What Role Do You Play In Relationships?

You're exuberant when you're happy, pitiful when you're frustrated, you know how to be persuasive: this is your inner child expressing itself. You play this role in your relationship to secure love, to be protected and forgiven. You allow your partner to make decisions on your behalf, which means you can avoid being in the wrong and that you need not fear losing their affection. But this childlike way of acting can inhibit sexual fulfilment in a relationship.

You will find it easier to escape the role of the child if your partner is not comfortable with playing the parent and if they feel you are too dependent on them. Take up a new hobby as a couple or start a personal project if you want to build your self-confidence. You're sure to see a change in the tone of the relationship.

You express yourself in your relationship through rebellion. You reject anything that symbolises authority or power in your partner and you are full of negative views about their intentions. You are quick to lose your temper if your partner makes a disparaging remark about you - you feel as if you are under attack so you go on the attack yourself. This attitude arises from a fear of showing weakness, or being judged for making mistakes.

The teenager approached relationships in a confrontational way that says 'love me or leave me'. Dramatic show-downs, experimentation misunderstandings and over-the-top reactions when things go wrong characterise this type of relationship, which can seem like a battle. If you're both playing the role of teens it can be a passionate and interdependent relationship. But to make it last you will always need new things to fight over. Perhaps you are tired of conflict and would like to pursue a more adult relationship. What are you afraid of?

A 'parent' looks after everything, foreseeing the unforeseeable and meeting all the needs of the family. Playing the role of the parent means making decisions for the other person, and deriving self-esteem from completing all sorts of different tasks. No mission seems unachievable if the aim is to protect your partner - even if you are protecting them form themselves. By playing this role, you get to feel needed. But you may fear losing control.

Also, by playing the role of parent, you force your partner into playing the role of the child, which deprives them of being able to use their initiative. In a couple like this, sex might not be very important. The 'parent-child' couple - who might continue to call each other mum and dad long after their children have left home, for example - will not tend to be hedonistic types. If you want to escape this role then you need to work on letting go.

The friend partner shares everything: emotions, opinions, and their salary. With two you're stronger and you exist more intensely. You offer support and togetherness and you put the interests of the relationship before the interests of the individual. You think in terms of 'we' rather than 'I'. The division of tasks therefor poses no problem as long as it's equal and you can revisit it from time to time. You can play the friend role to the full when you are being sociable and open to the world. When you take on this role you unconsciously force your partner to play a similar role. The 'friend' couple can find a good balance in most things as long as they are pursuing projects that interest them both. But being so transparent about everything can sometimes lead to disappointment - to avoid this you both need to cultivate your individuality as well.

Playing the role of a therapist shows a desire to come to aid of your partner. The smallest difficulty give your the opportunity to care for them, and where there are no difficulties you might try to construct one out of whatever is happening. This can give you a certain amount of power - though more imagined than real - if we believe actual therapists. The therapist partner wants to be appreciated, admired, envied - they know how to ask the big questions and air the real problems.

In a couple where one partner plays the role of therapist, it might be difficult to establish a good sex life because sexual pleasure means laying yourself bare - and not just in the literal sense. The therapist doesn't like to reveal their true self, but likes to be let in on the secrets of others. In doing this, the therapist forces their partner to play the role of patient, and the couple exists in a permanent state of anticipation of eventually solving all their problems. This time obviously never comes. If you let down some barriers and express your emotions it might help you to re-establish a balance in the relationship.