The Awakened Heart: A Podcast for Healing Women

Understanding Weaponized Incompetence And How To Shift It

• Autumn Moran • Season 1 • Episode 46

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Today I talk about weaponized incompetence, trace how it drains intimacy and spikes the nervous system, and offer seven grounded shifts to move from managing to partnering. We close with a somatic practice, journal prompts, and an invite to a small healing group this spring.

• defining weaponized incompetence and mental load
• research links between inequality, stress and satisfaction
• why patterns form: socialization, criticism, attachment, executive function
• how overfunctioning reinforces imbalance
• seven shifts for shared ownership and accountability

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Awaken Heart, a podcast for healing women, a place where your voice matters, your body is sacred, and your healing is never rushed or minimized. I'm Anna Moran, licensed professional counselor, a life coach, yoga instructor, and a neurodivergent women specialist woman. I'm not women, I'm just a woman, just one of me, specializing in trauma and nervous system healing for high-functioning women who look success who look successful on the outside, but feel dysregulated, exhausted, or disconnected on the inside. My work integrates trauma therapy, somatic healing, and nervous system regulation to help women move from survival mode into embodied stability, clarity, and power. If you've experienced trauma, late diagnosed neurodivergence, or chronic relational stress, and you're ready to move beyond coping and into deep healing, you're in the right place. Because this isn't service level therapy, this is pattern-changing, body-based, integrative work. And you don't have to do it all alone because I'm here every Wednesday and sometimes Fridays, because I had bonus episodes on Fridays every week. And then I decided I needed to honor my capacity and have taken them away. And then surprise. Yeah, I know. It's heavy shit. It's a short but sweet one. But I have a platform and I felt that it was right to have a bonus episode to just say, hey, this is what we can do to band together. This is how we can make this world a better place. All right. So take a slow deep breath with me. Inhale deeply through the nose. Notice your jaws, your shoulder. Relax on the exhale. Let that air come out of the mouth. And I want you to notice if your body tightens when I say weaponized incompetence. Maybe you don't even know what that is. And I am here to explain it to you. Maybe your mind went to the dishwasher or the school form or the text you had to send to smooth something over, or the moment someone said, just tell me what to do. And something inside you felt tired. Not angry, not dramatic, just tired. This episode is not about blaming. It's not about shaming men. It's not about proving who does more. It's about understanding a dynamic dynamic that quietly erodes intimacy and safety and what it does to the nervous system of the person who carries it. Today I want to be talking about, I'm going to be talking about, I am talking about weaponized incompetence, what it is, where it comes from, how it affects the body, and how to shift it gently without becoming hardened. So, what is it? Weaponized incompetence is when someone performs helplessness, consciously or unconsciously, in order to avoid responsibility. It can sound like, I don't know how to do that. You're better at it. Just tell me what to do. I tried, but I messed up. You care more about this stuff. On the surface, it can look harmless, even sweet, but over time it creates a manager and an assistant. And most often the manager is a woman. Research, research, research. Okay, so the name, the theme of this episode is me not pronouncing things right. So I'm gonna slow it down and try to do a little better. The research shows that women in heterosexual relationships perform significantly more cognitive labor, meaning planning, anticipating, remembering, and organizing, even when both partners work full-time. Documenting that women tend to carry an additional unpaid workload at home after their paid jobs end. More recent Pew research data shows that women are still more likely to manage household logistics, social planning, and childcare coordination, even if relationships are described as quote-unquote equal. It's not just physical task, it's tracking, it's remembering, it's being the human calendar. Weaponized incompetence isn't just not doing a task, it's not holding mental responsibility for the task. And that's what exhausts people. So when you are the one tracking everything, your brain really, rarely rests. Research on cognitive load theory shows that working memory has limited capacity. When one person carries ongoing mental tracking responsibilities, such as appointments, schedules, social obligations, bills, childcare, appointments, I said appointments, it increases chronic stress activation. A 2023 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that perceived inequality in household labor is strongly associated with relationship dissatisfaction, especially for women, even more than the actual number of tasks perform. Why? Because inequality isn't just physical effort, it's psychological vigilance. If you are constantly scanning, like, did that get done? Did anyone remember this? Is that handled? What's coming up next week? Your nervous system stays in mild hyper-arousal, sympathetic activation. That feels like tense jaws, your pelvic bracing, irritability, snapping at people more easily, or maybe just feeling like you can't fully relax. It's not because you're mean, it's because you're overloaded. And chronic overload erodes warmth. But here's where we can soften a little bit because most people are not waking up thinking, how can I avoid responsibility today? Weaponized incompetence often grows from gender socialization, avoidance of criticism, attachment patterns, and executive function differences. So let's break that down. For general