Stop Over-Functioning + Create Balance in Your Relationships (Here’s How!)

Are you tired of being the one doing all the things for all the people?

Are you the point person for everything in your family life?

Does it feel like you’re the only one who can reliably get things done?

Then this episode is for you because I am talking about a common relational dynamic I see in high-functioning codependents (HFCs): how one person over-functioning causes the other to under-function.

To illustrate this dynamic, I’m sharing an excerpt and case study from my newest book, Too Much: A Guide to Breaking the Cycle of High-Functioning Codependency. You’ll learn how this dynamic impacts us, examples of how it shows up in our relationships, and how you can stop over-functioning.

https://youtu.be/LObAX13OAX4

Prefer the audio? Listen here.

Over-Functioning and Under-Functioning Case Study: Dina and Ed

This excerpt is about a therapy client, Dina, whose relationship involves an over- and under-functioning dynamic:

One night, when she was on her way out for her night shift, Ed said, “Hey, babe, can you make me scrambled eggs before I go?”

She sighed. “Actually, I’m tired and looking at a long night,” she said. “Can you make the eggs?”

She didn’t plan to say this, but the words materialized as if by magic.

Ed, however, did not find Dina’s request magical. “Oh, sure. I’ll make it myself,” he said, clearly irritated.

If Dina wasn’t so annoyed, she might have laughed at what happened next. Ed, who had lived in this house the exact same number of years as Dina, started opening and shutting cabinets, looking for a pan. How does he not know where the pans are? she thought. While Dina watched, he opened the refrigerator door, scanning the shelves. “Do you use butter?” he asked. “Would you also use oil?”

The door was open so long it started beeping.

“What’s that?” he said, looking alarmed. “What kind of cheese would you put in the eggs—cheddar?”

Good Lord. Looking at Ed feign such helplessness in his own kitchen, Dina walked over, grabbed the butter from his hands, and said, “Never mind, I’ll do it.”

There’s got to be a better way, she thought.

When we finally take a long look at our patterns in relationships, we start to see how it’s never just that one pan of scrambled eggs, that one time we inconvenienced ourselves, that one relationship. This long-overdue interpersonal revision will affect every aspect of how you relate to others—including how you set boundaries, the balance of giving and taking, and where you’re unconsciously driven by a need to manage those around you.

When you’re an HFC, you are all about the relationships in your life. Healthy relationships are built on mutuality—relatively equal effort in giving and taking. But if you’re an HFC, you are likely giving more than you are taking.

Dina and Ed were in a long-term relationship, where their dynamic wasn’t always like this:

When Dina, my client married to the reluctant egg chef, began to take stock of the underlying relational dynamics, it became clear to her that she was an over-functioner and Ed, her husband, was an under-functioner. Her focus in recent years had been on her own finite energy levels. As she aged, she did not have the limitless bandwidth she once had.

“When we got married,” she said, “it felt like it was us against the world. Ed was not always this apathetic. He used to bound downstairs in the morning, make me my coffee, and bring it to me in bed. He hasn’t done that in…I don’t know…at least a couple of decades?”

When I asked her if she could pinpoint a shift, she said, “Well, I guess it happened around the time we had our oldest child. For financial reasons, I had to pick up more shifts starting when the baby was six months old. It’s all a blur, really, but I was working on some kind of autopilot because it was just easier for me to handle everything.”

I asked her, “If you could guess, what do you think changed for Ed?”

Dina thought for a moment. “You know, I remember him becoming needier around that time. As I was doing it all, I’d not only left myself out of the equation but him, too.”

This was the beginning of the shift in their relationship.

There were other complications, too. Ed had health challenges and went out of work on disability, which made him feel like he couldn’t add value.

Dina was also a bit of a perfectionist. Ed shared that in the beginning, even when he did do things, it often wasn’t good enough or the way she wanted it to be done, so he stopped offering to help.

I don’t share this story to place blame on either of them. I share it to help you become aware of this over- and under-functioning dynamic and to help you recognize it in your own relationships.

It doesn’t have to be romantic, either. This dynamic can be present in friendships, with siblings, or at work.

As HFCs, we rarely see that we have a choice in how we relate to others, so it’s important to become aware of where we might be creating our own suffering.

What Is Over-Functioning?

I know many of you suffer from doing too much and can relate to Dina’s story, so let’s get into the concept of over-functioning.

In your friendships or romantic relationships, do you regularly do more than your share of the work, while others regularly do less than theirs?

