249: When You're the One Doing ALL the Work
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Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Satin. What do you do when you feel like you're the only one doing the work in your relationship?

When things would just fall apart if you weren't on top of it, or if things aren't going so well, and you're the only one who seems to care enough to try and make things different, to try and improve things. What do you do when you feel like you're the only one? And how do you know when it's time to maybe stop doing anything and walk away or change?

Well, we'll see as we get deeper into it. Turns out there are a lot of options available to you. And some of them may surprise you.

Before we dive in, I just want to remind you that Relationship Alive is my offering for you so that you can have the best possible relationships. And if you are finding the show to be helpful, please consider a donation. Every little bit counts, and it ensures that we can keep going with the mission of Relationship Alive.

This week, I would like to thank Dave, Michael, Ruthanna, Holly, Ulrika, Jenny, Marie, Matthew, Timothy, Jeff, Angie, David, Audrey, Drew, and Anne. Thank you all so much for your generous and in many cases ongoing contributions to Relationship Alive.

And if you want to make a donation, just visit neilsatin.com slash support or text the word support to the number 33444 and follow the instructions.

I also just want to remind you that I have a free communication guide for you with three simple things that you can put into practice that will radically transform the way that you communicate in your relationship and help you stay connected. Even if you have really challenging things that you want to communicate about, like, for instance, how you feel like you're the one who's doing all the work.

If you want to grab the free guide, just visit neilsatin.com slash relate, or you can text the word relate to the number 33444 and follow the instructions. I do also have a complete Secrets of Relationship Communication course that you can grab. If you want more information on that, just visit neilsatin.com slash course. And basically, I went through the best of the best secrets

on how to communicate well in a relationship. So this is different than just like general communication tips. It's relationship specific communication tricks and tips. And I focused on the things that you uniquely can change. So if you don't have to get your partner to change at all, they will because as we've talked about over and over again on the show, when you change your steps in the dance, your partner will change as well.

But these are all your unique leverage points to change the way that you communicate and get better results, stay connected, and get more of a sense of intimacy with your partner, more of a sense of trust, more of a sense of understanding, and handle some tough or challenging subjects without things going off the rails. So that's what the communication course is all about.

Again, visit neilsatin.com slash course, C-O-U-R-S-E to check that out. And the last thing I'll tell you is that we have a group on Facebook. So if you're still on Facebook and want to check us out, come find the Relationship Alive community and click join. And you can connect with other like-minded souls who listen to Relationship Alive and are interested in creating a safe space to talk about relationships.

Let's get on with the show and this question of how and what to do, how to know if you truly are the one who's doing all the work in a relationship, and how to know what to do if that is the case. So the very first thing that you want to get clear on is, what is the work that we're talking about?

Are we literally talking about the work of say running your household, domestic duties, grocery shopping, cooking meals, cleaning, taking care of balancing the checkbook if you still balance your checkbook. Whatever it is, is that the kind of work that we're talking about or are we talking about things like stepping back and thinking about the quality of your relationship and

and whether or not it's what you want it to be. And if it isn't what you want it to be,

Putting in energy to try and make it different, whether that's going to counseling or a coach or reading a lot of books or listening to podcasts and then trying to bring everything that you're learning and all the perspectives that you're getting on how to do relationship better to your relationship. Maybe that's the kind of work that you're talking about.

It's important to get really clear on what you mean when you say, if you are the one who's saying, I feel like I'm the only one who's doing anything for this relationship. And if you're listening to this show because your partner has said to you that they feel like they're the only one doing all the work in the relationship, then you should also get really clear on what it is they're talking about. Because...

As it turns out, we all have different ideas about what constitutes the work of relationship. And one of the most...

funny, it can be funny, haha, but it's maybe a little bit more funny, weird things that can happen in a relationship is you can think like, you can think that you're the one who's doing all the work. And at the very same time, your partner may also think that they are the ones who are doing all the work in the relationship.

