Parentification: The hidden pattern in ADHD relationships

Ever feel like you’re the “parent” in your relationship — managing everything while your partner just... coasts? You’re not alone. And it’s not just you being controlling. 

Host Cate Osborn talks with ADHD coach Kristen Carder (host of I Have ADHD, author of the upcoming You’re Not in Trouble) about why ADHD relationships so easily slide into parent-child dynamics, and how to climb back out.

They get into why resentment is the red flag to watch for, and Kristen’s favorite mantra for “de-centering” an overfunctioning partner (“there is no sun — we’re equals here”). Plus eldest daughter syndrome, and why chicken nuggets for dinner is sometimes the healthiest choice you’ll make all day.

Honest, funny, and genuinely useful if you’ve ever wondered whether you’re parenting your partner instead of loving them.

• Listen: Sorry, I Missed This: When ADHD turns chores into conflict

• Watch: ADHD expert answers 8 top questions on romantic relationships

Kristen Carder: I highly recommend that you have this mantra of, my job is to decenter my partner. My partner is not the center of this relationship. There is no center to this relationship. It's like, I'm taking them out of the space of the sun and I'm saying, there is no sun. We are equals here.

Cate Osborn: That's Kristen Carder, ADHD expert, coach, acclaimed podcast host, and author of the new book, "You're Not in Trouble", a book that is specifically about improving relational health with ADHD. Today, Kristen and I sit down to talk about parentified relationships, or what happens when one person in a relationship is carrying the brunt of the emotional and sometimes practical weight of the relationship.

Over and over, when we study ADHD relational satisfaction, we see a concerning trend about relational inequity, which can lead to resentment, to a lack of desire, to frustration and guilt in a relationship. And that is obviously far from an ideal scenario. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to "Sorry I Missed This", the show where we talk about all things ADHD and its impact on relationships, sex, intimacy, communication, and more.

As always, it's me, your host, Cate Osborn. Dear listener, I am going to be wildly honest with you and say that I have personally been on both sides of the equation when it comes to parentified relationships. There have been a lot of relationships that I have been in where I was absolutely doing all the work, carrying all the responsibility, carrying the weight of the relationship for the sake of a wildly mediocre partner who did not care to contribute.

But there have also been times, if I'm being honest with myself, where I have been the person who refused responsibility, who didn't take on as much as I could have because I knew that my partner was the type of person who would step up. And it turns out that that can feel pretty awful in the long run as well.

And that's one of the reasons why I'm really excited to sit down with Kristen today because we talk about this from both sides of the equation, what it can feel like to be the partner on either side of that balance, and how these relational themes like inequity and resentment and guilt and shame can really contribute to the eroding of intimacy and the eroding of desire.

And how these things really impact relationships in the long term, their longevity, and their ability to survive stress and hard times. Kristen Carder is here! Thanks for being here, Kristen.

Kristen: Thank you for having me. I love every time I get to talk to you, so I can't wait.

Cate: Going in, dear listener, I do want to clarify that parentified relationships kind of has two different meanings. There is the parent-child version of parentified relationships, and then there is the kind of version that we're going to be focusing on today, which is when one partner kind of becomes the parent to the ADHD partner or, sometimes more rarely but it does happen, vice versa.

So Kristen, do you want to talk a little bit just about how we define that relationship and what a parentified relationship is?

Kristen: Yeah, so you absolutely nailed it. The way that we usually talk about parentified relationships is the role reversal in family dynamics where the child is taking on too much responsibility for the adult. And what's so interesting is that when we grow up in families where that role reversal is present, we often step into that in our relationships.

And we're often then being overly responsible for our partner, and that can look like putting their needs before our needs, feeling responsible for their emotions, really struggling to ask for help. And then there's this interesting dynamic which you just talked about, which is when an ADHD person is married or partnered with a non-ADHD person, that parent-child dynamic where it's like, I guess I'm your parent here, which is not sexy at all.

Can we just say it right off the bat? Like, it's not sexy on either end of that dynamic. So it can be a really, really difficult dynamic to navigate.

Cate: It's a two-sided coin, you know? So on one side you have this, "I'm going to step into this hypervigilant taking care of everybody around me sort of parent relationship." And then there is the other side, which is where I have been failed by systems or I haven't been able to develop my own systems and my own structures.

And so I am going to lean on a partner or someone else living in the house to handle things for me. And then that sort of back and forth, that snowball effect of, well, I'm handling more and more and more and all of a sudden we're in a parentified relationship.

Kristen: I think it can be so easy for especially people with ADHD to notice the competence in their partner and just kind of hand over so much of our own agency to someone else. And in some ways that works beautifully. For example, there's a specific pile in the kitchen where the mail goes and I never open mail. I just pop it in the pile.

