Are You Overfunctioning In Love? with Dr. Ashley Southard

Erin: Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following. We break those rules and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, and more satisfied in the second half of our lives. I'm your host, Erin Keating.

Hi, everybody, I hope you're doing great. Today's episode is an emotional doozy. My guest today is Dr. Ashley Southard. She is a psychotherapist with over 20 years of clinical experience treating complex trauma, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and relationship issues. All the tough stuff she specializes in the over functioning woman in love who is struggling with the confusing, frustrating, exhausting, and lonely dynamics of a one sided unfulfilling.

I related so hard to this conversation, and I think so many of you are really going to see yourselves or the people you care about, the people you love in your lives, you may see this relationship type, this kind of dynamic, where as the relationship progresses, the woman does more and more and more, takes on more emotional responsibility, more responsibility in the home, more domestic responsibility, more child care responsibility. And the situation in the relationship becomes out of whack.

You know, some people have totally gorgeous relationships where everyone is present and responsible for themselves and brings their whole self to the task of loving one another. Some of us have relationships that started out amazing and then changed and often the change comes with the complexities of having kids. Some of us have relationships that were not quite 50-50 to begin with, but we couldn't see that through the haze of love and initial attraction. My way of handling things in my marriage was to say, I'll do more. I'll take that on. Don't worry about that. I'll manage that. And eventually I ended up feeling responsible for a hundred percent of the relationship and carrying around a whole lot of very unsexy resentment.

Anyway, Dr. Ashley Southard is really hitting some kind of nerve for women, because her message has really taken off. And I hope that this conversation makes you feel hopeful, like there is something possible for you if you recognize yourself in this conversation. All right, let's get hot.

Dr. Ashley Southard, welcome to Hotter Than Ever.

Dr. Ashley: Well, thank you so much. I'm so excited for our chat today.

Erin: I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad we found each other. I think we intuitively, as women know when we hear the phrase over functioning in love, I think we intuitively know what it is But I'd love to hear your definition of it, and then I would love to sort of hear your story and how you came to realize that this is an area that women needed to take a look at for themselves.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, It's so interesting, the term over functioning woman. I just have to say that. And women are like, ooh, that's me. I know what that means. But, you know, let's talk a little bit about what exactly that means. So over functioning in love, I like to focus on the love relationship because this is where it shows up in full force.

And if we can start to get a handle on how this is happening in our love relationship, which tends to be our closest relationship and possibly our most important relationship, if we can get a handle on it there, then we can generalize that out to other relationships where over functioning is very likely showing up as well.

Erin: Yeah, I mean, just he word over functioning is like, yep, check, that's me, like, in every way, in every area, but definitely in love. Definitely in love. I am willing to guess that this is something you relate to personally.

Dr. Ashley: I do. So how did you know? So I've been a therapist for over 22 years now, working with individuals, couples, families. I'm trained as a marriage and family therapist. So relationships are what I do. And when I started out, I'm like, I've got this in the bag. I'm

professionally trained. I work with people day in and day out. I really help couples and individuals transform their love relationships.

Erin: So if they're willing to show up.

Dr. Ashley: If they're willing to show up, that's right. And really look at the hard stuff, sometimes the ugly stuff and get real with themselves and with each other. So that's kind of my professional background. Lots of training, lots of experience working with individuals and couples at the same time. However, I was in my own marriage and started out great, very, very happy, doing all the things, checking all the boxes, building the life that everyone says is going to make you so happy.

Erin: Right. Yeah, I think they say it's going to make you happy and also it's the only life we're told to want.

Dr. Ashley: Exactly. Yeah, so here I am doing all the things I'm getting the degrees and I'm getting married and we're buying the house and we're getting the pets and we're having the baby and we're doing all of the things. And don't get me wrong, all of those were and have been and are very fulfilling. But I was finding myself not feeling good in my love relationship. And so I started looking at, okay, what's going on here? Trying to talk to my partner about it, reading some books, reading some articles wasn't really doing a whole lot.

Thought, you know, let's go to some couples therapy. Tried that, didn't really seem to move the needle all that much. And so I just kept going back to myself, like, okay, how can I be a better communicator? How can I do more? How can I support them more? How can I help them see how their childhood is affecting how they're showing up in the relationship today? Maybe I can have that conversation one more time.

Erin: The. How can I, how can I, how can I? I think there's a clue there.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, and here's the piece about over functioning, it's unbalanced. So while

I'm over here spinning my wheels, how can I, how can I, how can I, let me do more, let me do more, let me do more. Let me figure it out. They're sitting back, letting me and they're not carrying the weight of their own work, their own contributions to the relationship, their

own effort. And that's where over functioning begins.

So it's really about carrying the majority of the load of the relationship. You are the one who is doing nearly everything to hold it together for the two of you. And that can be physical, mental, emotional, financial, sexual, spiritual. There's so many layers, parenting, to where over functioning can show up. But the experience of it is I'm doing the bulk of the work to try to keep us, well, happy and healthy. And I'm feeling alone in that. And I'm also getting a lot of pushback from them. When I invite them and admittedly sometimes demand them to engage and do their part, you know, they resist it, they reject it, they turn it around and blame you. And that's that over functioning and under functioning dynamic that I talk about so much.