And that's classic, right? Because as it turns out, relationships consist of typically two or potentially more people. And each person brings their own perspective to the relationship. And so if you are used to looking at the world and seeing it in a particular way and thinking, oh, the work of relationship is...

listening to podcasts and reading books about relationship and trying to bring that to my relationship to make it better. Um,

but your partner thinks that the way to work on a relationship is to plan more vacations away and make sure that everything that needs to get done on a daily basis gets done with no one complaining about it, then not that those two things aren't compatible. Of course they're compatible, but you have very different ideas about what constitutes the work of relationship.

So it's important for you to get clear on what you think your work is and maybe what you think your work isn't. And then can you get your partner's perspective? Are they sitting there thinking that they're the ones who are doing all the work? And if so, what is it that they're doing? What is the work in their eyes? What is the work from their perspective?

Because it's really important in all things relationship to try to find each other, to try to get to a place where you can actually be collaborating around everything that's going on. So if you feel alone in being the one who's doing the work and your partner also feels alone, then you are missing valuable opportunities to collaborate with each other.

And as I mentioned in my last episode, collaboration is where it's at. That's the spirit in which a healthy relationship can be sustained, the spirit of collaboration. So if you have some hints about what is going on with your partner or what their perspective is, that's great. And this may be a time for you to have a conversation with them.

and to presence what's going on with you in a way that's not going to threaten them. So if you go to your partner and say, "Hey baby, can I talk to you about something?" "Sure, great. What is it?" "Um, yeah, I feel like I'm the only one who's really doing the work of our relationship." Well, nine times out of ten that conversation isn't going to go very well.

because your partner is probably going to feel attacked or get defensive. And as soon as that happens, no good is really going to come from that conversation. So how do you presence what's going on for you in a way that leaves it open to your partner's feedback? It might be something like,

Once you've initiated, can we have a conversation? Yes, of course, babe. What do you want to talk about? You might say something like, I've been feeling really alone lately. And I have this story. And the story is that...

I know that we both want our relationship to go well. I know we both want to be happy in our relationship. And yet I feel like it might, like I might be the only one who's really putting the effort in for that to happen. And I just want you to know in saying that, that I recognize it's my story. I'm probably missing something really important about what's going on with you. So I really want you to hear this, not as a complaint, but as,

as an open invitation for us to just kind of have a conversation about this because I don't want to feel alone in this and maybe you can help me see what I'm missing. So there's an example of how you might try to have this conversation. There are so many different ways you can have it. In general,

You want to have it with a smile on your face. And you want to maintain an air of openness. Not that you have come to some conclusion about how horrible things are and how it's all your partner's fault and how you're the only one who wants to change anything. But coming to it, recognizing that there may be something that you don't quite get or that you don't quite understand. Make sense? So for yourself,

Once you've gotten some clarity within and maybe had this conversation with your partner, you need to start asking how you decide if the way that things are is or isn't okay with you. Because as much as we want to be able to shift things in a relationship, there's only so much that we can change about ourselves, especially in the short term.

I mean, over a longer period of time, there's more that we can change. And we surely cannot change our partners, having tried and failed at that numerous times. And having had partners try and fail to change me, I can tell you with absolute certainty that other people cannot change you and that you cannot change other people. So if that's the case, it's really important for you to get clear on what is happening right there in front of you.

And along with what is happening, you got to get clear on what is and isn't okay about you. What can you and can you not live with? Are there deal breakers on the table? And if there are, what are those deal breakers? Get really clear about it. And then get clear on what's kind of the nice to have or would be nice, but if it never changes, you can live with it. And then there's any number of things in between.

Okay, do your best to get analytical about your relationship. Now, all of this is to say that if there's something important in your relationship that you feel like you're not getting, like for instance, if you don't really feel like you have an intimate connection with your partner, and I could be talking about sexual intimacy, like maybe you're not having sex as much as you would like to have sex.

Or the kind of sex that you're having isn't connecting in the way that you want it to be. Or maybe it's simply that you're missing, like you feel like you're alone. Like it's a greater environment of feeling like you're on your own and you don't like that, just as an example. Or on the flip side, maybe you feel like you're being overwhelmed by your partner and their demands and you need a little bit more space, right?