My husband a couple weeks ago was like, "Is it okay if I start opening your mail? And I'll pay bills that you need, if anything needs to be paid I'll pay it, and if you need to see anything I'll put it in a folder." And I was like, I've never been so turned on in my whole entire life. Absolutely yes, you can do that. Thank you.

That's one way that I'm leaning on my partner and he is really taking care of me. If I were not contributing in other ways, that could get really out of balance. If then he's now doing all of the laundry and we just start handing over things because he's better at it. Is he better at doing laundry than me? Yeah, he 100% is.

Does that mean he should do all of the laundry? Probably not. I think this is where an ADHD person needs to start to think, am I contributing to the home, to the relationship in ways that are meaningful?

Cate: Yeah. Dear listener, this is a good time to shout out the episode that we did with KC Davis about household management, household tasks, inequality and equity in those tasks. So you might want to go check out that episode. How does the slip and slide happen? How does the sort of gradual build into like, "Hey, wait a minute," how does that develop over the course of a relationship?

Kristen: I don't know the exact answer, but I will tell you what I've observed. In so many cases, we're just used to showing up this way in all of our relationships. And it's not until we kind of wake up — a lot of us wake up to our ADHD and we start treatment and then we go to therapy or we get coaching and we start to uncover these things — and then we wake up kind of in the middle of relationships that have already been established.

And that's what I notice with so many clients, is that the light bulbs start turning on, but the rules of the relationship have already been established decades ago. And so then people are kind of waking up and being like, wait a second, I'd like to renegotiate the terms of this relationship.

That's really what it comes down to, right? Is like a renegotiation of, "I'm not really going to be taking responsibility for your emotions anymore. Uh — oh." So like, do you consent to still being in this relationship when I don't take responsibility for your emotions? It's really like navigating that renegotiation.

But in my experience, what I've observed is it's not really like a slippery slope, it's more this is kind of always how I've functioned in relationships, this is what's felt normal and safe and good, and so of course this is how I operate in my partnership.

And then when I realize that I'm carrying too much or doing too much, then I have to stop and say, okay, how do I renegotiate this in a way that doesn't rupture the relationship and/or maybe it ruptures the relationship and that's just kind of the cost of walking this out authentically.

Cate: So many of us with ADHD grow up being told that we are like wrong and bad and we're doing it wrong, we just need to calm down, we just need to be quiet, whatever. And so something that kind of subtly starts happening is that idea of, now I'm monitoring the emotions of everyone around me to make sure that I'm not going to get in trouble.

So then that kind of becomes the thing that we're doing in adulthood even in our romantic partnerships.

Kristen: Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to take that a step further and say how distracting is that? And how much more does that further the presentation of our ADHD symptoms when we're not focused on, how am I doing? How's my system regulating? Am I safe? And how am I navigating my to-do list or whatever it is that's in front of me for today?

But rather being distracted by everything else that's going on. Are they okay? Are they mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Do I need — oh, he seems like he's in a bad mood. I walked into the room and he didn't give me a huge smile and say like, I love you, you're the most beautiful person in the world. So I think probably he's mad at me, and now I have to do something to fix that.

It really comes back to, how did I learn to stay safe as a kid? And what did I have to do to make sure that I wasn't getting in trouble? What kind of dance did I have to do for everyone? And realizing like, wait, am I still doing that dance now that I'm a 45-year-old grown-ass woman?

Cate: When I think about parentified relationships, one of the things that I think about immediately is resentment, is anger, is that kind of unspoken, "I don't understand why I have to keep doing this for you. You are acting like a child and you are not upholding your end of the bargain or equity in this partnership."

I wonder if you can talk a little bit about where resentment starts to build and how resentment starts to build in relationships and, you know, maybe some red flags that we can look out for if we're maybe even doing this unconsciously.

Kristen: I will just say that resentment is the red flag. So if you or your partner are feeling resentment, that is the alarm bell to say there's a need here that's not being met. And is it my job to meet that need, or can I meet the need in another way? So for example, let's say laundry was a big thing, right?

Maybe I suck at laundry and I'm just like, I can't do — I literally can't do it. But once a month I'm like, I'm going to hire out the laundry to be done by someone else, right? By someone else. That's one way that I can outsource it but still meet the needs. But resentment is the red flag. So when you feel that from your partner, what we can often do is want to do the song and dance show.