Erin: This just sounds like a normal marriage to me.

Dr. Ashley: Unfortunately, it feels normal to so many.

Erin: This sounds like the, the lot of women. I mean, I don't.

Dr. Ashley: Too many.

Erin: Yeah, do you have relationship role models in your life that, that show something different than this dynamic?

Dr. Ashley: Certainly. I mean there certainly are, that I know of personally, relationships that I've seen, relationships that I've helped to create through therapy, where there's reciprocity, there's balance, there's matched and mutual effort, there's curiosity about each other. So yes, this does exist. However, it is not the norm.

Erin: No.

Dr. Ashley: Too many women are trapped in over functioning and not realizing that this is even a thing. And they're trapped in the belief that if they just do a little bit more, maybe things will change, maybe their partner will wake up, maybe this conversation will be what finally gets things to.

Erin: Be different so from a like interpersonal, romantic, like love relationship piece. Because obviously when you have a, when you have a home together, when you have kids together, when you're, when you're building a life together, when you're living that like capital a adult life that we're all told this is the thing to want. This is, this is like the path, this is the escalator that we're all supposed to be on that I think most of us try, at least try to be on. What does it feel like emotionally to be inside of that, like with all the other swirl of everything going on in your life. What is it? What's the ideal of what that romantic connection would feel like? And what is it that most women normally feel?

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, so I think most women in this over functioning, under functioning, dynamic feel a lot of things. They feel lonely, they feel frustrated and eventually pissed off, ad as hell, resentful.

Erin: Yeah. Ding, ding, ding. I relate to the resentment. Oh God. It was, it was very unattractive.

Dr. Ashley: Very unattractive. And it's not who you are and it's certainly not how you want to feel, especially towards your romantic partner, but you can't help it. And I think you also, you know, you tend to get to a place where you feel disgusted. You feel disgusted by their behavior. It's so immature, it's so selfish. It's so ridiculous. You know, we signed up for adulting, we signed up to do life together. And it's hard sometimes and it requires work. Like any good thing in life, you have to nurture it. And it's disgusting when you have this

adult person who has said, yes, I want to do this with you, right?

They said all the right things and maybe earlier on they did all the right things, but somewhere along the way they slacked off and they slacked off more and more and more and you've picked up the slack and you've compensated more and more and more. And the Gap is so wide now that you're really repulsed by how they choose to show up. So there's a lot of loneliness, a lot of resentment, a lot of disgust. And ironically, there's still a lot of hope. You know, that's what keeps the over functioning woman going, hope that maybe this conversation will change things. Maybe this couple's therapy session will be the one. Maybe this reel that I send my partner or listen to while they're in bed next to me, you know, maybe that will wake them up.

So we hold on to this false hope because we know that if we really were to drop the rope and stop over functioning in the pit of our stomach, we know it's all gonna fall apart. And who wants that when you've spent years, if not decades building it?

Erin: No. And you're so invested in what it is and you're so invested in yourselves as a unit and as a team and how you fit into your culture and your community.

Dr. Ashley: Absolutely.

Erin: And yeah, I mean, for me, like I, you know, my, my marriage was like a particular stew of things, like everybody's is and there was some mental health stuff going on too. So that always made me feel like I could, couldn't ask for all the things I knew I needed. But we did

couples therapy like six different times over the 17 years that we were married. I think we did couples therapy before we got married, you know, like, and for me it was this constant like, oh, I'm having a revelation, I'm going to change. I get it now. I see what you need. I see how this dynamic works, wait, you'll see, you'll see, things will be different, you'll see. And then things were never different.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah.

Erin: And I guess for me, what's hard to wrap my head around is like my fundamentals were probably jacked to begin with.

Dr. Ashley: Right.

Erin: We were a perfect trauma bonded pair, to use the like, internet's parlance.

Dr. Ashley: Well, subconsciously you actually needed them to under function and subconsciously they needed you to over function. But we don't know that going into it. I know, it's, it's a cruel irony of psychology.

Erin: Oh my God, I mean, it is amazing how psychology is. And you tell me whether this is like academically true. It seems to me like there's all of these secret underlying patterns in your own imprint, like how you were imprinted as a kid. And then when you show up in a relationship, a committed long term relationship, they suddenly emerge and they like run parallel in this way that you could never have seen. Right where you're like, oh, my God, my ex husband's relationship with his mother is exactly like my father's relationship with his mother. Like how did--

Dr. Ashley: I didn't.

Erin: No, it is startling because the unconscious mind is making so many decisions. When you commit to someone, when you fall in love with someone, when someone feels safe to you, when someone feels familiar to you.

Dr. Ashley: That's the key word, familiar. Because here's the thing, the human mind doesn't go after what feels good. It goes after what feels familiar.

Erin: I hate that. It's not fair.

Dr. Ashley: I know. And the irony, the cruel irony is, I don't know about you, but I met my partner when I was 18. 18?

