The Temptation to Mother or Father a Spouse
At times, focusing on a partner’s need for help or guidance is a caring thing to do. But too much of it can create a mothering or fathering dynamic. By habitually focusing on a partner’s need to do things differently rather than on your own feelings, fears, and reactions, you may be avoiding the introspection and self-inquiry needed to empower your partner to find their own solutions and to maintain an equitable dynamic in the relationship.
Mothering and fathering spouses often have a hard time accepting that they can’t ultimately control another person, even a person they love. They try to change their partner through unsolicited advice, complaints, recommendations, emotional strong-arming, and other methods. In then end, this can shut the “mothered” or “fathered” partner down, breed resentment, and solidify their resistance to making important, healthy changes.
Fear of Loss
Mothering and fathering partners also fear loss. Beneath their attempts to control their partner’s health or well being or convince them to make “good” or healthy choices, there are layers of uncomfortable and vulnerable emotions. These emotions often relate to earlier historical times when they felt helpless. Maybe their parents divorced and they couldn’t change the trajectory of their own family’s dissolution. Maybe they had a parent who drank too much despite the impact it had on others, or a diabetic relative they loved who didn’t take care of their health. Mothering or fathering spouses may find it easier to focus on a current situation rather than explore underlying feelings that are overwhelming, scary or painful.
Often, mothering or fathering partners fear losing connection to their partners. They may feel they depend on their partners for their own ultimate sense of safety and stability. There may also be a strong attachment to a fantasy of how things should be rather than how they are. Sometimes, there’s a strong fear of losing a vision of their relationship as healthy, safe or happy.
Mothering and Fathering is Different from Advocacy
Advocacy is when we step in to help our spouses temporarily when they ask for or need our support. When we advocate, we are using our voice as an extension of our partner’s voice with their full permission or at their behest. We’re loaning them our energy, strength, knowledge or confidence to help them deal with a passing crisis more effectively.
Advocating for our spouses emerges from a place of deep respect and love. Far from being a pattern or a dynamic in a relationship, advocacy arises in specific times of crisis or need.
Mothering and fathering a spouse, on the other hand, is an entrenched way of relating. It’s a pattern that permeates virtually every interaction. It tends to have a belittling flavor to it. We view ourselves as being superior in some way, and we view our partner as being hopelessly limited in an areas where we’re strong. We may misinterpret their resistance to our guidance as defiance.
An Alternative To Mothering or Fathering
A far better tactic than engaging in the mothering/fathering dynamic with your partner is to “walk to the walk.” Walking the walk is a relational superpower. Do the things yourself that you would like your partner to do. Model what self-care looks like. Model what self-respect sounds like. Let them know you love them, want what’s best for them, but understand that they will ultimately need to make their own self-supporting choices and decisions. If they engage in self-destructive choices that you find too difficult to tolerate, explain this to them and work on letting go of your own need to control the outcome of their choices. Figure out what your boundaries are. Do you need your partner to seek outside help in order to continue in the relationship?
Practice re-focusing on what your partner’s “poor” choices trigger in you. What are the deeper fears or needs that may be driving your desire to control them? If you’re able to share your reality with your partner in a way that’s vulnerable and non-blaming, and take more responsibility for your underlying reactions, it can bring you closer. That closeness is often a stronger motivator for change in a relationship than unsolicited advice.
Photos from Unsplash.
Originally published on The Good Men Project
