therapy, why not ask her? Why not request that she work on specific things with her therapist?