Whatever it is that you feel like you're not getting, I want you to get to a place where you get to have what you want, while at the same time, you can appreciate who your partner is, what their perspective is, and that most likely they're not trying to withhold from you, but they're also trying to get their own needs met.

So in this dance of collaboration, the more clear that you are on what your needs are and the more you're clear on what your partner's needs are, then you're able to start having conversations where you both get your needs fulfilled. And if you're just stuck in your silos, then you can't really have those conversations and you can't collaborate and you'll probably just end up continuing to feel like you're not getting your needs met the way that you want to. Now we're going to talk about

about some potential solutions in a moment. But before we do, there are a few more things that I want you to be thinking about. I'm wondering if you can get clear on why your partner is showing up the way that they are. Like what has led you to this place where the two of you currently reside? What has unfolded over time that's led you to do what you're doing and that's led your partner to do what they're doing?

Along with that, think about kind of the long arc of time if you've been together for a while and think about whether like what what reciprocity has looked like over the course of your relationship. Have there been other times where perhaps you weren't doing as much work and your partner was?

Maybe where you are is part of a natural ebb and flow in your relationship. See if you can get some perspective on that and where the pendulum is in terms of its swing. You know, have things gone so far overboard that there's no going back to a more balanced place and that's why you feel like it's so important to take action? Or might things naturally come back into balance?

We'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment when we're talking about solutions. The other thing that it's worth thinking about is, one, who your partner actually is versus who you want them to be. Super important. And the one warning that I'll give you here is that our tendency in these moments is to be somewhat judgmental.

So see if you can assess who your partner is without labeling them. And if you find yourself assessing them negatively, see if there's a way that you can walk it back so it's a little more neutral. Like, for instance, if you said something like, well, my partner is completely shut down and they never share their feelings. That could be true.

I'm guessing that it's true in your current experience of your partner. So a way that you might change how that's phrased is, currently my partner doesn't offer much in terms of how they feel. And you might even add something like, and I miss that. Like I want to know them more in that way.

Right. So the goal here is to develop a whole litany of things that condemns your partner and and and helps you make an exit to your relationship. There's a time and a place for that. This isn't that time or place. This is about just getting super clear on who the person is in front of you and what can they be reliable to show up for and what can they reliably not show up for, at least at this point in time.

Get clear on that. And finally, before we, and this will sort of shift us towards solutions, think about how you'd like things to be. And you might develop your completely unrealistic vision of how things could be, just so you have a sense of how things would look in your ideal world. And then maybe dial it back just a little bit and see what

What else a potential option might be for you that would at least address some of the ways that you feel like things could be different so that so much of the burden of betterness in your relationship wasn't on you. And with that, we are going to transition into talking about some of the simple steps that you can take to turn this situation around and

But first, I want to take a quick break to tell you about this week's sponsors. And each of them has been a huge supporter of Relationship Alive, and they both have a special offer for you to support you.

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and the code ALIVE in lowercase to get your first 30 days for free. And thank you to both Acorn TV and BetterHelp for your support of Relationship Alive. All right, so let's talk solutions. I guess first of all, if you are, if we're talking about the work like household duties, balancing your checkbook, grocery shopping, etc., then...

It could be that there are some conversations that you and your partner need to have about the division of labor. And if they truly aren't available to do some of these practical things, then see if there's any of it that you can delegate, right? There may be solutions. There may be other people who are willing to do these things for you at a fraction of the cost that it costs.

would be for you to do them, to take time out of your life to do them. So for instance, you might see if there's a neighborhood teenager who for $10 an hour would do your laundry for you. So it's relatively cheap to have them do that. And maybe while they're waiting for the laundry to switch, you have them do your dishes, right? Like there are all kinds of options available for you.

And they don't have to be expensive. If money is not an obstacle for you, then just hire someone, hire anyone who seems good to do the work for you.

Some people barter for things like that. Like they might, if they know someone who has no problem doing a bunch of laundry, but they don't really like to cook, then you might make extra food and give them dinner three nights a week and they'll take care of your laundry, right? You can get creative about how you delegate or how you team up to get the stuff of life done, right?

