Why Are We Keeping Score in Our Relationship? A Fresh Take You Haven’t Read Before
Friends always ask me, "What’s the number one thing couples fight about?" And they always look a little disappointed when I tell them—it’s who does the dishes. They were hoping for something more dramatic. But I kid you not—many couples come to see me arguing about who picked up the kids, who did the dishes, who made the dentist appointment. And sure, communications skills can help but I find they are really only twenty percent of the solutions. Getting to the bigger emotional blueprints shaping your communication is the real gold.
What annoys me is how concrete and behaviorist we’ve become with this issue. It’s framed as a male-female thing or a project managment thing. This whole conversation too easily gets wrapped up in the idea of unfairness between men and women. Sure, sometimes that really is THE thing that is happening, and we talk about gender socialization. But I have enough messy wives, neat husbands, and queer couples struggling with the exact same dynamics to know it’s not just about how men are raised to avoid housework.
There are some trendy new terms, like "mankeeping," which highlight how women often have to manage their male partners. And while I’m sure the term will gain traction, I think the best use of these kinds of analyses is to start a conversation—not to weaponize them to shame your partner.
Now, there’s a book I really dig about running a household together (Fair Play), and many of my couples have bought the book or used the Fair Play card deck. And if it helps, wonderful. Stick with it. But for some couples it hasn’t made much of a difference in shifting the lousy feeling of unfairness. Cue the dramatic music—duh duh duh.
Why? Because scorekeeping is often about something deeper and more tender. Getting to the heart of it may require a facilitated conversation with someone like me—so you can hold that tenderness together and make agreements on how to navigate it. Scorekeeping sucks up all the air in the relationship, becoming the main focus—perhaps because it’s an easier way to avoid or distract from more touchy-feely vulnerabilities that live underneath.
What’s Beneath the Scorekeeping?
1. Protecting Oneself From Feeling Unseen
When fairness becomes the focal point, it can be an attachment protest. In relationships, an attachment protest is an emotional reaction to feeling disconnected, unseen, or unappreciated by a partner. This often stems from childhood experiences where love and attention felt inconsistent or conditional. If one person feels unseen or unappreciated, keeping score becomes a way to make their pain visible.
Try this: Instead of debating who does more, ask, Do you feel like I cherish you? Do you trust that I notice your efforts?
2. An Internalized Voice That Feels Worth Must Be Earned
Some of us grew up in households where we had to “earn” our worth—where doing enough meant being good enough. My couples hear me talk about my German husband. He is nagging me all the time about being neater and cleaner. He has his mom’s voice running in the background. If that voice is still running the show, we might hold our partners to an invisible standard they never signed up for. This wound often comes from parents or caregivers who, intentionally or not, reinforced the idea that love and approval were contingent on performance.
Try this: Get curious. Whose voice am I hearing when I feel like I’m not doing enough or my partner isn’t doing enough?
3. Grief for the Relationship We Thought We’d Have
No one tells us this, but relationships require grieving. I’m a bit of a weirdo because grief is a big part of my work with couples. People come in with holy expectations of what a relationship is supposed to be. At some point, though, we realize the partnership we imagined isn’t the one we actually have.
This wound often stems from cultural messages or childhood fantasies about love—the idea that it should be effortless, perfectly reciprocal, or always emotionally fulfilling. I’m not saying you should settle for a lazy jerk, but I am saying that many of us have been programmed from a young age to believe that a relationship could rescue us from life’s pains. Our rational mind knows that isn’t true, but some part of our unconscious still clings to that hope.
Scorekeeping can be a way of holding onto an ideal rather than grieving what’s is not on offer in regular ole relationships.
Try this:What do I long for that I feel I can’t have? Sometimes, grief softens resentment.
4. A Defense Against Vulnerability
Scorekeeping keeps us in a transactional loop - controlled and robotic, in a way. But relationships thrive on generosity, not balance sheets. Desire needs play, spontaneity, and unevenness. Often, this wound comes from past experiences where this kind of spontaneous, kind-hearted generosity really was taken for granted in childhood or a previous relationship.The pain of that is strong enough that keeping things “fair” can feel like a way to protect oneself from getting hurt again.
Try this: Experiment with giving freely. What happens if I let go of “fair” and focus on what feels good to me to give? Can I let myself enjoy giving again?
5. A Power Struggle in Disguise
In some couples, the real fight isn’t about fairness—it’s about autonomy and control. One or both partners may feel a deep need to assert power to avoid feeling vulnerable, dependent, or at the mercy of the other. This often stems from early experiences of feeling helpless and powerless.
For example, in my childhood, my mother manipulated me with money, so as soon as I could, I became self-sufficient to ensure I was never powerless or helpless in getting what I needed. Scorekeeping can become a way we protect ourselves from reliving that old sense of powerlessness, creating a sense of control and ensuring we never have to rely on someone else to meet our needs again.
Try this:What would I fear losing if I stopped keeping score? What does power mean to me in this relationship?
Loosening the Grip on Fairness
Fairness matters, of course. I want to make sure you get I don’t blow this off and assume it is always deeper, but I would say a good half the time it is, or it is a mix of many things. But when scorekeeping becomes the entire frame, we lose sight of the relationship itself. What if, instead of keeping score, we could get curious about what’s really stirring underneath? What if fairness was the symptom, not the solution?
The paradox is this: the more we fixate on fairness, the more resentful we become. But the more we listen—to ourselves and each other—the more we build something better than a balanced scorecard: real intimacy.
Why You Might Still Need Couples Therapy After Reading This Article
Reading this, you might have had an aha! moment—and that’s great! But in therapy, something deeper happens. I don’t just give you insights; I help you slow down, feel what’s underneath, and actually experience something new with your partner. Therapy isn’t about keeping a behavioral scorecard. It’s about discovering where these frames and vulnerabilities come from, so you can hold a wider lens on what drives scorekeeping.
Our culture is obsessed with measurement—grades, productivity, tracking, and, yes, fairness in relationships. But when we mix that mindset with “Do you love me?” we end up in a transactional loop that keeps real connection just out of reach.
That’s why couples come to see me—not just to talk about fairness but to feel and experience each other in a new way. If you’re ready to explore that, I’d love to help.