Erin: No, I was 32. Like, I have no fucking excuse, except I wanted babies. I mean, that was for me, that was, you know, I had been in love with someone who I was crazy about and would have done anything and would have lived a very different life than the life I currently live if he had wanted kids.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah.

Erin: And he definitely didn't and gave me the favor of dumping me because he was like, I can see babies in your eyes. I'm like, ok.

Dr. Ashley: Is it that obvious?

Erin: I mean, yeah, he was a cartoonist and he was all kinds of artists, but he was a cartoonist and he drew this comic book, that comic strip about me having babies in my. Literally, it was amazing, but also heartbreaking.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah.

Erin: And so when I met my now ex husband, like, he was a lot of things that were really good and familiar to me. And also he wanted kids. And I was like, we're done.

Dr. Ashley: Bingo.

Erin: We're good, we're good. I need to get on that. And, you know, and I mean, I did get two amazing kids.

Dr. Ashley: That's right. And, you know, it's interesting. Research shows that women tend to start massive personal growth and kind of mining our subconscious mind, if you will, in our late 30s. So if you match that with your timeline, you know, you've already made a lot of the major life decisions. You've picked the partner, you've, you know, established the career, you've settled down maybe somewhere in a town or a city that you want to live in, you've made all these major life decisions, and then the personal growth work begins, usually out of pain and suffering, because you've done all of those things, you've made all those decisions, they're not adding up to the happiness you thought they would. Why? And that's where the personal growth begins.

And then you start to discover there's this entire underworld of psychology inside of you that you didn't even know was there, making these decisions based on familiarity. Now that's great. If you grew up with all of these wonderful experiences and attachments and messages about your self worth, great, then familiarity has primed you to make amazing choices in the people, places, and experiences you put yourself around.

Erin: Yeah.

Dr. Ashley: How many for the rest of us who didn't necessarily get that, you know, we have all of these crappy beliefs about who we are, what we deserve, what we get to have in life, and we have these familiarities that maybe served us when we were children to survive the craziness we were growing up in, but they don't serve us in adulthood. And we don't get

that memo until we're suffering and then we have to make sense out of why we're suffering.

Erin: Yeah. And like, layer in, like, all of the different roles that women play in terms of, you know, we, we have, we are. I mean, I love to say this on this podcast, so listeners will be very familiar with this drum that I bang. But we are the most successful generation of women to ever live on planet Earth. You know, we are the most accomplished, we are the most financially independent, we are the most public facing. We are an extraordinary generation of women. And we have pushed so far. And we were also raised to believe we could have everything, you know, we can have it all, we can be it all, and so we built these careers.

Dr. Ashley: So we have.

Erin: Right. We built these careers and we built these families. And I don't think that men in this same period of time have been making the kind of strides that we have.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah.

Erin: And now we can see in the cultural reaction to women's agency, you know, people like Mark Zuckerberg being like, we need more masculine energy in the workplace. It's like, really, you guys built it for yourselves. Like, we're just snoring our way in, we're just elbowing our way in wherever you'll let us. Like, oh, and now you're afraid that you're feminized. Like, I think this sort of, I don't know, the gender politics or whatever of, of this generation is really confronting to men. And we are asking them to step up and be 50, 50 partners in the emotional work of relationship. And I personally, like, I would rather have lovers and, you know, a handful of men in my life who, like, you know, can. We can fool around and we could go on dates and we could do whatever, but I don't need real emotional stuff from them.

Dr. Ashley: Right.

Erin: Because I, for the people that I choose, and my picker is up. I know that for the people that I choose, they can't show up for that.

Dr. Ashley: Right.

Erin: And I'm just waiting for someone who can, like, and I don't want to be lonely during that journey. And a lot of women choose, like, you know, absolutely. No, Like, I did it, I got hurt, and I'm not doing it again. For me, it's like, I don't know. How can I do this differently? How can I seek a partner in my next, partner?

Who can show up so that I don't have to over function. Who is that? What am I looking for? What are the women listening to this podcast? Tell us what to look for.

Dr. Ashley: Okay. Yeah, it's a weird in between where I've gotten out of this over functioning, under functioning hot mess. I'm not doing that again. But then you haven't found the person that's emotionally mature.

Erin: Yeah, he might be younger. Do you think that's possible? I find the millennial men to be a little bit more, I don't know, conscious, evolved, like and not afraid of their feminine side.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah.

Erin: Well, here, at least in the workplace, that's my experience.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah. And I think to add to what you were saying before about kind of what's happened generationally, you know, our generation of women, we were raised to believe we can do anything, which is awesome. Love that message. And so we have. We are powerful, we have come in like, oh, I can do anything. All right, watch me and we have.

And we've done it at work and we've done it at home and everywhere in between. I think the problem is we weren't giving the same message to the boys at the time when we were girls. We weren't giving them the message. You also can do everything at home in your relationships, with your emotions, with yourself, it's not just about your career. So we were, quote, unquote, empowering women to be able to do it all. But it's not empowering when the men aren't matching that, because then what we're doing is we're coming in and we're doing it all at work. And that's super exciting for those of us who choose that, but then we're coming home and doing it all there, too. Yeah, that's not empowering, that's terrible, it's exhausting.