I'm going to win you back over. How about instead we just pause and we say, "Hey, it sounds like you're feeling resentful. Can you tell me about it?" And letting yourself hear what they have to say. That's hard. Yes, our rejection sensitivity will absolutely be triggered, but to hear the vulnerability from our partner — "I feel like I'm carrying the weight of all of this and I just don't feel like we're equal partners" — that's a problem I can solve.

I might be the solution to that, or I might have a creative idea to solve that problem in a different way. And I don't consent to be the the problem all of the time. So there is that line that we're walking where we're not going to blame all of the issues of this relationship on my ADHD.

Cate: Yeah, I think that's a powerful way of approaching it too. Because one of the things that I think really assures failure in a lot of relationships is if the person with ADHD is always the problem or the ADHD is always the problem. When in reality it's more about who's opening the mail, right?

And I'm angry at you because you're not opening the mail, so I feel this pressure. But we can sit down and we can have a conversation about who's handling the mail, how are we handling the mail, when are we, all of those things. Those are things that are fixable, but you can't fix ADHD. And so when ADHD becomes this thing that you're just constantly like frustrated and angry with, it just leads to I think a cycle of resentment and unfixability, maybe.

Kristen: 100%. Talk to me about what parentification does to intimacy over time. We've talked about like, I'm monitoring you, I'm putting your needs above mine. I'm down here, you're up here, and I'm saying, "You're the sun, I'm revolving around you, you're so important." In that dynamic, it is so difficult to actually be authentic.

That's not true connection. That's more of like I'm trying to keep myself safe by making sure your needs are met. And so that steals intimacy, it steals vulnerability, it steals authenticity from our relationship. In the dynamic where we've set up this parent-child relationship where there's one person that's kind of like managing everything, carrying everything, responsible for everything, and then maybe an ADHDer who's just like, "Great, open my mail, do my laundry, like I'm good," I think that what happens there in intimacy is first of all the person who is solely responsible is exhausted, depleted, carrying the mental load of the whole household.

And again, that's not sexy. How do I even want to be intimate with someone that I'm essentially parenting? There's so much distance there emotionally because it's the opposite of mutuality, it's the opposite of reciprocity, which is like foundational for our partnerships.

Cate: It's interesting how sort of both sides of the dynamic wind up struggling in different ways. A lot of the work that I do around ADHD and sex and intimacy starts there, starts from that. But can I even ask for the type of pleasure that I want? Can I even access what my own needs are?

And a lot of times, especially when people are in this sort of hypervigilant, hyper-monitoring space, they don't necessarily know what they want. They don't necessarily even know what kind of pleasure or what kind of touch they enjoy because they have been deferring and, "You know, whatever you want is totally fine." And so then we get more and more and more disconnected from our pleasure and from our sense of self.

So when it comes to parentified relationships where one partner is pitching in a lot more and is sort of just taking charge of things because the other partner is not — I'm going to say willing — to step up, I'm curious about the impact that that can have on the other person's ability to feel like they are able to contribute or feel like they are able to change the system.

Kristen: I think what can happen when you are noticing that you're not being relied upon, it can perpetuate this thought belief system of like, I'm unreliable, I just don't have it together, and this is just signaling that to me over and over again. And so I think this goes back to really discovering your strengths and being committed to contribute in ways that you're strong and building up your skills where you're weak.

Right? So like I have been tasked with the food in my home. And essentially when we got married, my husband was like, "I don't do food. Like I'm just I'm not a food guy. If you could take that, that would be great." And I grew up in a very traditional home, my mom always did the food, so I was like, of course. I was a baby, I was 23, I was a tiny little fetus when I got married. I was like, "Yeah, of course, of course, I'm happy to."

I sucked at it. So badly. Like the amount of executive function needed to be in charge of the food in the home — that means stocking the kitchen, stocking the pantry, having all of the items on hand, and planning the meals and making sure people's like mouths are fed with things that they're willing to eat. It has taken me so long to learn this skill and I'm still not really great at it.

But it's something that like over time I just — I'm like, I'm going to get better at this, I'm going to get — like I am determined to get better at this. So there are times when you can say this is a weakness but it is a need for my family, and sometimes that looks like mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. Actually, at least once a week, it looks like mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. And that's great. Who cares? Because we're feeding the people.

So there's this push-pull of like leaning on your strengths and contributing where you're weak and just making sure that you're determined to get better and better and better. The problem is when your partner's not very nice. Yeah, some of us have partners that are just like, "Well you suck at this, well you burned this, well you're like I don't want to eat mac and cheese again. Why are we having this again?" Right?

And so that's where like boundaries can come in, that's where setting some limits can come in. If you have a supportive enough partner, not a perfect partner, but supportive enough where it's just like, "Well this is burned, totally fine. We'll pick around it, we'll scrape it off," you know? Like that's that's that's ideal.

