Measuring Up

A possibility to consider when you're falling short

The Measuring Up Scenario

As a couples therapist, I see the “Measuring Up” Scenario over and over again in my office. Here’s how it works. We have two people, let’s call them the Giver and the Receiver.

-- The Receiver wants/needs something
-- The Giver provides some amount of that thing
-- The Receiver measures whether there was enough
-- Everyone has feelings about the outcome

Often this works out great!

Here are some happy examples:

-- Alice wants Alex to text her good night every night.
-- Alex is happy to text Alice good night every night, and does so!
-- Alice gets enough texts!
-- Alex and Alice are happy.

-- Brad wants Bob to pay the rent so Brad can quit work and go back to school.
-- Bob has a good job and is happy to pay the rent! Bob pays the rent.
-- Brad can afford to quit work and go to school!
-- Brad and Bob are happy.

But if I’m hearing about it in couples therapy, it’s because it didn’t work out well at all. Here’s an unhappy example:

-- Chris and Casey are raising young children together. Chris wants Casey to do more childcare, because Chris is burned out from doing too much.
-- Casey is also burned out from doing too much. Casey might do a little additional childcare, but not so much that Chris feels better now.
-- Chris continues to do too much childcare.
-- Chris and Casey are unhappy.

Uh-oh. Now what?

When couples like Chris and Casey come to my office, they want me to help them fix it, to find a different way for things to work. They’re not sure how to write the middle of the story, but they know they want the last line to say “Chris and Casey are happy.” They are hoping that I can diagnose what’s going wrong and help them rewrite the story. And so we dive in and start exploring, to see what we can find out and what they can change.

Sometimes it works! Sometimes there is something in the middle of the story that we can tinker with and fix. The problem might be poor insight, misunderstandings, lack of caring, selfishness, entitlement, manipulation, poor time management, misaligned priorities, or any number of other things. If so, great, we can work on that.

But there’s one explanation that couples often miss.

Maybe there is no solution to the problem. Maybe the system is simply underprovisioned. You don’t have enough resources between you to solve the problem, no matter how much you care or how much you try.

Maybe it’s actually not possible to write any story that ends in happiness.

Not Measuring Up as a Daughter

Today is the first anniversary of my mother’s death. She was in poor health most of her life and she needed a lot of support. She was also an intensely private person and didn’t find it easy to allow others to help her or let anyone get close to her. She didn’t want to live with anyone else, even me, and so even though I was her sole caretaker, she lived alone.

There came a time, near the end, when she began to fall down a lot, as many elderly people do. Her falls were rare at first and then she started falling more and more often. She didn’t want to live in an assisted living facility, she didn’t want in-home support, and she didn’t even want one of those “Help, I’ve fallen” panic buttons. What she really wanted was to be able to get up again by herself, but she was too weak for that. I was the only person she would allow to help her at all.

Our cobbled together solution, for a time, was to have several cordless phones deployed on the floor of her house. When she fell, she would crawl or drag herself along the floor until she could reach a phone, and then she would call me. I kept my ringer on all the time. If she called, I would stop whatever I was doing, drive to her house, and help her up off the floor.

-- Mom wanted me to be on call 24/7 to help her if she fell.
-- I was in a position to do that, and I loved my mom, so that’s what I did.
-- Mom got help getting up!
-- Mom and I were… happy?

No, we were not actually happy. This was not a good solution to this problem, and the more often she fell, the harder it got. Things continued to get worse.

Mom’s need for support was very large. I loved her and was trying very hard to fill her need, but as her need grew, it got too big for me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t willing, it was that I wasn’t able.

That was very hard, emotionally, for both of us to handle. We wanted to have enough resources in our two-person system to solve the problem, and we just didn’t. But it felt easier in our brains to have it be someone’s fault than to admit defeat.

Maybe it was her fault, for needing too much. She tried very hard to need less, to be more self-sufficient, to ask less of me, to figure it out on her own.

Or maybe it was my fault, for not being enough. I tried very hard to be more, to have more to offer, to solve more problems, to plan ahead better.

I figured it out before she did. I told her we absolutely had to get outside help, that we were not getting the job done on our own. That was hard for her to accept, but as her health continued to fail, it became more and more obvious that I was right, and she came to peace with it.

Look at the Whole System

It’s easy to fall into apportioning blame. It’s easy to assume that if the Receiver wants something, then the Giver should give it. It’s easy to blame the Receiver for wanting too much or the Giver for giving too little.

But what if it’s neither of those things? What if the Receiver wants exactly the right amount, and the Giver is giving exactly the right amount, and yet it’s not coming out even, it’s not measuring up?

Nobody likes this answer, but it’s important to zoom out and look at the whole system. Check if it’s even possible to solve this problem at all with the resources the two of you have. More often than you’d guess, it’s not.

Sometimes you can pull in outside resources. My mom and I could have hired outside help, if she’d been willing. Chris and Casey could hire a nanny or a babysitter, if they can afford it. Sometimes you can’t.

Either way, though, it will definitely help to lighten up on the blame.

It was not my Mom’s fault for needing more support.

It was not my fault for having too little support to give her.

Our system was underprovisioned.

When you identify that you’re underprovisioned, you can become allies with your partner again. You can be on the same team, you against The Problem, whatever it is, doing your best to bear up under adversity. And that feeling of connection, support, camaraderie, being in the trenches together, can make all the difference when you’re struggling. You might not be happy with the overall situation you’re in, but you’re not alone.

I miss you, Mom. Even though it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t support you perfectly, I wish every day I could have done more, and I’m so grateful I had the time with you that I did. Rest in peace.