The speaker describes always being the planner in relationships and how she deliberately stops planning to force her partner into that role instead. She finds it easier in new relationships but much harder in long-term ones where patterns are deeply set. Real change requires changing your own behavior first, even when it's uncomfortable.
Chapters
There's a saying, "Nothing changes if nothing changes," and that is especially true in relationships. If you don't change your own behavior, then nothing's going to change. I know that in most of my relationships, I always end up being the planner, the person who determines what we're going to do, where we're going to go, when we're going to do it, and I'm sick of it. So nowadays, if somebody asks me, do I wanna hang out this weekend? My immediate reaction is, yeah, what have you got in mind? That way, I immediately abdicate responsibility from having to plan. I put the responsibility in the other person's court, and it's up to them to decide what they want us to do, which I'm usually quite happy to do, quite happy to go along. And that's the way that I deal with it. It's much easier, of course, in new relationships to establish the kind of behavior that you want to continue rather than trying to change your own behavior in a long-term relationship where you have to make a much more determined effort, especially if one person, in my case, is used to not taking responsibility when it comes to planning. And then suddenly I turn around and say, "Look, I'm fed up with this. I don't wanna do it anymore." and they suddenly have to become the planner when perhaps that's not their natural way of being. So, if you want things to change, then you've gotta make 'em change.
