Amber HollingsworthRecovery Conversation Simulator, Amber's Recovery Practice Lab · Interactive learning tool trained on Amber methodoloy

Scorekeeping in Relationships

22 Jul 2024 · 0 min

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0:24

Amber Hollingsworth explains how couples fall into an over-functioning vs. under-functioning dynamic—keeping score about chores (folding towels, emptying the dishwasher, getting kids ready)—which triggers criticism, withdrawal, power plays, and unhappy relationships. The excerpt focuses on how criticism shuts down participation and reinforces an inequitable pattern of doing more vs. doing less.

They don't do it. Right. And fold the towels. Right. They didn't empty the dishwasher. Right. They didn't get the kids ready for school. Right. And so then you criticize them about the way that they did that, and then they stopped doing it. And now we get back into this over functioning, under functioning, dynamic, where it's this power play of who's doing more. It's a scorekeeping kind of thing. And it leads us to a lot of criticism, a lot of withdrawal and a lot of unhappy relationships.