This is such a tough situation to be in.

I think if there are words for it - words that hurt for all involved - they would be like this: There are two people, and they each have a set amount of initiative they are willing and able to take to hold everything together. This might have even been true from the very beginning, but also unspoken, as many harsh realities are.

And you realize that if you're the higher-initiative person, indeed you can let go, personally, and slow down or even just....stop.

But it turns out, the lower initiative person is totally complacent and fine, because they're just being who they are.

But now you're not being who you are, and it hurts to see everything falling apart, at least from your own point of view. You can't just...not care.

And even being open with the lower initiative person can feel futile, because they'll always have to actively work - or downright be asked, which is more work for you (and still has to be forever recalibrated when the pattern falls back, and slips through the cracks, over and over) - to meet your level of care and initiative.

Maybe I'm a cynic, but it feels like such a lose-lose situation, unfair to both parties. It feels like high-initiative, high-care people need to be with others more like themselves, instead of falling into trying to work with or change someone whose nature would forever fight against that (and that doesn't necessarily make them a bad person...just different).

At the same time, love is love, and care is care, and a lot probably can and SHOULD be learned. But it's so damn societal and historical and generational in many cases, and it's more than one single marriage can repair. It's no wonder we burn out and give up over it.

All this rambling aside, I guess my cynical conclusion is that our modern partnerships must endure collateral damage to much-needed societal change. We are the growing pains for a more equitable society, where 'innate' initiative will turn out to be much more equal after all, after more generations removed from the (usually) gender norms of old.