Erin: And it's unjust it is, I think the, like, you know, and even in, in my marriage and then in the process of my divorce, I was always looking for justice. I was like. And I was looking for equity. And I just couldn't find it.

Dr. Ashley: You won't.

Erin: Couldn't find it. You know, go to work, work a million hours, make most of the money, and then come home and run the household. And I had a partner who was hands on with the kids and was like super involved with them, but, you know, has never done laundry. Literally never. I don't think he's ever done laundry and would, you know, and would take out the trash. And that's, you know, that's what the research says about domestic labor is that men take out the trash without being asked. Like, that's the thing that they are assigned to themselves to do. And then we do everything else and everything is seen as our domain and we have to ask for, you know, oh, can you please?

Dr. Ashley: Yeah. And then pray, do this for me.

Erin: Oh, my God. I have to say so this is terrible, but my ex at one point was working from home and so the kids were around more. We had a full time nanny who made their food, who cleaned the house, who did all the things as I was making enough money that we could do that. And I needed that in order to be able to have the career that I had.

Dr. Ashley: Right.

Erin: And he told me that he felt like a 1950s housewife. Oh, my gosh. And I was like, how exactly.

Dr. Ashley: Right.

Erin: Because you don't help me with this and you don't cook and you're not primarily responsible for the child care. But it was because he was saying I was a workaholic and I was over functioning in my work life, so he was having to pick up like 2% of the emotional work with the kids. And I, I literally will never forget that. And he is not a bad human being, he is not. He is a caring, loving father. He is very present in my kid's life, but his sense of what he was actually doing was so out of the whack. And I expect that a lot of the women who are listening to this conversation have had a similar experience just, you know, with less sort of theatrical nomenclature.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah. I mean, I think there's an inflated sense of their contribution, how hard they're working. And I think there's also a huge sense of entitlement to what they deserve to get from you from the relationship from women. And there's not a reciprocal sense of how can I help you? How can I serve you? How can I give to you? Tell me what's going on for you. What do you need? You know, we over functioning women are craving that curiosity that you, you care enough to want to know what's going on for me. And when I tell you, you believe me, you take me seriously and then you actually do something.

Erin: Right.

Dr. Ashley: Right. I mean, a lot of under functioning partners, they talk a good talk.

Erin: Yeah.

Dr. Ashley: They say all the right things. And I think in those moments, a lot of them mean it. They do pretend it.

Erin: I know my ex meant it. I know.

Dr. Ashley: But my God, as soon as that conversation is done, it's like amnesia. Like they completely forgot what they just said they were going to do or how they were going to help you or what they understand about your experience. And they go right back to their selfish, oblivious, irresponsible, under functioning and you're left going, are you kidding me? Where'd you go? I thought you got it, you told me you were going to do this. And that's so painful because there's that roller coaster of hope and disappointment that the over functioning woman just lives on, hope, disappointment, hope, disappointment. You know, and then because they're not picking up their own slack, we're like, okay, let me talk to them again in the midst of this meeting and getting dinner ready. Let me figure out how to try to say it to them in a different way so maybe it will impact them and they'll get it. And we're tired, we're tired of that.

Erin: Yeah. And we're, we're literally tired.

Dr. Ashley: We're exhausted.

Erin: We're exhausted. And like when you look at Eve Rodsky's work around domestic labor and you know, when we don't deal with this stuff, when we remain in over functioning modes and relationships, when we do a disproportional amount of labor of every kind. What happens? And we don't address it and we don't deal with it, we get sick.

And that's absolutely, that's what we see these sort of autoimmune disorders and cancers. And I'm not saying you created your own cancer if you've got cancer. Like, I'm not saying that I'm not a magical thinker, but I do think that you can set up the preconditions for your body to be so stressed and so depleted that you are, you know, you are going to feel bad.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, I developed lupus in my marriage and you know, I had autoimmune markers my Entire adulthood. But they were never, quote, unquote, bad enough to intervene or even diagnose. And things were really bad at home, and I was feeling worse and worse. This was also during COVID to talk about stress. And I was trying to, you know, manage a huge therapy team and transfer everything from in person to telehealth. I had, you know, my ex partner was working from home. I'm suddenly working from home, My daughter's home. And talk about carrying the load.

Erin: Yeah.

Dr. Ashley: And I was getting sicker and sicker. Went to my doctor and she kept running labs. And then one day she said, okay, like you, you have a diagnosable autoimmune disorder. And I started listening to her rattle off all the medications I would need to take. And it was almost like a dissociative experience because her voice got faded into the background. And I just felt this rising up inside of me of like, no, that's not what I need.A

And I'm not saying medication is not helpful, please, hat's not at all what I'm saying. But for me, in that moment, I knew, to your point, I knew why I was sick. You know, my body literally had nothing left to give. And so that's really what got me started on this very relentless journey back home to myself of like, I'm going to be cutthroat here. On what I need to get back to some kind of center and groundedness inside of me. And I had to do massive overhauling and inventorying of my relationships and the ones that were draining me and the ones that were filling me up.

