The Double-Edged Sword of Asking for Help

With many of you being at home with your family 24/7 right now, there’s lots that needs to get done. And for some of you asking for help is not always easy. 

Here are some things that can get in the way of a satisfying response and collaboration in response to your ask.

You might think that you have to do everything yourself otherwise it will not be done properly.  Think for a moment…what does “properly” really mean? And what would happen if you were to soften your standards a little bit. Would something bad happen? Or do you tend to have an idea of “how things should be” and cling to it?

It is important to be able to allow things to be good enough. For yourself and for your relationship!

When you become rigid with your expectations you lose out on several fronts. 

Take the example of Peter and Claire. Claire often wanted Peter to help with the cooking. However once he was in the kitchen she turned into a supervisor. She had all kinds of helpful suggestions for Peter of how he should be chopping or what he should be doing differently. She also had some critical feedback of what he was doing wrong. Peter pretty quickly lost any enjoyment while helping in the kitchen. He stopped lending a hand.  Claire then went back to complaining that she never had any help and always had to do everything herself.

Does  this dynamic sound familiar? You ask for help but feel compelled to step in and supervise or criticize? I like to call myself a “perfectionist in recovery”. Underneath controlling behaviour is usually some form of anxiety. 

So before you step in and question or correct your partner, pause! Take a deep breath (or a couple) and check in with yourself. Is it really a matter of life and death “if the carrots get chopped differently” than how you would? 

If you already know that something needs to be absolutely done a certain way then share this need and the reasoning behind it with your partner at the time of your request. Now you can establish a respectful and satisfying collaboration. (Think of it as the have to have’s vs the nice to have’s. e.g. It would be nice if you put napkins when you set the table. It’s imperative that you don’t use the cutting board we use for raw meat for the carrots.)

If it’s hard for you to let go of  how things should be and you find yourself doing everything yourself, it’s easy to step into martyrdom. You end up feeling abandoned and feel sorry for yourself. When you complain in a passive aggressive way to your partner , they don’t  even want to hear about it anymore. As a result you end up bickering and are often left feeling judgmental, frustrated and misunderstood.

Something else that can get in the way of asking for help is a feeling of vulnerability. Maybe in your past life you had the painful experience of being abandoned or nobody showing up when you needed support. At this point it may seem safer to just do it yourself rather than receive a “no” that will trigger those painful feelings of abandonment and loneliness.

One way to shift your thinking is to consider your ask for help as a request. And what is a request really but an invitation for the other person to contribute to the fulfillment of your needs. 

I always discuss  this with my couples during counselling sessions.  

When someone’s behaviour or verbiage indicates a NO response to your request, it is crucial to remember that this is not about you.  When the other person says NO, they are really saying YES to a need of their own that they need to satisfy first, before they are able to help you with your needs. 

So if you can remember that the NO is not a rejection of you personally, then you can self-soothe your feelings of vulnerability and abandonment. 

Finally you get more of what you really want when you are specific. 

“I never get any help with dinner.” can be interpreted in numerous ways. 

Suddenly you will find your spouse boiling water to make pasta  which is not what you wanted… which you then you let them know accordingly. I think we all know how that ends. 

But if you could say something along the lines of “It would really help me to focus if you can set the table and then stir the sauce while I am making desert  so it doesn’t burn”  it is much more likely that both of you have a positive experience of collaboration. 

Summary: 

• Stop thinking that you’re not good enough and stop feeling guilty when you ask for help. 
• Be clear  with what you really want and don’t take your partners lack of availability so personally. 
• Stop projecting your feelings on your partner, imagining their response or their opinion about you needing help. 
• Allow yourself to receive  and let what you are receiving be good enough. 
• Finally remember, don’t burn yourself out thinking that you can or have to do everything yourself.