socialization, if someone was never required to track or anticipate domestic responsibility, they may genuinely lack the skill. Skill gaps are not the same as malicious intent. Research from childhood development psychology shows that girls are more likely to be assigned caregiving and domestic tasks over boys. Boys are often praised for independence, not maintenance. What about avoidance of criticism? Some people learn early that trying and failing leads to shame, so they avoid trying. If they attempt a task and are corrected or criticized, they may unconsciously withdraw from it permanently. Over time, helplessness becomes protective. Attachment patterns. In anxious avoidant dynamics, one partner may overfunction while the other underfunctions. Attachment research from 2007 shows that avoidantly attached individuals often withdraw from responsibilities that feel emotionally loaded. An anxiously attached individual often compensates by doing more. This becomes the loop. And then there's executive function differences. Neurodivergence can absolutely affect planning, initiation, and follow-through. The difference between executive dysfunction and weaponized incompetence is effort and ownership. Someone with ADHD may struggle, but they collaborate, seek tools, and repair. Weaponized incompetence resists ownership. And that distinction matters. When one partner becomes the constant regulator of logistics, resentment builds. And resentment is often grief. Grief that you are alone in responsibility. The Gottman Institute did some research and their research showed that contempt, not conflict, but contempt, is the strongest predictor of divorce. I read a thing, or either it was a video or a write-up of Gottman, but he he can essentially sit in a room with a couple and within 10 to 30 seconds, he can tell you whether that relationship will last or not. And a lot of it is based on contentment. Content grows when one partner feels chronically unsupported. Weaponized incompetence doesn't explode a relationship overnight, it erodes it slowly through small amounts. Can you just handle it? You're better at this. Why are you making it a big deal? Eventually, the overfunctioning partner stops feeling partnered, and that's lonely. And if you're listening to this and think, I understand, I'm starting to understand this, and I understand what I'm feeling like in my body, and it doesn't feel safe. I want to feel safer in my body. I want to learn more about this on how to help myself and to just feel safe in my body. I want you to know that you're not alone. This is my mid-roll. This is my mid commercial, if you will, my unpaid advertisement. And that's a little new method I'm trying so as to not bombard you in the beginning. So here's my role, trying to tie it in, and then we're going to get back in. If you're listening to this and thinking, hey, my body still doesn't feel safe. I want to know, I want you to know, I got you. This spring, I'm opening one small somatic healing group for women. We'll meet every Tuesday from 6 to 7:30 beginning April 21st. This will be a six-week therapist-led container for women ready to move from intellectual insight into embodied safety. Group is limited to five women. The full investment is$300, and that will be due at enrollment, which opens March 23rd. If this resonates with you, join the wait list through the link in the show notes because the individuals that sign up for the wait list are the first ones that will get contacted and get access to reserving their spot in the group. Again, five women. It's gonna go fast. It's gonna go, it's gonna be small, intimate, so much depth, so much love, so much good stuff. I can't wait. So get on that wait list, sis. Okay, now gently. Howie sometimes reinforce this. If you grew up in chaos, if you were the responsible child, if you were the emotionally mature one, you may have learned if I don't handle it, no one will. And overfunctioning then eventually feels like safety. When one member overfunctions, another often underfunctions. It's a stabilizing dynamic in family therapy, family systems. If you quickly redo task, if you micromanage, if you jump in before someone learns, you may unintentionally freeze the imbalance. This is not blame. This is just awareness. Sometimes we overfunction because we fear disappointment more than exhaustion. So some practical shifts. Shift number one, I want you to stop redoing the task. If you redo the task, you reinforce the dynamic. If someone loads the dishwasher, quote unquote, wrong, and you reorganize it, sigh loudly, correct them, or quietly fix it later, you are communicating. I am the standard, you are the assistant. Even if that's not what you mean. Now, this is not about lowering standards forever. This is about tolerating imperfection long enough for competence to grow. When someone is learning a skill, whether it's planning meals, scheduling appointments, handling school forms, they will not do it the way you would. If you step in too quickly, they never build capacity. And if they never build capacity, guess what? You stay overloaded. That's where the grief comes in. Because some of you redo tasks not out of control, but because you were afraid of chaos. If the bills aren't paid, there are consequences. If the kids forget something, you feel responsible. If the appointment is missed, it reflects on you. So redoing the task feels like safety. But long term, yes, it costs you your piece. Instead of redoing it, try this. Pause and ask yourself, is this unsafe or is this just not my way? If it's not unsafe, let it be. Competence grows through repetition, not correction. Shift number two, assign full ownership, not micromanaged help. I think this is the most important one. Many women don't actually delegate responsibility, they delegate task, and there's a difference. Delegating a task sounds like, can you take the trash out? Delegating ownership sounds like you are responsible for all trash management in this house. That includes knowing when it's full, replacing the bags, remembering pickup