Erin: There's a saying in the 12 step world, is that we grow at the speed of pain. And that one just always floors me because. Because I think, especially if we are wired for over functioning, the amount that we can absorb. The amount that we sort of, we're like, tolerate that. We tolerate that we rationalize that we work with. Yeah, it's so huge. It's so huge. And then you get diagnosed with lupus. I almost die of COVID Like, you know, like we have these catastrophic moments that are like a bolt of lightning. And we go, if I stay on this path, I'm gonna be on this path. And I can't do it anymore.

Dr. Ashley: No.

Erin: But it takes us until that time. I wish that we could intervene effectively sooner. And I wonder if you have any tools for our listeners about how they don't have to get to the point of a catastrophic health crisis, you know, where they will not be Able to function at all, let alone over function.

Dr. Ashley: Well, yeah, I mean, I think we can. Here's the challenge. You know, I knew, well before I was really sick that this was not a good relationship or a healthy relationship. I knew. But you hold on to that hope, I've invested 20 years of my life.

Erin: Right. We stood in front of all the people that we knew and we said, we're gonna do this.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah. I mean, I met him when I was 18. My entire adulthood was built with this person. This person was my home, so I knew I wasn't happy, but did I really want to walk away? It wasn't that bad, was it? And I stayed in that space for a long time. So unfortunately it did take a crisis for me to say, oh, it is actually that bad. Yeah, it really is.

And there was more that happened after that and boundaries were crossed and then it was just like, absolutely, this is done. But I think for the listeners who haven't hit the crisis or the bottom, as they say in the 12 step. Right. You know, I think you've got to get really honest with yourself that if you are feeling in your gut like this really isn't aligned for you anymore. Relationships evolve, it probably was aligned for you at some point.

Erin: Yeah.

Dr. Ashley: But if it's not aligned for you now and you've been at this and you've tried all the things, maybe not all the things, we really don't have to turn over every single stone. Right. If you've turned over enough stones, if you've been at this enough times, if you're thinking about leaving or divorce a lot, like your intuition is telling you, you know, that this isn't working for you and you don't have to wait till a crisis to start to explore that. And that takes a lot of courage. Especially when you're over functioning and you're busy, it's easy to put it off till tomorrow. Oh, I'll think about that, you know, at the end of the year I'll reassess. Well, we just had the end of the year. How many of you had promised yourself at the end of the year you would evaluate this? And here we are at the New Year and it's terrifying to

look at that.

So it takes a tremendous amount of courage. But you're either going to do it with courage now while you're not nearly incapacitated, or you're going to do it in crisis and both are hard.

Erin: Yeah, it's like the wildfires in LA, you know, it's like, am I gonna wait for the evacuation warning or am I gonna see, like I did perfect the glowing fire over the ridge of the mountains near my house and that the neighborhood next to mine was starting to be evacuated. But we weren't in the warning zone even, we weren't in the evacuation zone and so many people were like, well, we're not in the evacuation zone, I'm gonna stay and wait. And I'm like this, get me the out of the city, I don't want to be stuck on the one highway.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, with everyone else.

Erin: 100,000 people are going to be trying to get out. Like it's bad on a regular work day.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah. You know, and I would think with an evacuation, there's no good time to pick up your life and leave your home, there's no good time. So you have to just do it. You have to make a decision.

Erin: Make a decision. And I think that often when we are in relationships where we are over functioning, when we are in a life where we are over functioning, one thing that gets overdeveloped, at least a focus group of one always with me. But like, is our ability to override the signals that our body, our mind, our soul, our spirit, whatever is giving us. Because we just want to function, because we just want to keep the status quo and like, I mean just the amount of like overriding that I think we are capable of.

Dr. Ashley: Scary.

Erin: I really want women to tune in to the magical, incredible, intuitive gut based decision making that is available for us at all times if we are not bullshitting ourselves.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah.

Erin: You know, but the reality is that's--

Dr. Ashley: Really terrifying because we know what our intuition is telling us. And when you've been at this for decades, like, you don't really want to hear it.

Erin: No. And a lot of people won't make a change. A lot of people won't make a change. You know, a lot of people listening to this podcast won't make a change. They're in pain and they won't make a change. But if you are feeling like this is way too familiar and I know I promised myself I would do something about like, you know, obviously you try to remediate.

You go to couples therapy, you do all the things. But what are the signs that like, things are working and headed in the right direction and what are the signs that like, it's time to cut bait.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah. Well, I think there are things that we as, as our own individual selves can do even inside of this relationship dynamic to help ourselves get better. Regardless of what our partner does or doesn't do. Because over functioning has us so over focused on them.

Erin: So, Al-Anon, for people who don't know, there's a 12 step program called Al-Anon which is for people who have people in their lives who are addicts. And it's really about how do you manage yourself, how do you stay happy, how do you disconnect from overly identifying everything as being connected to your partner or this person that you love?