If it's all falling on you. So this could be a combination of delegation and conversation about the division of labor. Okay, so I just wanted to cover that. That's kind of the practical, like if there are practical things that you're doing that feels like it's all on you, there are some ways that you handle that. Pretty straightforward, right?

Now, let's talk a little bit more about the work of relationship, like where you feel like you're putting all this energy into making things better and your partner, not so much. They're just kind of going with the flow. So what do you do about that? Well, first, I wonder if you can get clear on whether it's really worth doing what you're doing.

Now, of course, I appreciate you're listening to Relationship Alive, right? Like, I want this to be a part of making things better for you. But if you are getting all wound up in trying to make things better, but it's not helping, in fact, maybe it's even making things worse because you feel all kinds of tension around the need to put work and energy into your relationship, it might be worth just stepping back a little bit

to see if the things that you're working on really are worth it. Or if perhaps you're working on something that's more of a surface level problem where there might actually be something deeper to work on. Like for instance, if you long for more romance in your relationship,

then it might be tempting to try and inject more romance into your relationship. Create date nights and dinners and candlelit moments and sexy music or whatever it is. Now,

That may be all that's required. So I don't, I'm not telling you not to try those things. If they, if you haven't tried them and they're not, or, and, and you're longing for it, then try it, see what happens. But if you're going overboard and putting all this energy in and nothing is shifting, then it could be that there's some deeper obstacle to romance in your connection and that you need to address that deeper issue in order for the romance to change. Yeah.

So for instance, if your partner is really angry at you about something or feeling resentful about something, then no amount of romance is probably going to soften their stance until you are able to address head on the things that they're angry about. So you might be headed into challenging conversation territory and

before you can light the candles and put on the sexy lingerie or cook the romantic dinner or whatever it is. So one suggestion that I have for you is to stop doing everything, to literally stop and get your bearings. What happens when you stop putting in all that work? What truly is the situation?

How much is what you're doing actually necessary? It's possible that you're putting all of this energy in, in ways that aren't really required, especially if you find that you're putting all this energy in and it's not making a difference. Well, that should tell you something that your energy is perhaps wasted if it's not making a difference. So my gift to you is to stop doing all those things and,

Reclaim all that energy and see if there's a way that you can get a more accurate perspective on what's happening. And also you'll have all that energy available maybe for a new approach, something that you're not seeing because you're so busy in the work that you're doing already. So it's not to say that there's necessarily anything wrong with it, but it's more that sense of if you're doing something and it doesn't work, don't just try doing more of it.

Take a step back and figure out if what you're doing is really the right thing to be doing. Now, sometimes we do pour all kinds of energy in as a way of trying to control the situation. So that might be a question worth asking yourself. How much am I just trying to control the outcome here, trying to control how I feel, control how my partner feels, how my children feel, how everyone feels, to control circumstances,

So that I'm not in a state of dysregulation. You know, maybe I get really triggered when my house is messy. So I'm always cleaning, cleaning, cleaning to try and keep myself from being in that uncomfortable place of being triggered. So how much is what you are doing about control? Controlling yourself and your emotions, controlling your partner, controlling others, controlling

When you stop doing it, you can step back and see with a little bit more clarity what might be true about that. I'm not saying that's definitely what's going on. I'm just saying it's a possibility. It's worth considering. Again, so much of this is about getting clear on what is and what's true. What's true about what's going on. So now that you've stopped doing what you were doing so that you can get some perspective...

It's worth asking yourself, what are all the possible solutions to this situation? Are there creative ways that aren't obvious, but that would still take care of what you're experiencing? Sometimes we are so fixated on a particular path that we miss other ways of getting to where we want to go. Now, if you can get your partner on board with the fact that things just aren't quite right,

You know, you're feeling isolated. You're feeling like you're putting all this energy in. You're wanting things to shift that they aren't and your wheels are spinning. If you can have the conversation with your partner where their response is, oh my God, I had no idea. Let's figure this out together. Well, then they might be really helpful in coming up with creative solutions to the problems that you're having.

