Who is the boss in a couple’s relationship?

Are you the leader of the relationship... or do you let your partner dominate you?

Traditionally, couple relationships have tended to reproduce a kind of affective bonds in which there are two well differentiated roles: the person who commands and the person who obeys. This phenomenon has recently been challenged with the rise of egalitarianism, but its effects continue to be felt in the small details of our love and intimate life: even today, in is frequent that there are bosses and bosses within relationships..

There are several factors that explain why, if we look closely at our relationship, we are very likely to see that we are prone to adopt the role of leader or obedient party without following reasonable criteria.

More than just different personalities

That there are bosses and bosses in couples can be seen relatively easily by realizing that it is very common for one partner in the relationship to be more concerned about pleasing the other, to apologize more often and more emphatically, and to always accept the decisions made by the other.

It may seem that this is simply a sign that there always tends to be some differences in couples. that there are always certain personality differences in couples, but the truth is that there is more to it than that.But the truth is that there are more factors that influence this and that make, to a greater or lesser extent, many people embrace the roles of bosses and vassals.

Who wears the pants in the relationship?

The dynamics of domination in which one person makes the decisions, assumes great risks and commands over his or her partner in something that has been closely related to the role of the man as leader of the family. It is not for nothing that in many Spanish-speaking areas it is a common question to ask Who wears the pants in your relationship?This resource based on metonymy is used as a way to find out who is the person who "plays the man" in the couple.

At least within the domestic sphere, there are still good reasons to believe that women are usually subject to obligations that men neglect: one only has to review the studies carried out in practically any country that explore the weekly hours devoted by both sexes to household chores. The female sex wins overwhelmingly in the time dedicated to household chores, often complementing these with other chores.In many cases, they complement these tasks with those that men have been doing: work outside the home and higher education.

Therefore, heterosexual couple relationships in which both people live together continue to be skewed towards male leadership in terms of maintaining living conditions. Women continue to do most of the work at home and in many cases also pursue professional careers outside the home. However, the boss in a relationship is the boss in several aspects that go beyond housework and the collective influence of the culture of the family. and the collective influence of culture. There is also what each and every one of us has been learning individually.

The comfort of the role of boss and obedient party.

If we think of the concepts of "boss" and "obedient party" as abstract, we are likely to conclude that being the former is preferable to being the latter. At the end of the day leadership is related to the ideas of freedom, autonomy and power, while obedience conveys the opposite feelings.while obedience conveys the opposite sensations.

In practice, however, it is not difficult to put oneself in the shoes of people who prefer to take on the role of the one who obeys. Giving up the role of boss means not having to worry so much about the future, living in less unpredictable situations and not making complicated decisions. This is, in part, what explains why there are so many relationships in which there is a clear boss or leader. leader: the other partner has come to internalize the idea that adopting a passive and obedient role is in his or her interest or is "the normal thing to do.. He or she has learned this from previous experiences.

Thus, if taking the initiative and leading teams (formal or informal) of people has left us with good feelings on most occasions, this will also have an effect on our partner relationships. The same is true in those cases where, even if unconsciously, we have learned that it is best to do what is asked of us. Courtships and marriages are not a world apart from those in which we learn to relate to all people in general.

A real-time fit

Of course, in the emergence of the role of the boss in relationships, it is not only culture and whether we live more or less anchored in our past experiences that matter. Also The way in which we share time and space with the other person is also decisive, as is the way in which we share our personalities with the other person.The way in which our personalities fit together in real time depending on the situations we usually live together and the context we share is also decisive.

Thus, a proactive person with a good level of self-esteem could be displaced towards the role of obedient party if his partner is a person not particularly decisive but with a much higher socio-economic level.

Different leadership roles for different situations

In addition, it is also common for one partner to be the boss in very specific contexts, but not in others. Sometimes this is for well-established and to some extent rational reasons; for example, the man may be the boss when it comes to the maintenance of the garden at home because he knows more about it. However, it is the rest of the leadership, which cannot be justified on the basis of values such as equality, that jeopardizes the balance in the couple's relationship.

Some of these cases in which unjustified bosses emerge may be reinforced by tradition and culture; as for example the old custom that the man should pay a woman for dinner. But the other cases of unreasoned leadership not based on community customs may be, simply, the following, a symptom that the couple's relationship is based on a false symmetryIn it, there is someone who unjustifiably believes that he/she has a higher value than the other person, with whom he/she adopts an authoritative and paternalistic attitude.

Avoiding extra leadership

Although the boss believes that this role corresponds to him or her by default and that this is part of normality, the truth is that this dynamic of daily and affective relationships is not based on anything other than, simply, the idea that one deserves to be in charge and decide for the other person.

Avoiding the emergence of such leadership based on authoritarianism on a small scale is indispensable to ensure that the two people involved in the couple's project can give and receive equally.