What is a Competitive Relationship?

Human is a social being that cannot imagine his life without interaction with other people. Even if you see yourself as a sociopath, it is hard to avoid communication in the society. Every day you enter into different kinds of relationships with family, coworkers, friends, acquaintances or simple passers-by. As a great poet said “No man is an island, entire of itself”. Naturally, we prefer to build relations with the people we like. Relations between a man and a woman are the most complicated ones. There are five main roles in the relations between a man and a woman.

They are as follows:

• Domination. One partner dominates in all the spheres of their life, while the other partner is submissive. Such relations cannot be called harmonious but very often both partners are satisfied, on condition that one partner is a strong leading character, while the other prefers to be guided and controlled. The danger of these relations is that they are often accompanied by the violence and suppression.
• Manipulation. They are similar to previous ones but this domination is hidden. One partner makes another one do what he wants by the means of flattering, scandal or other psychological tricks.
• Partnership. Both partners perform equal roles in relations and solve all problems together. They are the players of one team, called “Family”.
• Fellowship. It is deeper than partnership. Both partners act like a single whole, complementing each other.
• Competitive relationship. It is a very common type of relations, especially in a family life when partners are fighting for the role of the leader.

Competitive relations are not often understood by the partners. For this reason we decided to enlighten the following topic in order to help you in being a harmonious couple. How can you guess that your relations are built on the competitiveness? There are some signs someone is competing with you or you are competing with someone:

• Competitive relations are characterized by the desire to be better than your partner in work or even at simple house chores, or have greater popularity among friends etc.
• You are not happy when your soul mate achieves success. On the contrary you feel down and angry.
• Both of you are fighting for being the head of the family. For example, a wife keeps telling her husband that he cannot take any decisions without her, while her husband thinks that his wife is helpless without him.

Competitive relationships examples

The competitiveness of the spouses is most often expressed in the desire to prove to the partner the importance of your achievements — in career and finance, in the popularity among friends, in personal success. This pattern of behavior is destructive and gradually destroys relationships. Besides, the competition is always driven by jealousy. A woman can envy the fact that her man has more friends, higher salary or more interesting life. The same can be said about a man being envious of his woman, as a woman often has high earnings today, which greatly affects the self-esteem of her soul-mate. As a result, there is a painful resentment formed in both of them, and, perhaps, a hidden anger as well.

A woman can initially choose a weak man as a partner to surpass him in looks, intellectually, financially and to assert herself in this way. The habit of leading is often transferred into family relations. There is a category of men who like it, but there are those who do not accept this attitude. When showing a man her superiority, a lady underestimates his male ego. A man, to rise against the background of a woman, criticizes her for any reason, deliberately does not say compliments, and does not do household chores, making it clear that this is her duty, because she is no longer capable of anything.

For a woman, this distribution of roles in the family is not as destructive as for a man who is forced to remain in the shadow of a strong wife. Sooner or later he will get tired of proving something and go to another lady, who will listen to him, understand, admire. In the other case he will simply lie down on the sofa and completely cease to participate in the life of the family. The other extreme is when two strong and purposeful people try to build a relationship. The family union of the two leaders often turns into a daily competition: at work, at home, in the kitchen, in bed. Such couple competitions are exacerbated if both of partners work at the senior positions. Competition is not the best way to prove your superiority. In business or at work it’s a great quality, but not at home.

How to stop being competitive in a couple?

1. Compromise and respect must prevail in every family.Every man knows that he is the head of the family, but it is a woman who properly directs him. Without her guidance, a man can lose the right track in the life and fail. The task of a woman is to make her man feel that he is a superman. It is necessary to learn how to praise the partner, to see the strengths of the character.Even if a woman currently has better position at work or higher salary, she should not emphasize on this fact. After all, success is temporary, and you never know where you will be tomorrow. Your family is the only thing that remains with you if you are low.
2. Collaboration.Relationships are impossible without collaboration. You should never take vital decisions without discussing them with your better half. You can try doing some work together. Isn’t it a great idea to do the big cleaning or nice cooking together?  Working in a team, you will feel no need to compete.
3. Partners need to support and enjoy, not being envious at each other’s success.If the feeling of envy still remains, you need to reconsider what you are doing: to develop your strong sides and do what makes you happy. If you know that you enjoy gardening, go and buy new flower seeds, but don’t feel envious that your partner won a football cup. You have to understand that being yourself is better than trying to be like someone, even if this “someone” is your soulmate. When you succeed in your hobby and interest, you partner will praise you for your achievements.
4. A man and a woman create a couple to complement each other.Someone is better in one thing, someone – in another, and this is normal. If your man cooks better pasta then you do, you have to thank all gods for it and enjoy this pasta.
5. It is important to learn how to talk to each other, immediately explaining what disturbs and hurts in the behavior of the partner.Perhaps he does not even notice that returning home from the office he continues speaking in a loud voice, trying to control everyone.
6. Written agreement.It is a good idea to write down an agreement of relations that clearly states what the wife does, what the husband does. And if he does not do that, then the second party simply sits and waits. If you want to prove something to the partner — do 10 squats  and push-ups, take care of your duties, but do not interfere the spheres where the other partner directs. It is one of the fun ways to avoid competition in a relationship.
7. Self- respect.You have to work with your self-esteem. A person who is confident has no desire to prove anything to anyone. Such person knows his strong and weak sides, being able to estimate himself in a rational way.
8. A bit of a competition can be beneficial for the relations.If both partners are trying to be better for each other, they will develop and learn something new. Also they will gain self-respect that is quite useful for both.
9. Set the right priorities.If you feel that you are constantly fighting with your better half, you have to ask yourself, “Do I want to be a leader or I want to be happy?”.  In case your goal is happiness, it would be better to let your other half take decisions and be the head of the family. For this you have to believe that your soul mate will do everything right. In case you do not stop being competitive, sooner or later these relations will break up as nothing will keep people together except of silly competitions.

That’s why if you realize that you got into this unpleasant situation, it is better to talk about everything with your partner. The secret of long-term relationships is that there should not be someone important, everyone can only have the same rights, certain responsibilities and equal importance. However, you have to learn to how give and receive the love expressed in selfless actions in order to feel fully close to your partner-leader.

These manifestations of love must be present in your everyday life (a gentle hug, a pleasant surprise, a cup of coffee in bed), and there is no need to keep track of who has done what and how many times. It is important to love and openly admit it. And remember, there are no absolutely identical people, someone is necessarily to be better in something, and someone –  in another. Both partners in a couple should understand that they are like one, but not the same because a man and a woman are created to complement each other, and where she cannot achieve something, he will certainly succeed. Only in this way they will be able to overcome any obstacles and difficulties together.

Marissa Bonner

I am a content creator and chief editor at ok-dating.net. Being a part of the creation of something genuinely beneficial for our readers is just incredible. I am happy to see how our project improves the lives of so many people who are searching for love worldwide. 

I received my PhD in linguistics from the University of Chicago. My education has given me a deep understanding of the importance of language nuance. This, in turn, has shaped my special approach to writing and refining text pieces.