So, your partner doesn’t help with the kids. Okay. Let me just sit with that for a second, because I want to make sure I’m actually hearing what’s underneath that before I say anything else.
When you say that, what are you really feeling? Because I’m guessing it’s not just logistical frustration, right? It’s not just, “Hey, I need more hands on deck.” What I’m hearing underneath it is something more like, “I feel alone in this. I feel like I don’t matter enough for you to show up. I feel like I’m carrying something heavy and you’re not even looking over to see if I’m struggling.”
That’s an attachment wound. That’s the question, “Are you there for me?” being answered with a pretty painful silence.
Here’s what I know about the way these things tend to go in a relationship. When one person feels unseen and unsupported, they usually start to signal that distress. Sometimes loudly, sometimes through frustration or criticism. Sometimes more quietly, through withdrawal or resentment that builds up like sediment on the floor of a river.
And when those signals start coming, the other partner often doesn’t hear, “I need you.” What they hear instead is, “You’re failing. You’re not enough. You’re a disappointment.”
The moment they hear that, they contract. They go somewhere else. Maybe they get defensive. Maybe they go quiet. Maybe they double down on work, the phone, whatever it is, because at least there they don’t feel like they’re constantly falling short.
And then you see them not helping, and you feel even more alone. And around it goes.
I’m not saying your partner is right. I’m not excusing the load you’re carrying. What I’m saying is, before we solve the logistics of who bathes the kids and who does the school run, we need to ask what is actually happening between the two of you when this comes up.
Is this a conversation you’ve had, and it goes sideways every time? Does it end in a fight, or does it just go nowhere and you give up? Because that pattern, that’s the thing we need to look at.
The practical stuff, the division of labor, all of that can be sorted. But it can only be sorted once both of you feel like you’re on the same team. That’s the place where you’re not fighting each other, you’re both looking at the problem together, protecting the relationship and the family rather than protecting yourselves from each other.
Right now it sounds like you might be on opposite sides of that line. And that’s where the real work starts.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: Co-Parenting After Divorce: What to Expect from Counseling
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