day, taking the trash to the curb, and bringing those empty trash cans right back in. Ownership includes mental load. If you are still reminding, tracking, noticing, and prompting, you are still the manager. And managers get tired. This is where resistance often happens because when you say, I need you to own this fully, you might hear, just tell me what to do. I'll do it. Why are you making this a big deal? You you know how to do it. You're so much better at this stuff. You you you do it your way anyway. That is the moment the old pattern tries to reassert itself. Instead of stepping back in, try, if you're not sure how you can figure it out, I trust you. Notice that discomfort for both of you. This discomfort, that's growth. That's what you want. Go do something while they figure it out. Shift number three, allow natural consequences. This one's hard, especially for trauma survivor nervous systems. Because allowing consequences feels like I'm letting things fall apart. But here's the question: are you preventing consequences or preventing someone else from feeling responsibility? If someone forgets to pack the diaper bag, misses a deadline, doesn't buy the gift for their own family, and you swoop in to fix it every time, they never experience the friction that builds accountability. Natural consequences are not punishment, they're teachers. We do not allow consequences that harm children, safety or stability. This is an important distinction. We do not allow consequences that harm children, safety or stability. But minor discomfort, embarrassment, last minute scrambling, that's data. If you've been the emotional shock absorber your whole life, this shift can feel really scary. Your nervous system might say, ah, this isn't safe. But sometimes what's unsafe is continuing to carry everything alone. Your body is saying it's unsafe because it's an unfamiliar path. Your nervous system will always choose the familiar discomfort before it will choose an unfamiliar comfort. So when you're at this cusp and making change, and you've got to walk away, or you gotta let them have natural consequences, and your body's saying, ah, this isn't safe, as long as there's no harm to children, there's no consequences of safety or stability, negative consequences, then you continue to let them carry it alone. Because you carrying all your stuff and everyone else's stuff and making sure everyone else is okay is not your job. That's where resentment comes in. That's what I've been talking about, right? We don't want that. Want to get rid of the ends of resentment. So let people have natural consequences. Shift four, have the conversation when you're calm, not in the midst of being resentful. Weaponized incompetence conversations cannot start from explosion. If you wait until you are seething, your tone will carry years of exhaustion and the other person will hear attack. Instead, regulate first, then say something like, I've realized I've been holding more of the mental load than feels sustainable. I don't want to be resentful. I want to be partnered. It's not you never helped me. It's not you're incompetent, but I need shared responsibility. This invites collaboration instead of defensiveness. If they respond with dismissal, that's important information. If they respond with confusion, that's workable. If they respond with willingness, that's promising. But you cannot measure someone's response if you only ever speak from burnout. Shift number five, notice your overfunctioning reflex. This is a deeper layer. Before we blame others, we have to look inward gently. Some of us overfunction because being needed feels safe. Control reduces anxiety. You learned early that no one else would step up. You fear being disappointed. Overfunctioning can become identity. You might say something like, Well, if I don't do it, it won't get done right. And maybe that's been true before. But here's the nervous system question: Is it true now? Or is it an old story? Because overfunctioning keeps you in hypervigilance. It feels productive, but it's actually survival mode. When you stop overfunctioning, you might feel restless, anxious, irritated, out of control, and useless. That doesn't mean you made the wrong choice. It means your body is adjusting to not being the constant regulator. Shift number six, clarify standards together. Sometimes what looks like incompetence is actually misaligned expectations. If you expect laundry to be folded within 24 hours, dishes to be done nightly, appointments to be booked immediately, but your partner expects laundry when basket is full, dishes when sink is full, and appointments sometime, eventually. You're living in two systems. So clarify. What does done mean to you? What timeline feels reasonable? What does shared responsibility look like? You might discover you've been operating on indivisible indivisible, invisible rules no one agreed to. Number seven. Shift number seven. Assess willingness versus capacity. Ask yourself, is this person unwilling or unskilled? Unskilled can learn. Unwilling requires boundary decisions. If someone says, I don't care, you can handle it, that's not incompetence, that's refusal, and that's a different conversation. Very different conversation. Might need to create some distance conversation. So you can communicate, you can delegate, you can allow consequences, but if someone persistently avoids ownership, minimizes your exhaustion, and weaponizes your competence against you, that's not just in competence, that's in imbalance. And long-term imbalance erodes intimacy. And if you're thinking if you're listening and thinking, but I'm just so tired. That makes sense. You didn't get here overnight, and you won't unwind it overnight. I encourage you to start with one shift, not all seven. Maybe it's not redoing the dishwasher. Maybe it's letting someone own one domain completely. Maybe it's just noticing when your jaw tightens. Shared responsibility is not too much to ask. Partnership should reduce nervous system load, not increase it. Partnership should reduce