From an early age we’re assigned roles: hall monitors, lunch-line captains, student council presidents, Shift leaders, camp counselors, resident assistants, and more. We give our kids and ourselves roles that define responsibility even further, such as using chore charts and assigning who’s in charge while we walk to the neighbor’s house and whose job it is to get the mail. Roles become even more defined in the workplace, where  we’re given a name tag, a business card, an office title, and a path of roles to get a promotion.

Roles don’t disappear as we age. In marriage (and relationships) there is often an invisible division of labor that develops. It’s an efficient way to divide responsibilities between two living in the same space. One person may be the only one who trims the kids’ nails, while the other always takes out the trash. Some roles are defined mutually, others by external forces. You may be the one to wake up early and get the kids ready for school because your husband’s the one who works third shift and gets home at 2 a.m. That’s a role given due to circumstances.

For the most part, roles provide order and a means … Continue reading..