Maybe it was more balanced in the beginning, but with time, you began over-functioning and they began under-functioning.

This dynamic is very common, especially for HFCs, because our over-functioning behavior often turns regularly functioning people into under-functioners.

This type of behavior is codependent and exhausting, and the first step to changing it is simply recognizing it.

What Does Over-Functioning Look Like?

To better recognize over-functioning behavior in yourself, see if these examples sound familiar:

Being overly focused on or actively solving other people’s problemsFrequently giving unsolicited adviceFeeling like people’s problems become your problemsDoing things that are someone else’s responsibilityFeeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders (if you don’t get it done, no one else will)

Feeling overly responsible is a big one. I’ve seen this in my therapy practice with parents who are afraid to let their kids fail.

For example, the parent may come in and complain about how they were up until 2 AM finishing a report their kid didn’t do.

This is over-functioning because the report is not the parent’s responsibility.

They’re also teaching their child that it’s okay not to do what they’re supposed to do because someone else will do it for them. They learn they don’t have to suffer consequences for their actions (or inaction, in this case).

What are the results of over-functioning behavior?

You may feel exhausted, resentful, or underappreciated from doing too much.

You may also feel anxious thinking about not over-functioning for loved ones.

Part of this is because we often think no one else will do it as well as we will, or that if we don’t do it, no one else will or they won’t do it in time.

These things may be true, but it doesn’t mean we have to be responsible for everything. Over-functioning isn’t good for us or our relationships.

Are You Over-Functioning? Questions to Ask Yourself

Where are you volunteering or doing more than you need to?

Where are you the point person for all the things in your life?

Where are you doing things for others that they can and should do for themselves?

Getting into recovery from being an HFC required looking at the truth: I taught people how to treat me. For years, I had served myself up on a silver platter for others to take advantage of.

It was a bitter pill to swallow.

In my twenties, I could take a perfectly functional boyfriend and turn him into an under-functioner in two weeks or less. I only felt comfortable when I felt in control.

I didn’t see it as control at the time, though. I thought I was being helpful and adding value.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be helpful or add value, but this behavior is often compulsive, unconscious, and reactive when you’re an HFC. We’re not choosing it, per se; we’re just automatically doing it.

Inside the guide, you’ll find more questions to dive deeper into where you’re over-functioning and why.

4 Strategies to Stop Over-Functioning

The goal is to create more equity in your relationships with less resentment. Think of how much happier you’d be if you didn’t feel put upon in your relationships!

Here are a few strategies to use to step back from over-functioning.

#1: Be mindful about what you’re taking on that someone else isn’t necessarily asking you to do. Use the questions I’m giving you in the guide to get clarity about where you might be serving yourself up on a silver platter in a way that will eventually cause resentment.

#2: Increase your communication skills. Effective communication is the key to a more equitable distribution of work, emotional labor, and effort. You must be willing to share your wants, needs, and preferences and have the language to do so.

We can’t blame our people for not knowing if we don’t say anything. They can’t read our minds and they shouldn’t have to.

#3: Make a list of all the tasks, emotional and physical, that you’re responsible for. Are you doing anything others can and should be doing? Then, ask for help and delegate, even with teenagers and smaller kids. Everyone should be part of running the ship of family life.

Of course, the kids won’t have as much responsibility as the grownups, but they should have some.

If you’re an HFC, the thought of delegating may fill you with anxiety, which is why you also need to…

#4: Look at the underlying reasons why you feel compelled to over-function. The more we understand how and why we got here, the easier it is to change our behavior.

Over-functioning may have been modeled in your family of origin. That was the case for me: my father mowed the lawn, and that was it. When my sisters and I were old enough, we did it. My mother did everything else.

It took years in therapy to untangle the belief that I needed to do all the things for all the people to be a good woman, partner, and mother.

I’m happy to say I’m on the other side of that, although as HFCs, we’re never “cured”. We’re in recovery. Every once in a while, you’ll still slip back into old behaviors. That’s just the nature of being an HFC.

If you’d like even more guidance on recovering, I have just the tools you need. You can get a copy of Too Much, join my membership (which includes 4 group calls with me per month as well as access to my signature courses), and download the guide right here.

Does this over- and under-functioning dynamic feel familiar to you? Did you enjoy hearing an excerpt from the book? Let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Instagram (@terricole).

Have an amazing week and as always, take care of you.