the nervous system load, not increase it. I am on my platform. I am banging my judge's gavel thingy hammer. Is the gavel? Why is that word not sounding right? I feel like I'm saying it wrong. I am stomping my feet. I'm banging on the desk. Partnership should reduce nervous system load, not increase it. All right, let's let's do a little bit of somatic work. Place one hand on your chest, one on your belly, if that is accessible to you. And I want you to inhale slowly. Slow it down for a count of four. Inhale for one, two, three, four. Hold it there for four. One, two, three, four. And I want you to let it out of the mouth for six slowly. Here we go. One, two, three, four, five, six. And say to yourself, I don't have to carry everything. Shared responsibility is safe. Notice if there's any parts of your body that resist that sentence. That resistance is old wiring. And we are softening it slowly by taking one shift at a time. All right. So I have a few journal prompts. So if you want to pull out something, get a notepad, get a notebook. These are the journal prompts I have for you to kind of see what's your experience with weaponizing competence and how to work through it. So where am I holding more than feels sustainable? Where are you holding that feels more sustainable? Meaning, where are you saying yes where you need to say no? Where are you doing more when you're at capacity, when you're at exhaustion and you're about to burn out, about to just fizzle out? So, question number two, what would partnership look like if it felt balanced? So, if you are in a relationship right now, what would make my partnership feel more balanced? What actions need to be had? What accommodations? What understandings, rules do we need to have for this to be more balanced? Question number three. What am I afraid would happen if I stopped overfunctioning? What would happen if you didn't rescue who you're constantly rescuing? That's a loaded one. That's a loaded one. That's a heavy one. Because it could be a partner, it could be a family member, it could be a worker, a co-worker. It's not just an easy thing to say bye-bye. So, what would happen if you stopped overfunctioning? And question four is this person unwilling or unskilled? Weaponized incompetence isn't about dishes. It's about dignity, nervous system safety, and about whether your body feels supported in your own home. And here's the truth: you deserve partnership, not management, not emotional babysitting, not chronic vigilance. Real true partnership. And that doesn't require anger, it requires clarity. Like I said, you didn't get here overnight. It's it's gonna be a conversation that has to be had. And if you are in a partnership, if you are in a relationship, I highly encourage you, even in a friendship, even in a family dynamic, I encourage you to have weekly check-ins, if not daily. Once a week, we meet at this time and we talk about our relationship. We talk about maybe kerfuffles that came up in the week and how we handled them. We talk about things that were said and done or not said and done that are still sitting with us. We talk about all the things about our relationship. We don't talk about sports, we don't talk about our neighbors, we don't talk about our family unless it's part of the relationship. We talk about the relationship. And then eventually, once you're through it all and doing it, doing it regularly, those can be fun sources of getting together and talking about life and making plans. Like it doesn't always have to be logistics about relationship. It could be the really good stuff too. But it takes a bit to get there because you've got to have these check-ins regularly. These are moments where we can talk about what's bothering us and we're here to find solutions. We're not here to attack, we're not here to be right or wrong, we're not here to be good or bad. We're just here to say this is a problem I'm having. Let's fix it. If this episode resonated with you, my dears, the best way to support this podcast is to follow, hit the like button, leave a review, or even leave me an emoji. How about a yellow heart emoji? I would love it. Or share it with a woman who needs to hear it. This helps this work reach more women who are quietly healing. If you're ready for deeper support, like the mid-roll said, I'm opening a small somatic healing group this spring. Five women, six weeks, 90 minutes each week. This is for women who are ready to move from intellectual understanding into embodied safety and nervous system regulation. We're gonna be doing yoga, we're gonna be doing chants, we're gonna be doing tarot card pools for the funsies, we're gonna be doing a somatic movement, we're gonna be working on self-talk, we're gonna be working on complete total embodiment of loving yourself. The full investment is 300 due with the enrollment to secure your spot. You can join the wait list now through the link in the show notes because spots are limited to five women, it will fill up fast. And enrollment opens March 23rd. So get on the wait list now so that you'll be the first to have access to the open enrollment on March 23rd. If you prefer individual work, you can book a free 15-minute consultation at the same length. Everything you need is in the show notes. If you just want to listen to something good, listen to my Divine Woman playlist on Apple, Spotify. It is a list, a playlist of music that is empowering, full of love, full of self-love encouragement. And I'm just, I really love the playlist. So if you want something good to listen to, check it out. It's in the show notes. Until next time, I want you to know that you are never too much, never too late, and you don't have to exhaust yourself to be worthy. I'll be right here every Wednesday to be your guide to help you love yourself to the absolute fullest. May you be happy and free. May our healing ripple outwards to bless the world with happiness and freedom. Take care of your awakened heart, and I will see you soon.

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Autumn Moran

Host