Imagine that you’re in a relationship where you get to call all the shots and your partner will do anything  you want.  You want Chinese food?  Just plan it.  An outing to Disneyland?  Put it on the calendar.  A trip to Rome?  Head to kayak.com.  A house in the suburbs?  Put down a deposit.

So why do I have a lot of clients in my practice – mostly, but not exclusively women – complaining about this very thing?

“He wants me to make all of the decisions!”

“I just want her to have an opinion!”

 

Defining Organizational Labor

Organizational labor is the task of making all of the decisions in a relationship.  Often, it looks like this:

“Where do you want to go for dinner?”

“I don’t know, you decide.”

 

A classic relationship cliché is the forever-back-and-forth conversation that begins as the above and then continues:

“I don’t know, what do you want?”

“Whatever you’re in the mood for.”

“I’m not in the mood for anything.”

And so on.

 

So why do people get stuck in this?  Well, there are a few reasons.

 

1. Low investment

The first is that people have gradations of interest level, and if the investment is low, someone might not feel inclined to voice their views.   For example, I might view where we go to dinner as a fairly unimportant decision, and therefore feel that it would be unproductive for me to say I’d like to go to a particular restaurant.

Growing up, I saw my parents navigate through this through an excellent system of their own devising.  It essentially boiled down to a traditional 5 point Likert scale, matched with the following:

  • Want
  • Willing +
  • Willing
  • Willing –
  • Don’t Want

“Want” and “Don’t Want” indicate a strong affirmative desire or a strong lack of interest, whereas those responses that fall along the “Willing” spectrum indicate true neutrality, or mild to moderate affirmative desire or lack of interest.

“Hey, there’s a national tour of Newsies coming to The Pantages.  I’m a Willing +.  How about you?”

“Oh, I think I’m a Willing, but let me read some reviews…  Actually, I’ve read some reviews and they were pretty good, I think I’m a Want.”

But if everyone’s a “Willing,” it means no one has a strong or pressing interest and they probably won’t buy the tickets.  (Especially because there’s an opportunity cost in doing something that they don’t find all that interesting!)

Low investment may also involve getting caught up on that opportunity cost.  Colloquially called “FOMO,” a lot of people have anxiety that if they choose something, they lose the opportunity to do something different if a better option comes along, and this stagnates them.

 

2. Low entitlement

This reflects the idea of “I don’t really deserve to make this decision.”  It could indicate low self-esteem, or it could simply relate to a lack of knowledge about a specific area.

Here’s an example of the latter:

“I think it’s time to replace the curtains on the kitchen window.  I’m just not sure the Bohemian lace reflects the style of our décor, and maybe we should replace it with a Chantilly or a Macramé… what do you think?”

“I don’t know, honey, you have the eye for design.  Whatever you want is fine with me.”

 

But it can also reflect a more deep-seated lack of confidence in one’s own right to have an influence on anything about a shared life.  The underlying message can be something like:

“I screw everything up, so I’m not going to voice my view about this.” (Low self-esteem or self-image)

Or

“I’ve gotten my way so much lately, and I’ve used up my right to have a say – it’s your turn to choose.”  (Score-keeping in relationships is really unhealthy!)

Or

“If I make a choice and you’re unhappy, I’m responsible for that.”  (More on this one in a bit.)

Although lack of knowledge is situational (I’m not sure about this thing, but I’m pretty knowledgeable about what we talked about yesterday, so I’ll take the initiative on that project) and lack of self-esteem is more pervasive (I’m not going to voice my opinion about anything), the cumulative effect can impact a relationship significantly.

On a related note, if you’re already struggling with your self-esteem, it’s extremely vulnerable to ask for what you need.  If you ask for something and are told no, it might feel like a rejection of your whole self rather than just a rejection of your request.

3. Low energy

We don’t talk about this enough, but making big and small life choices takes A LOT of energy!  Planning things is a lot of work, and making the solidified decision often has a lot of steps (calls, paperwork, etc) associated with it.

Let’s say you want to plan a dinner party.  Before you even reach out to a single guest, you have to figure out who you want to invite, develop a menu, decide whether to cook or bring food in, choose a date and time, and so on.  You have to consider the kind of party you’d like to throw, but also factor in what your guests might enjoy.  And then the questions multiply from there: What kind of music will you be playing?  Do you have guests who are vegetarians, or gluten free, or allergic to nuts?  Will you invite people through the mail, or by email, or by calling them on the phone?  Do you have friends you’d like to invite who don’t get along with each other?

So if you’re planning this party and you reach out to your partner to say, “you know, Billy and Fred don’t get along very well… how do you want to handle that?” and your partner says, “I don’t know, whatever you want to do is fine with me,” they might mean, “this is a difficult decision, and I don’t have the emotional energy to help you make it.”

 

How Does Organizational Labor Hurt Relationships?

Regardless of the reason, a deflection of organizational labor can be read as, “I don’t care enough to engage in this discussion.”

Much of the time, though, you do care.  Someone once told me that his family’s method of making decisions was as follows:

  1. Dad asks Mom what she thinks.
  2. Mom says, “oh, whatever you want is fine with me.”
  3. Dad makes the decision best suited to what he wants.
  4. If Mom doesn’t like it, she gets angry after the fact and they have a huge argument.

If you want Indian food but you don’t voice that, regardless of the reason, you are losing the right to get angry about it.  Assertiveness is an act of kindness because it opens up the possibility of effective communication and mutual satisfaction.

People hate being asked to carry all of the organizational labor in their relationships, in short, because they’re being asked to mind-read.  The message is not, “we can have whatever kind of life you most want,” but rather, “I want you predict what you imagine I would most like, combine that with what you want, and then figure out an outcome that works for both of us.”  And that places an extraordinary burden on one member of the relationship.

If you feel disinclined to participate in a particular decision, voice why that is:

“Oh, I actually don’t feel very strongly about where we go for dinner, but I had pizza for lunch so I’d prefer not to do that.”

“You know, I don’t know very much about the different types of lace, and these names don’t mean that much to me… maybe if you show me some samples, I can tell you if there’s something I particularly like or dislike, but most likely whatever you want is fine with me.”

There is a way to say, “I’m not going to make this decision” while also saying, “I hear that you’re asking for my point of view.  I respect and appreciate that.”

And a lot of this boils down to Gottman’s research about making bids.  When people reach out to you, whether it’s about dinner or curtains or sex, they are seeking a response that says, “I see you, I hear you, I respect you.”

And ultimately, that’s what shared organizational labor is all about.