I asked this at a dinner party when we were all a little drunk over dessert. The two other couples slurred their answers, only have their partner correct them, until the table erupted in loud debate and perplexed laughter. Not gonna lie, I love a random cringe bomb that wakes up a room. You might even want to ask yourself or your partner the awkward question, one that strikes at the heart of a couple’s identity, in the struggle between self and other, love and obligation.
That’s what happened for my client “Samantha,” a Filipina-American who was working through a painful separation from her white husband due to this very difference. She was a we who took on the family emotional labor, and he was a me who prioritized himself over the needs of his wife and teenagers, until this conflict broke them apart. It’s a tug of war that many couples experience. Here are three out-of-box ways to balance instead of break under the tension of me vs. we.
1. Kill the nuclear roles and rules
Before the name-calling begins, I like to remind my couples clients to blame the system instead of each other. In this case, the nuclear family system that dictates outdated wife and husband roles. Traditional cishet marriages rely on prefab gender roles around her “natural” sociability and his socially acceptable self-centeredness. It can feel like a trap built into the wife role and a downgrade of husbands into Homer Simpson (itself a downgrade from yersterday’s Marlboro Man). There’s also cultural considerations. Someone from BIPOC collectivist cultures may skew more we, while individiualistic Americans may skew more me, regardless of gender.
The idea is to step outside the nuclear family
and back into our social and solo selves.
Seeing that you have unconciously adopted different cultural models, you can start opting out. He might discover that western masculinity never prepared him to think or connect as a collective we. Or she might see that, underneath the overburdened social director managing the family calendar, she may not have learned to attune to her own needs.
2. Rewrite the social contract
The danger is that such a husband’s outsourced social skills could further atrophy in the marriage, while hers blossoms and expands into a kaleidoscopic network of family, friends and professional colleagues. If and when she leaves him, as in Samantha’s case, she’ll finally get her me time while he is bereft of connection. It’s a lonely and isolating place to have lost all social capital, and one of the reasons men rebound so fast. That’s what happened with Samantha’s husband.
The allowance of a private life is threatening for many
trad couples, whose fears can be liberated in coaching.
As a hedge against that fate, I advise that the couple rewrite the social contract between them. In the new contract, each person can have a private life (not a secret life) where they manage their own social circles and me time. Then, when their individual cups are more full, they can organize and socialize together as a couple or family, focusing on we. The allowance of a private life is threatening for many trad couples, whose fears can be liberated in coaching. The idea is to step outside the nuclear family and back into our social and solo selves.
3. See me and we on a spectrum
It’s apparent how me and we is a powerful spectrum that you can slide across as needed once you toss out the binary nuclear roles. Because me and we each have its own skillset, the couple may need to bravely learn new skills around both/and instead of either/or. At this point, the me in the relationship might panic while the we resists new patterning. But doing it together as a project can connect you more.
The spectrum surfaces missing skills, which for the me partner might boil down to childhood fears of rejection, humiliation or incompetence around relating. Connection with others hinges on one golden quality: vulnerability. It’s often a new skill, especially for men, that needs special guidance. Because true vulnerability is a turn-on, it can also improve attraction. But performative vulnerability is a turn-off (and everyone can see through it, in case you were wondering).
Connection with others hinges on one golden quality: vulnerability. It’s often a new skill, especially for men, that needs special guidance.
Men start seeing that it’s not “feminine” to organize a family event, ask a bro to coffee, or cook for friends, but a universal human need for company, story, and laughter. In other words, it’s not feminine to need people or be a we. Women who feel less burdened by social management have more time for me, self-care and self-exploration. As each person becomes more whole and solid, so does the couple identity.
4. Attune, attune, attune
The wonderful skill of attunement lets you toggle and slide across the spectrum. Self-attunement is the deep listening you do for the parts in your system, to bring in some Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. Parts are always guiding by voices, pictures and sensations as they make their insistent needs known. Tired parts might need me time after a heavy work week. Social parts might need a we night out with party friends. Intimacy parts might have you in the mood for love with your partner.
Ignoring your parts’ needs can breed resentment. But learning how to listen, decipher and respond to your own parts is a me skill that helps out the we couple to make the right decisions at the right time.
Connection with others hinges on
one golden quality: vulnerability.
My professional recommendation? You no longer need to outsource your couplehood to gender-based roles and rules. Each of you can learn to be a solid me so that you can both become a solid we.
To answer the title question personally, I do both. It’s a moment-by-moment balancing act. I need alone time before I can be a present mother or partner. I try to see my partner of nine years and my kids as individuals with private lives first. A strong foundation of selves makes us a solid non-monogamous couple and a united family of we.
Contact Sho-Sho for a free consultation
Leave a Reply