Dr. Ashley: Right and helping them, right. Over functioning has us so wrapped around them. What they're feeling, what they're needing. If they're uncomfortable, we need to pretzel ourselves to make them comfortable. If they're having a temper tantrum, we need to be the calm one to help them. Like, no, we need to start bringing our focus back to ourselves. The over functioning woman, when I work with her, I'll say, what is it that you're wanting or needing in whatever example we're talking about? And they look at me with almost fear in their eyes to slow down enough to ask themselves what they want or what they need? But that's exactly what we have to start to do, right?

We have to start asking ourselves like, well, what am I feeling right now? I can tell you what my partner's feeling, but what am I feeling? What am I needing right now? I know what they're needing, they're very loud and clear about it. But what do I need? And do I have the courage to take up space in this relationship and say that what am I wanting? I know what they want, but what about me? Those are cringing words for the over functioning woman: what about me?

Erin: Yeah, but we're so used to sort of the implicit acknowledgment that we are not going to get what we want if we ask for it.

Dr. Ashley: Maybe not from them, right?

Erin: Then it just becomes a thing that you're like, fuck it. I'm not asking, I'm not asking. I'm not gonna get it, I just have to manage, I just have to deal.

Dr. Ashley: Well, yeah, that's a choice that you can stay with someone who will not meet your needs. I think you want to make sure that you're bringing the focus back to you. How can you start to meet your needs better? Because the reality is the over functioning woman is not very good at taking care of herself, which means she's also not very good at letting others take care of her.

So we have to learn how to flex both of those muscles and we have to learn how to take better care of ourselves. And I don't mean getting massages, although I'm a big fan of those too, but I mean, if you need to slow down the morning routine a little bit, and that means your partner needs to pick up some slack or you just don't get something done for them, then that's what it means, right? Or if it means that you do less of the work at the holidays to make it magical for everyone and your partner can do some of it or not, and it falls through the cracks, okay, then that's what it means. It's about stepping back so that you can take care of you in a pace and in a way that feels good for you. Because too often we're trying to keep pace with them.

Erin: But we're on the treadmill. You know, everyone knows, like, if you lose focus when you're on the treadmill, you end up, you know, on YouTube, you end up falling flat on your face. And, like, we're moving so fast and we're doing so much, like, you know, life sometimes feels like a perpetual motion machine. Like, if I stop doing this, it'll never start up again. If I change this, it throws a wrench into the entire operation, and I can't really function with that.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, well, I think if we're looking at the whole picture, it's too overwhelming. So I always encourage women, start small, you know, find some small little spaces in your day where you can step back from over functioning, where you can do a little bit less in general, or you can not do something for your partner that they really should be doing for themselves anyway, right? Slow yourself down a little bit. Like, drive a little bit slower, walk a little bit slower, talk a little bit slower.

Erin: Just start more time on your phone in the bathroom.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, exactly. Like they do, right?

Erin: And Tina Fey wrote this memoir, and when she, her kids were little and she was like, the bathroom is your safe space. Like, get in the shower, get in the shower, they cannot bother you there, even if they're banging on the door.

Dr. Ashley: I know. I remember my daughter's little fingers would be like, under the door. I'm like, good Lord, I can't even go to the bathroom. But we can actually slow ourselves down, because, you see, part of over functioning is the belief I can't, everything will fall apart. Well, maybe it will and maybe it won't.

A lot of times it actually won't fall apart. We realize that everything actually can be okay if we don't do it all. But here's the thing with the relationship with an under functioning partner, it

might fall apart. That's part of the nature of under functioning is they're not going to pick up the slack. But you have to know that that's really what you're dealing with. So stepping back and not doing it all creates some space in the relationship dynamic for your partner to choose. Are they going to step up and be a healthy, functioning partner now or are they not? And now, you know, really, when left to their own devices, this is what you're dealing with. And now you are clear that you have an option.

For this relationship to quote unquote, work, you're either going to have to continue over functioning, which you totally could choose to do, or you have to say, this doesn't work for me.

Erin: It's relevant to dating too.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, absolutely.

Erin: You know, like, there's a man in my life who I'm crazy about, who just, you know, if I don't, if I don't chase him, if I don't do put in the effort of the communication, the planning and whatever, then it won't happen. Then it won't happen. And recently it's been making me

feel sad and so I'm pulling back and if he can step towards me, that's great, right? And if he can't, like there's a ton of other dudes out there.

Dr. Ashley: There are.

Erin: And you know, and one of them might be able to function on the level that I need them to. But I, I honestly think, because my picker is, was jacked, like I need your help to identify, like what does a man look like? And this is very heteronormative, so let's, you know, caveat that, but you know, I'm a heterosexual woman. What does that partner look like? Even if it's like a boyfriend and not like a marriage, whatever, but like how do I identify that person who is going to show up and meet me halfway?

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, it's a great question. Well, first of all, there is going to be some healthy element of pursuit. You know, when you're talking about like I want him to initiate the communication, like that's a pursuing behavior. Now we want to be careful that it's not this love bombing, pursuing where it's over the top, right, but this healthy pursuit of reaching out to you, you know, matched effort, matched energy. You're communicating some, you're reaching out some, and so are they maybe even a little bit more, because you're, you're stepping back and seeing can they hold their own.

