Relationship Roles

Here are some questions to help you examine what role you played in your most recent relationship or expect to have in a new relationship. Is it what you want? You’ll play all the roles I describe below, but you want to move toward being supporters of each other while consciously allowing for moments of being fixers and dependent.

Type 1: Fixer

Did you find yourself constantly trying to solve, nurture, help, or make the other person better? Were you trying to carry them, trying to make their goals happen for them?

Type 2: Dependent

Did you feel like you relied on your partner too much? Did you go to them with all your issues and expect them to find solutions?

Type 3: Supporter

Did you like their personality, respect their values, and want to help them toward their goals? Did you respect how they spent their time and kept their space, or did you always want them to change it?

The fixer has a parental mentality. You feel that it’s your responsibility to take care of the other person, nurture them. Their happiness is your priority. This mentality can be useful, but it can also go overboard. When you parent you partner, it makes them behave like a child.

The dependent has a childlike mentality. You rely on your partner. You want them to figure it all out, and you get upset when they can’t solve everything for you. Sometimes we settle into this mentality when we have a domineering partner. It can feel comforting to have someone else take the lead. But we lose out when we don’t follow our own path and shape our own lives.

The supporter is their partner’s champion. You’re not a parent, you’re not a child, you’re side by side with your partner. You’re trying to take responsibility; you’re trying to develop patience; you’re trying to help the other person grow, but you’re not trying to micromanage. This is the Goldilocks “just right” mentality. For a quiz to help figure out the relationship role that you play, please visit: www.relationshiproles.com. It’s natural to move in and out of all three of these roles throughout our relationships. Sometimes we take the lead. Sometimes we’re more comfortable following. What we’re trying to avoid is dating a type with whom we are stuck in the same dynamic all the time.