Changing a One-Way Caretaking Relationship

When a loved one is going through trying times, your natural response is one of compassion. You don't want to see them suffer, so you do all you can to help them. When it comes to short-lived difficulties like, say, a bout of influenza, you can ideally shift in and out of a caretaker role easily and in a way that works for both of you. When your loved one faces adversity over a period of months or years, however, you risk taking on the role of caretaker and losing track of yourself and your own needs.

Being in a caretaker role can meet needs for contribution, acceptance, purpose or meaning, and having a sense of value or competency in the relationship, while the person being cared for may have their needs met for support, love, mattering, comfort and safety, as well as care. However, over time, a relationship exclusively built around caretaking can be costly for both persons. 

At some point, you may realize that being a caretaker for your loved one has come at a cost. Perhaps you have lost self-connection and have given up parts of life that had been important for your thriving. This might leave you feeling irritable, depressed, resentful or depleted. This painful experience might express itself as a sudden impulse to get out of the relationship or create physical or emotional distance between you and the person you are caring for. Internally, it can seem like a life-or-death matter. You imagine that the only way to survive is to get out of the relationship or disconnect from the other person, for example acting cold and indifferent. 

If you are able to bring more awareness and catch yourself in the caretaker role before you are completely depleted, you might choose to stay in the relationship and begin to set life-serving boundaries. At first you might make changes with resentment and anger because you don't trust yourself to meet your own needs and you blame the other person for not meeting your needs in the past. 

For your loved one who has been cared for by you for so long, your request to create new agreements and your honest expression about new boundaries might be experienced as an inexplicable shove away. Often, the person being cared for has become dependent on your support that they may have lost trust in their own capacity. The changes you make may stimulate pain and confusion and pleading for you to return to the routine. This, in turn, might trigger more anger and resentment for you.

At this stage in the transformation process, you are moving away from what you don't want (losing yourself) with the belief that your survival is being threatened. You believe that you have to fight to have your needs met. 

Being heard by an empathic other or engaging in self-empathy (you will likely need several rounds of empathy) can help you shift your mindset away from what you don't want, towards what you are yearning for: possibly more self-connection, joy, mutuality, appreciation, freedom and choice. As you become more conscious of the caretaker dynamic, get more clarity about your longings, express your needs and requests to the other person in ways they can hear them, and negotiate new agreements, you will start rebuilding trust in the relationship. Before they can hear you, however, you may need to build your inner resources and receive third party support. A skilled listener can affirm your needs and help you sort out the difference between rejecting your loved one and ending the current relationship dynamic. Being heard is a deep universal need and will probably be very alive for both persons in this situation. Being heard by a third party can offer a head start until both persons have more inner resources to hear each other.

Trust will continue to build once both persons feel heard and the other person understands your requests and becomes more responsive to meeting your needs. 

As this trust develops and both persons’ needs are met more consistently, the energy of fighting relaxes and you can come back to center. Living openly from your center, you can move toward what you want to create, rather than away from a perceived threat. Creating what you want from a connected place means recognizing interdependence and the need for collaboration. At this stage you no longer have the impulse to disconnect. You can trust yourself and your loved one to have a dialogue and negotiate with care until you find a way to meet everyone's needs. 

Practice

This week, watch for situations in which you are tending to your loved one and giving up on your needs with resentment or a sense of submitting. If you can't express your needs in the moment, take time later to identify them and come up with a clear request for yourself or them.

You can also watch for “shoulds,” obligation, and black-and-white thinking around the support you offer. Is there a sense that if you don't carry out a particular action, no one else will, or something bad will happen? If so, take time to identify the needs at hand and brainstorm a variety of strategies to meet them. Could this need be met later? By someone else? In a different manner? This could be a first step towards conscious choice and freedom for you, and mutuality in your relationship.