What do I reasonably owe? What am I refusing?

A guided 18 to 22 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. This exercise looks as carefully at doing too much for others as it does at doing too little. It will not make you responsible for everybody.

GUIDES

You have named it. Now spend some time on it.

Each Guide gives you a clear way to look at one subject in your own time. Choose where to begin. You do not need to work through everything.

The real ask

What is actually being asked

Separate what your family has asked for from what you assume is expected of you.

Where this often ends up: A plain list of what has been asked, and what you added yourself.

It may also end with a clearer view of something, or with nothing that needs doing.

Around twenty minutes

Obligation and guilt

What you owe and what you do not

Work out what you reasonably owe here, with guilt kept out of the calculation.

Where this often ends up: Your own account of what you owe, written without guilt doing the work.

It may also end with a clearer view of something, or with nothing that needs doing.

Around thirty minutes

Where the line is

What you would say yes and no to

Decide what you will keep carrying, what you would hand back and what stays as it is.

It may also end with a clearer view of something, or with nothing that needs doing.

Around twenty minutes

This Guide is free, like everything else in The Clearing.

You can see what it covers before you begin.

Start this Guide

A man in his late thirties pausing in the doorway of a Northern Irish family kitchen while his sister handles the washing up

What would happen if you did not do it?

Ask it about each thing separately. The answers are rarely the same. Some of them are embarrassing.

Some families do not need more. They need somebody to stop solving things on their behalf.

What you'll look at

01One person at a time
02What they have asked for
03What you provide
04What they no longer ask for

A note from Mark

The instinct in families is to answer this question with more. More time, more money, more sorting things out. Occasionally that is right. Just as often, the family is quietly asking for less. They cannot say so, because the person doing all of it is obviously well meaning and visibly exhausted.

The question I would put is simple. What would happen if you did not do it? Sometimes the answer is that it would collapse, and then you know. Frequently the answer is that somebody else would do it slightly worse. Everyone would survive.

Read my full view ↓

I would also look at what people have stopped asking for. That list tells you what has been reliably refused, or what somebody has taken over so completely that asking became unnecessary.

And I would separate obligation from choice. A great deal of what people do for their families is neither needed nor wanted. It is a debt they decided they owed a long time ago and have never re-examined.

What you'll get

This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.

01
Assumed need
02
Demonstrated need
03
Doing too much
04
What is actually yours
+
Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.

See everything included ↓

01What you came here with
02What you assume they need
03What they have actually asked for
04What they have stopped asking for
05What you provide
06Where you are over-functioning
07Where something is genuinely missing
08What is yours and what is not
09The rival reading
10What deserves protecting
11The credible alternative
12What, if anything, should change
13What remains unresolved
14Where this goes next

When you finish

Bring it back to your tree.

Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.

At the end, the conversation asks how Family and belonging feels for you right now, in your own words. It also asks what, if anything, would feel different. Nothing changes on your tree unless you say it changes.

The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.

Session
Date
The part of life this belongs to
How you described it
What would feel different
What we found
The alternative we tested
What deserves protecting
What should change, if anything
Next actions
What to notice or find out
What remains unresolved

Open My Tree

What now?

01 · Save it
What you assume they need, in your words.
02 · Test it
Ask one of them directly what would actually help. Then accept the answer.

See more ↓

What I would do

01
Take one person at a time. The answers rarely match.
02
Separate need, want, what you want to give and what you feel obliged to give.
03
Look hard at where you are doing too much. It is the harder one to see from inside.
04
Ask what people have stopped asking for and why.
05
Allow the conclusion that you are doing the right amount.

Test it

01
When did they last ask you for this, in words?
02
What would happen if you did not do it?
03
Is this need, or is it your habit of being the one who does it?

The alternative

The expected conclusion is that your family needs more from you. Sometimes the evidence points firmly the other way: they may need you to stop solving things they need to own themselves, which is harder to do than solving them. Equally the reverse can hold. You may believe you are giving somebody independence when what they have been asking for, repeatedly and quietly, is reliability. And in some families the honest finding is that what is being provided is roughly what is needed, and the discomfort belongs to guilt rather than to any gap.

Think about this

What each person has actually asked you for this year.
What somebody has stopped asking for.
What you provide that nobody requested.
What it costs you, and whether they know.
What you would have to let go wrong.

Take this to Ask Mark

You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.

This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.

Take this to Ask Mark →

Go a little further

READ · ESSAY

Persons, Character and Morality

Bernard Williams

Read after Singer. The disagreement is real. It matters for how you actually live.

Family Therapy in Clinical Practice

Murray Bowen

Bowen's idea of differentiation, staying connected to your family without being governed by it, is the useful frame for most adult family questions.

Negotiating Family Responsibilities

Janet Finch and Jennifer Mason

British sociology on how family obligation is negotiated in practice rather than fixed by role. It shows how quietly duties get allocated.

Recommended by the TAIU community

What helped you?

If you've read, watched, listened to or tried something that helped you think about this differently, we'd like to hear about it.

We review recommendations before sharing them with the community.

Finished the exercise?

What did this uncover?

Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.

Two people at a workshop bench at closing time, one leaning in while the other puts a mistake right themselves

Next tool

What am I responsible for?

If the question is bigger than your family

Continue →Family patterns →

Before you start

I feel responsible for everyone in my family.

Reading, if you would rather understand the question first.

Further thinking

Family Therapy in Clinical Practice
Murray Bowen
Negotiating Family Responsibilities
Janet Finch and Jennifer Mason
Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis
Stephen Karpman

See the thinking ↓

Book

Family Therapy in Clinical Practice

Murray Bowen

Bowen's idea of differentiation, staying connected to your family without being governed by it, is the useful frame for most adult family questions.

Book

Negotiating Family Responsibilities

Janet Finch and Jennifer Mason

British sociology on how family obligation is negotiated in practice rather than fixed by role. It shows how quietly duties get allocated.

Article

Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis

Stephen Karpman

The original seven page paper that introduced the drama triangle, free to read and much less confident than the workshop version of it that followed. The Rescuer position is the part worth your attention: help that solves a problem the other person could have solved, and so removes the occasion for them to learn.

Book

The Dance of Anger

Harriet Lerner

Lerner writes about families as systems, where one person steadily doing more quietly arranges for somebody else to do less. It explains the pattern most people notice late: you become competent, then indispensable, then angry with people for depending on you in exactly the way you taught them to.