Cate: I think one of the most important things that I have — I have learned in sort of learning about this parentified dynamic is that idea that a lot of times we think that we are giving our partner the gift, right? Like, we're like, "Oh my god, I'm going to be the best partner ever, I'm going to handle everything and they're never going to have to worry about anything."

And what that can actually do is destroy their confidence. It can teach them that we don't rely on them, it can teach them that we don't think they're capable of things. And I love that your husband is like, "Yeah, I need you to handle the food," because we can do hard things. Yes. But when we take away our partner's agency by just trying to micromanage, it — I don't know, I teach — I talk about this a lot in kink spaces, how saying yes when you actually mean no or whatever, it's a type of manipulation.

It's not like we're doing it to be vindictive or sneaky or a bad person, but that breaks brains. When I talk about how this micromanaging is actually a type of manipulation in order to feel safe and okay. And you're not a bad person for doing it, but it is truly remarkable to me how unconsciously we can really start cementing the idea in our partner that they aren't capable of doing hard stuff, that we don't trust them, that we don't believe in them.

I feel like that's a really important thing to talk about when we have this conversation because we're trying to be helpful, but we are actually doing is reinforcing the complete opposite lesson and actually doing more damage to the relationship.

Kristen: And to add to that, I think a check-in with self on why do I want to be helpful here? Am I really believing that my partner's not capable, and do I not trust my partner to make this contribution? For me, a lot of a lot of times it's managing my own anxiety and not trusting my partner to be a good person.

Sometimes, even though we've been married 22 years, I still question: Is he a good person? Is he going to do it right? Does he have my best interest in mind, right? But if I can go back to what I know is fundamentally true, which is that he is a good person, he has my best interests, then I can place my trust in him.

Like, okay, he's going to handle it. I don't need to micromanage it, and it might not be the way that I would do it and it's not going to be in the timeframe that I want, but I can manage my own anxiety and discomfort around that instead of trying to manage him.

Cate: But that kind of taking inventory of why am I doing this? Why am I picking up all of this slack? Why am I doing this stuff is often times because what we're actually doing is we're not trying to help, we're trying to manage our own anxiety. And if we can be honest about that and notice how often that anxiety is showing up in our relationship, that's the conversation.

That's the place to sit down and say, "Hey, Kristen, it really bothers me that you don't care about bills getting paid on time, so can we develop a system together where if you don't care and I care deeply, I'm not going to be stressed on the 28th of every month because we haven't done the thing yet and you're going to get to it when you get to it," you know what I mean?

Like, there's so much give and take that can happen when we really start interrogating the core of the issue, which is sometimes just, "I don't like how you load the dishwasher because I load the dishwasher like a madman." My husband cannot handle the way that I load the dishwasher. I just do it how I do it and he does it how he does it and it works for us.

But if I'm loading the dishwasher around him, he will take over because he cannot bear to watch me just throw the knives and the forks on top of each other.

Kristen: It's so funny that you bring up the dishwasher because that is something that comes up all the time. The freaking dishwasher. It comes up all the time, right? Where the one partner has a certain way to do it, the other partner does not care at all, and then they marry each other.

And then it's this like tension of, do I need to do it the way my partner wants me to do it, or can I just load the dishwasher the way I want to do it? And like, I know it's a dumb example, but the dishwasher is a tiny representation of so many things that we negotiate in our relationship. And there are times when I'm like, "Hey, I'm handling it. The dishwasher can — will be loaded and I'm going to do it my way, and you can go."

There are other times to be like, "Yeah, go — I'd rather go sit on the couch anyway, so have at it," right? And so yeah, if you want it done a certain way, you do it. Again, it's a dumb example, but it represents so many things in our relationship where it's like: Does this actually matter? Am I managing my anxiety by trying to control the other person? Is there actually a right way to do it?

Is this something that can be negotiated and that you can collaborate on, or is this something where you say, "This is my territory"? Like for example, if my husband started to micromanage meals and dinner, there would be a conversation around like, "Hey, this is my territory, like you handed this to me and I'm doing it. And if you want to be involved, great, but then we have to have a conversation about it because I'm not going to be micromanaged while I'm doing something that I hate. Sorry. Not happening."

Cate: Let's talk about the fix, right? If our dear listeners are listening to this episode and they're maybe realizing that they've entered into some parentified patterns themselves in their relationships, how do we start navigating our way out of those habits and those patterns?

Kristen: So let's talk first about the over-responsibility, where I am managing the dynamic, I am monitoring everybody, I'm doing my song and dance to keep everybody happy. I've put my partner above me, I'm revolving around them, I'm making sure that like my needs are secondary to everyone else. In that situation, I highly recommend that you over and over to yourself have this mantra of: My partner is not the center of this relationship.