Sometimes our ability to solve a problem is limited by our experience and our perspective. So this could be one of those moments where it's a real gift to have your partner's perspective and to perhaps get some out-of-the-box ideas about how to change things. Now, I don't know what your specific situation is, so I don't know what those things would be. Sometimes as a coach, I help couples or individuals change

at situations with a different perspective and try on all kinds of different possibilities for how you might arrive at a solution. And the benefit of doing that with a coach is that I don't have any

I'm not going to get offended, right? So if I make a suggestion and it's ridiculous, you can tell me that and I'm not going to take it personally. If your partner makes a suggestion and you think it's ridiculous, well, then it's helpful to be diplomatic in how you tell them that. Otherwise, you could have more problems on your hands, right? Yeah.

So whether you decide to get coaching help from someone like me or a therapist, or you do that together with your partner, having that outside perspective can sometimes be helpful in a situation like this. And by the way, if you are interested in getting coaching, you can just go to neilsatin.com slash coaching and you can find out about what I do and how that works.

So we've covered a lot of territory here, and there's perhaps one more important question for you that might help you get through this. And that is, how long are you willing to commit to this process? If you have a really clear vision, then you might even ask yourself specifically, how long am I willing to commit to get there specifically? But if you don't, then you might just say,

Just answer the question for yourself of how long you're willing to be in the question, to be trying to collaborate with your partner, to be trying to come up with new solutions, to be stopping all of the work, to ensure that your energy is not being wasted, etc., etc., all the things that we've talked about today. How long are you willing? I got to say, time goes by quickly.

So you could choose a period of time that seems like a long time and find that it just flies right by. Typically, I think 90 days is a good amount of time, three months, especially if you're able to get really specific about your micro goals during that time. So if you say, all right, I'm willing to do this for 90 days, but then it takes you three months to have a conversation with your partner, right?

Well, you can't really expect things to change at all because it took you that whole time to just have a conversation. Now, maybe that represents the state of your relationship. And so it's worth thinking about a longer arc, the longer arc that will be required in order for you to get to where you want to go. Hopefully, if you know that having a conversation is just one important step along the journey, then you can say, okay, in the next week, I'm going to

book a time to have a conversation with my partner.

And if you're not sure about how to have the conversation in a way that will be most generative, you might say, okay, before I have that conversation, I'm going to download Neil's free guide to how to communicate, or I'm going to go through his relationship communication course so that I can communicate. And so I can have this conversation with my partner in a way. So maybe in the next week I do the communication course. And then the week after I have the conversation with them, something like that. You see how this works?

You want to break it down into discrete and accomplishable tasks that you can then do over the course of the time that you've said you were willing to commit to this process. Give it 90 days as an example, but don't feel like at the end of that 90 days you have to have an answer. Just say that at the end of that 90 days...

you're going to reassess how things are, what's gotten better, what hasn't, what's worked, what hasn't, et cetera, et cetera. That is your goal. And then once you reassess, you can decide if you're going to give it more time or if you're going to just accept things the way they are or if maybe it's time to start thinking about a kind, gentle transition out of your relationship onto greener pastures. That all being said...

I've seen a lot shift in relationships over these years. And I have faith that if you give it your all, and by that I mean if you step back from giving it your all and reassess and then maybe give it your all in new ways, there might be something new possible for you. I will be curious to hear how it goes. Or if there are specific obstacles that you face...

You can, of course, write about it in the Relationship Alive community on Facebook, or you can email me. My email address is neilius, N-E-I-L-I-U-S, at neilsatin.com. I can't always reply directly to your messages. I do get a lot of emails. That being said, sometimes you might just find that what you write about makes it into an episode such as this one.

As always, I am wishing you the best on your relationship journey. You've got this. You can do it. If you're willing to put in all that energy to be the one doing all the work, then it's going to feel like such a relief to stop doing all that work and to just get clear and see if maybe there's a work smarter, not harder way of moving forward. Let me know what you discover. And until our next time together...

Take good care of yourself. Bye for now.