Love isn’t fair. And it shouldn’t be — because each of us brings a unique set of strengths and weaknesses to a relationship. The most realistic goal in partnership is to share responsibilities in a way that feels comfortable for both people.
However, when one person frequently avoids responsibility by claiming they can’t or don’t know how to do something, foisting the responsibility onto their partner, it can become a problem. This behavior is known as “weaponized incompetence.”
Weaponized incompetence is important to address in relationships because it creates an imbalanced power dynamic and quashes trust.
Yet confronting your partner about weaponized incompetence can be challenging, especially since people are not always aware they’re doing it.
So, where can you go from there, either as the person who “can’t” do something, or the person who isn’t OK with carrying the burden? We interviewed Bevin Campbell to find out.
Campbell is a New York and New Jersey licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst treating couples and individuals from her Brooklyn-based psychotherapy practice.
How do you define weaponized incompetence in couples?
Bevin Campbell: While weaponized incompetence isn’t a clinical term, in couples therapy it’s often used by one partner to describe the other partner consciously or unconsciously using real and perceived incompetence, lack of skill, or lack of knowledge to avoid responsibilities.
What are the typical signs or patterns that indicate someone is “weaponizing” incompetence?
When this dynamic occurs in a relationship, it often manifests as someone not beginning or abandoning a task, deferring to their partner’s “expertise,” bowing out of responsibilities, or saying things like, “You should do bedtime, I always just lose my temper.”
What we are talking about here goes beyond the typical ways couples lean on each other’s strengths to complement their own deficits.
When the term weaponized incompetence is used, it’s usually because one partner is experiencing a pervasive sense of being burdened by an inequitable share of responsibility, emotional labor, and/or mental load.
What are some potential underlying reasons why someone might engage in weaponized incompetence?
I think of issues like weaponized incompetence as being co-created, meaning that both members of the couple take part in shaping the dynamic.
In the world of couples therapy, we tend to think of couples where there is weaponized incompetence as an overfunctioning/underfunctioning couple. This refers to a situation where one member of the couple becomes responsible for an ever-increasing share of responsibilities while the other member relinquishes more and more responsibility.
It’s a dynamic that can become increasingly polarized over time. The more the overfunctioner works to pick up the slack, the less the underfunctioner feels there is the need or the space to participate. The less the underfunctioner does, the more the overfunctioner must step up.
What causes someone to over- or underfunction?
I think it’s helpful to think of these positions as being less about personality (though that plays a role) and more about the position we take in relation to our partner.
Of course we can’t ignore the role of gender in these dynamics. In heterosexual couples, women tend to take on the socially prescribed role of managing the family and home life.
Even when couples don’t want to recreate the stereotyped roles they witnessed within their family of origin, it can be hard to create a more equitable partnership without ever having seen one modelled.
What strategies can be used to address weaponized incompetence within a couple?
One thing I advise people to do when they feel their partners are using incompetence in a weaponized way is to examine their own tendency to swoop in, pick up the slack, or otherwise “rescue” their partner from alleged incompetence.
I often hear things like, “Well, if he’s in charge of packing the diaper bag, there won’t be any diapers in it.”
There can be a lot of anxiety about watching our partners, who we depend on so much emotionally and practically, to struggle (or fail) at a task, but the reality is that failure is often a big part of the beginning stages of learning to do something well. Forgetting to pack diapers in the diaper bag is a mistake you don’t make twice!
I think part of respecting our partner’s autonomy is to respect their “right” to get things wrong. Additionally, in relationships we have a tendency to view our preferences, cultural values, and habitual ways of doing things as objectively right, rather than one of many ways things can be done.
Therefore, it’s also useful to ask oneself, “Is my partner truly failing at this task, or are they just not conforming to my preferences or sense of how things should be done?”
What about strategies for the “incompetent” partner?
For the “incompetent” partner, I think the principle of doing “less of the same” is helpful. So if you often avoid, ignore, or give-up, it can help shift things by focusing on ways to avoid less, ignore less, and stick to — even if you start small.
Most partners are receptive to vulnerable disclosures in the context of your commitment to learning and doing better.
Saying, “This is hard for me because I get anxious and overwhelmed around paperwork, but I am willing to figure this out” beats, “You’re so good at this, why don’t you just do it.”
Remember that roles and responsibilities in couplehood are emotional and relational issues, not just logistical ones.
So if you drop the ball on something that feels minor to you, try to remember the emotional meaning and significance this may have for your partner: Might he or she feel alone in things? Overwhelmed? Exhausted and without support?
Finally, for both partners, exploring with curiosity and openness the implicit messages each member of the couple received about gender roles, work in and outside of the home, responsibilities, how tasks are delegated, and who does what in a family can bring to light the underlying assumptions, values, biases, and beliefs that shape our approach to responsibilities in a relationship.
When might it be appropriate to seek external support, like therapy or relationship counseling, to deal with weaponized incompetence?
I think the question that’s useful to ask here is, “Are our attempts to talk about this problem mostly productive?”
Couple therapy researcher John Gottman’s work has indicated that most couple problems are of the “perpetual” variety, meaning they never truly get resolved. The hope is that each time a couple tries to address the issue, they get a little further — they understand each other, or the problem, in a deeper way.
If a couple is feeling gridlocked, or if the attempts to discuss the problem always lead to a stalemate where no one feels heard or understood, that’s where couples therapy can be very helpful.
Ruby Anderson
Ruby Anderson (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based health writer and collaborator on projects related to prison abolition and reform. She studied English and Psychology, so she's also, unfortunately, a poet.