So much of over functioning is really about trying to control the outcome. And that's rooted in childhood. I don't say any of that with judgment. We're all control freaks to some degree. Us humans, we love control.

Erin: But if we derogatory. It's like, you know, I think men don't ever get called a control freak, they don't get called a perfectionist. You know, they're ambitious, they're exacting, they're precise, they're determined. Like, you know, so much of our language is gendered in that way. But yeah, okay, so step back a little bit, make room for them to take action.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah and don't try to control it right through initiating it yourself. Like, step back and really see what they choose to do on their own without your influence and your prompting and your provoking. See what they choose to do on their own, that's data. It's very valuable data because what they do right here in the early stages of the relationship will be a very good indicator of what you're going to be dealing with later. So we're looking for that healthy engagement, that effort.

You also want a partner who shows curiosity. So they're asking questions about you, they're not just talking about themselves. They really genuinely want to get to know you. They want to know your inner world. Maybe they don't want to know it as much as your girlfriends do, but they do want to get to know you in a deeper way. They're interested in you, it's not just about what you can give to them or how you can make their life better, but they want to learn you and then they take that information and they become a better partner for you.

Erin: My ex did that. You know, my ex definitely, like, wanted to know me. I just got these bangs, he was over at my house last night, and he was like, oh, I like your bangs. He showed interest in me in a lot of ways, just couldn't meet me at the level of my needs.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, so another big one around that is integrity. And what we mean by integrity is do their words match their actions? And this one is huge. Could even be number one in terms of what to watch for. Do their words match their actions? Talk is cheap, anyone can say what you want to hear. Anyone can say the right thing. Anyone can make really great promises.

But the great partners are the ones who follow through. And this is so very important one because it speaks to their character. Do they respect themselves enough to do what they say they're gonna do that's really important? But also, this is where trust in the relationship

gets built. If they're gonna tell you one thing and do another, how do you trust them?

Erin: Yeah, you can't.

Dr. Ashley: You can't. And that then leads to over functioning because you now learn, well, I can't really count on what they're gonna say, so I'm gonna always have a backup plan.

Erin: Right. That I'm going to be responsible for because I can control that outcome.

Dr. Ashley: Exactly. Yeah, so we're definitely looking for integrity. We're looking for responsibility, emotional regulation and maturity.

Erin: Oh, about that, talk about that. Because I have come to realize recently that that is what being an adult is, is, is, is mastery over your own. And like being in this evacuation situation with, with the fires and now being a single mom, like what I realized my job was for

my kids is to keep myself together so that I could function for them. And I didn't grow up around men who had that level of self control around their emotional selves.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, yeah. We grew up around men who are raging, shutting down and ignoring, drinking, working, you know, doing all kinds of things to get away from their emotions. And so back to our conversation about what's familiar.

Erin: Yeah.

Dr. Ashley: Then unfortunately, we will subconsciously seek that out in a partner because that's what's familiar. We know how to navigate that craziness.

Erin: Right.

Dr. Ashley: But what we really need from a healthy, functioning, mature partner is someone who can manage their internal world, their psychology, their emotions, their needs, their desires, and not lash out, not blame you, not get defensive when you try to talk to them. Not shame spiral, not just completely shut down, but someone who can stay grounded, who can hear you and hear your feelings, but also understand what they're feeling, be able to talk about it with you, come to some kind of compromise or resolution or agreement.

Erin: Who is this person they are out there? I'm like, I'm like, okay, I've been with people who check, check, nope, check, nope, nope. You know, like, I also want to say, like your, your partner, your ideal partner does not have to be perfect in these things. They can have an initial response of withdrawing or shutting down or whatever, as long as they then come back to you and go, hey, I know I just withdrew and shut down. Or I need to go and shut down for a little bit, but I'm going to come back to you.

Dr. Ashley: There's communication.

Erin: Communication, piece of it, right?

Dr. Ashley: Because they're insightful, because they're self-aware.

Erin: Right.

Dr. Ashley: So in therapy we call that rupture and repair yeah, there's going to be ruptures in the relationship. You know, you're not going to get it right sometimes you're going to act immature. They're not going to get it right sometimes they're going to act immature like it's a thing, it happens. But can you come back and repair? And if they're the one that started the rupture with their emotional outbursts, are they the one that comes back and initiates the repair? Most over functioning women know all too well that if she doesn't bring it up, it will never get brought up. And that's not okay, you know, part of being a responsible adult is when I don't show up in my best self in this relationship, that I take responsibility for that and I come back to my partner and I say, hey, I didn't talk to you as well as I would have liked or I didn't hear you as well as I would have liked and I'm sorry about that. Let's try that again.

But also we need a partner who when they get angry, they're not going to just dump it on you and blame you. They can say, I'm really angry right now about whatever. I'm going to go do what I need to do to get myself regulated rather than project and barf their stuff all over you and then try to make you out to be the reason why they're feeling this way. And the over functioning woman is too quick to pick it up and go, okay, okay, I'll try to, I'll try to be better, do better. No, if they're angry, it's their work to figure out what's going on and then come to you in a calm, kind, regulated way and have a discussion about that.

