STITCH: Weaponized Incompetence

I just found out about weaponized incompetence, and it is blowing my mind. All right, so weaponized incompetence is when one pretends to be bad at a common household chore, like doing the dishes.

Licensed sex therapist here. First of all, let me just say I'm so glad that you're talking about weaponized incompetence. It's definitely a topic that more people need to be talking about. But what I did want to say is that it can show up in subtler ways. So it's not always that the partner is outright pretending that they don't know how to do a task. Oftentimes what you'll hear in these kinds of situations is the partner will say, oh, but you're just so good at that, so you should continue doing that. And what they're failing to recognize is the reason their partner is so good at that task is because they've done it over and over and over again, and they've learned through trial and error what works and what doesn't work. But anybody can have that experience. Anybody can gain competence in pretty much any task. So in every relationship, couples need to figure out how to break down the mental load and responsibilities in a way that feels balanced and even in their relationship. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't take into account account the things that you are naturally good at, the things that you've gotten good at through experience. But I am saying that we shouldn't just default to somebody continuing to do a task that they have historically done. It's just not fair. Especially when, again, anybody can get that trial and error experience and learn how to do it themselves. So follow along for part two. If you're seeing weaponized incompetence in your relationship and you want to figure out what the heck to do about it.