There is no center to this relationship. This relationship is mutual, it's reciprocal, it's balanced. It doesn't mean that you're like, "I don't care about you anymore," that's not it at all. It's like, I'm taking them out of the space of the sun and I'm saying, there is no sun. We are equals here.

And so decentering your partner is a ton of work. You may want to engage a professional to help you with this because it's not just like, "Okay, great, I'm just going to snap my fingers and all of this," because most likely —

Cate: It can be scary. It can be really vulnerable because all of a sudden now I'm confronting my own needs. I am confronting the fact that if my partner is not okay, it is not my responsibility to fix that for them. And that can be terrifying.

Kristen: And this comes back to: How have I been managing my anxiety? Have I been doing it by trying to please them, by trying to monitor them, by trying to emotionally regulate them constantly? For a lot of us — not saying everyone, but for a lot of us — that comes back to our own anxiety, our own angst, our own rejection sensitivity and worry about our status in the relationship.

And so that then gets — what's the word? — a little precarious because then I really do have to focus on me. I really do have to monitor myself, I really do have to self-regulate, really do have to make sure that my needs are met. And I have to speak truth. I have to be authentic. I have to say, "I'm not actually okay. I didn't like it when you said that. That hurt my feelings. I don't like it when you touch me that way. This is uncomfortable for me."

I mean, I'm sure there are listeners hearing me say those phrases thinking, "I would never say that. I could never say that," right? And so that is really, really deep work, but it's very important. Decenter your partner. That doesn't mean you don't love them, that you don't sacrifice for them, that you're not selfless with them. You're still all those things, they're just not the center. You're equals. There's mutuality, there's reciprocity.

In the dynamic of like the parent-child, where likely the ADHD partner has acquiesced a lot of responsibilities and just jobs around the house and mental load to someone who is quote-unquote "more capable, more efficient, you know, just kind of handles it better," the idea there is: How can I lean into my own self-trust and notice where I am capable and make more contributions?

And then when — if and when my partner says, "No, I got this, no, I'm going to handle it," speaking the words, "Hey, I feel like I'm not allowed to contribute. I feel like I'm not given responsibility." And they might come back and say, "Well yeah, because blah blah blah blah blah." They might have a bank of evidence against you, which is not very nice. It's not very nice, but it may happen.

And you can say, "Okay, I hear you. I probably don't remember that happening, but I believe you that it did. But I want you to know that I am working toward contributing more. I want to do more. I want to contribute more to this relationship because I kind of feel like a kid. I kind of feel like you're my mom, and that is not sexy."

I mean, saying the words to your partner that's not super sexy, that resonances. It's like, "Oh yeah, that is — that's true." So like, how can we make this more sexy? How about I pull more of my own weight? How about I contribute a little bit more? And listen, I'm not going to do it perfectly. So your job will be to manage your anxiety around that, right? Because I would like to contribute.

Again, this goes back to: How can we get on equal ground? How can we get to a more even playing field? And roles are going to look different. They are. So we're — it's not going to be the same all the time, there's not going to be equality all of the time because we're all contributing different things, we have different strengths. We're not competing against each other here.

We're saying, "Where are you strong? Great, go for it. Where are you strong? Great, go for it over there. Where are we weak? How can we mitigate those weaknesses? How can we support each other in those weaknesses?" But when we start to compete with each other and say, "No, I know how to do it, no, I know —" that is where we get into a lot of issues.

So we want to just say, "I see your strength, it's so amazing, go for it, go do it. And I think I'm pretty strong over here, I'd like to contribute more in this area."

Cate: Awesome. Kristen, thank you so much for being here. I'm such a huge fan. You're so great. Love the work that you do.

Kristen: Thanks for having me.

Cate: Thank you for listening. Anything mentioned in the episode will be linked in the show notes with more resources. Have a question, comment, burning story you'd like to share? Email us at sorryimissedthis@understood.org. This show is brought to you by Understood.org.

Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at Understood.org/give. "Sorry I Missed This" is produced by Jessamine Molli and edited by Jesse DeMartino.

Video is produced by Calvin Knie. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright. Production support provided by Andrew Rector. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson. And I'm your host, Cate Osborn. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you again soon.

Cate: And then there's like eldest daughter syndrome, which is like the secret third thing. High — functioning women with ADHD who are also the eldest daughter. Woo!

Kristen: Oh boy. My hand is in the air, waving it like I just don't care. 100% me.

Cate: But I do, I do care. I care very much. [Laughter]