Erin: And if they don't, hopefully it doesn't take a week.

Dr. Ashley: Right?

Erin: Yeah, I hate how familiar this conversation is. I really, really do. I am so grateful to not be living this on a day to day basis. And even though my own relationship life is like all over the place and whatever, I at least feel like I have the presence of mind to be like, no, this is what I deserve, you know? No, you can't treat me like that. No, that's not okay. Like, and I think for, for women who are out of an over functioning relationship, out of a first marriage or second marriage, whatever, you know, often with divorce comes this sort of moment of experimentation and, and dating.

And for me, like what I have loved about it is it is an opportunity to get to know myself and my own needs in a new way where I'm actually

just primarily focused on listening to me and what I can learn and how I can, how I can like, use each casual relationship as a way to practice saying how I feel, you know, saying what my needs are, like setting the bar and then seeing if it gets met and walking away if it

doesn't. Like, yeah, all of that. It's so hard to imagine being able to do that inside the relationship with the patterns that you establish over so many years.

Dr. Ashley: So many years. It is, it is really hard to break those patterns. And then when you're in a relationship with an under functioning partner, you know, the nature of under functioning is they're not doing their work, they're not carrying their weight. So then you're over here trying to improve how you're showing up and bringing more, you know, emotional awareness and insight and communication and all of the things, but it's not getting matched. So even though you are growing, it still feels like the relationship has this dead end to it. And eventually most over functioning women in my experiences, they outgrow

the dynamic, they outgrow their partner and they say like, I need someone who can really meet me in a relationship where we really do this together because she's tired of feeling alone.

Erin: Right. Well, and sometimes that person is you.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, like, exactly.

Erin: Sometimes that person is you. At least for a time or, you know, or forever. Like forever. I love this conversation. We do not have to do things the way we've always done things.

Dr. Ashley: Thank God.

Erin: You do not have to follow this rulebook.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah.

Erin: What do you think? And what would you say to the women over 40 who are listening to this podcast? Is like the biggest takeaway that they, they can apply right away or use in their lives or use to see, oh, are, am I over functioning? Am I, you know, is, is this repairable? Like, what can you, what can you offer them to take away from this conversation? That give them an opportunity to do a little soul searching?

Dr. Ashley: Yeah. I would say start to really be curious about yourself. You have spent. My guess is you've spent years, if not decades pouring into your partner trying to understand their psychology, their childhood trauma, why they are the way they are. What do you call this? Is this narcissism? Is this childhood trauma? Is this, you know, are they on the spectrum? Is this untreated ADHD? Are they just an asshole? What is that?

Erin: Oh, my God. Don't let Instagram tell you what the answer is.

Dr. Ashley: But here's the thing. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what we call it or why they are the way they are. That's it matters for them. That's their work to figure out. But what I want you to care about is what is this experience like for you? Right? So I want you to come back into your own self awareness of what are you feeling, what are you needing, what are you longing for? And the hard truth is over functioning needs just as much personal growth work as under functioning.

So you have your own belief system that has to get tweaked here. Your own beliefs around what you deserve, your own beliefs around whether or not your needs are too much over functioning. Women are so worried they're asking for too much when they're, quite frankly, not asking for nearly enough.

Erin: I relate to that.

Dr. Ashley: Yeah, so we have our own beliefs to change and that right there needs to be our full time job and let our partner do with their personal growth work, whatever they choose to do, it may be nothing.

So you don't have to make a decision about the relationship, you don't even have to make big behavioral changes. Start bringing your attention back to you. And that's going to require slowing down a little bit, actually having some time in your day to do that. And it might look like leaving the radio off in the car, so that you just have some quiet time with yourself.

It might mean taking a 15 minute walk after dinner. And just kind of letting your mind wander a little bit. It might mean taking some time to journal. It might mean scheduling therapy sessions. So you have that allocated time, however works for you, create some space in your day to self reflect and orbit around you and what you're feeling, needing, experiencing, thinking, wanting, and not do that so much for your partner. Let them do that. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, that's data for you, but become your own focus.

Erin: I love it, I love it. I love this conversation. I love the work you're doing. I think it's so important. It's so important to put language on this thing that I think so many of us just do because we think this is what relationships don't have to be.

Dr. Ashley: We have to know that we deserve better, we have to require better, and we have to be willing to make courageous changes if those requirements aren't met. That's our work to do. And we can do it, ladies.

Erin: Amen, sister. Thank you so much.

Dr. Ashley: Thank you.

Erin: Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever. I hope you enjoyed this conversation about women over functioning in love. Did you see yourself in this conversation? Did you see people you care about whose behavior is reflected in the dynamics that were described? If there is someone in your life who needs to hear this conversation, please share the episode with them. Please bring them into the fold, please tell them about Hotter Than Ever and the deep things that we touch on here on this show, that is the way we grow. That is the way we keep the podcast going and that is the way we show up for each other in this one and only life we have.

Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Girard and PodKit Productions. Our associate producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Ysa Fernandez.

I am going to go over function in my own life on my own behalf and I hope you do the same.