Picture the following scenario: You come home from a long day of work, exhausted, and ask your partner to handle dinner. “But you’re so much better at cooking,” they say. They point out how every time they try to prepare a meal, they end up burning it. Frustrated, you decide it’s easier if you just make something yourself rather than deal with this whole back-and-forth — or be forced with the prospect of eating charred chicken.
Maybe your partner really is a bust in the kitchen. Or maybe they’re — purposefully or not — engaging in a manipulation tactic called “weaponized incompetence” to get out of doing a chore they don’t enjoy.
Weaponized incompetence has gotten a lot of attention on social media lately, particularly on TikTok, where people (mostly women) are discussing the term and sharing instances of it popping up in their lives. So we spoke to a couples’ therapist about how to deal with this dynamic in a romantic partnership — and other relationships in which it tends to rear its ugly head.
What is weaponized incompetence?
Also called “strategic incompetence,” weaponized incompetence is “when someone knowingly or unknowingly demonstrates an inability to perform or master certain tasks, thereby leading others to take on more work,” according to Psychology Today. But psychologist Susan Albers, PsyD, takes things one step further: She says it’s when a person performs a task poorly on purpose, so that their partner (or coworker, friend, etc.) will take over in the future.
In other words, it’s done deliberately in order to push off labor onto another person. Dr. Albers does note that the person weaponizing incompetence isn’t always doing so consciously, though they can be. It can also be considered a manipulation tactic, but is categorized more neutrally as a “psychological dynamic.”
What causes weaponized incompetence?
If you’ve dealt with this phenomenon in your life, you might think the person weaponizing incompetence is doing so out of laziness — they simply don’t feel like doing the dishes. That could be true, but Psychology Today posits that they could be trying to avoid responsibility, especially if they’re being asked to do something that makes them feel anxious or uncomfortable.
Dené Logan, a couples therapist based in Los Angeles, tells Katie Couric Media that she often sees this dynamic play out within couples she’s treating, where one partner is the “over-functioner” who handles the bulk of the household tasks.
“The over-functioner is often the person who had a lot more responsibility growing up,” she says, adding that they “will be the person who feels like they need to keep their environment controlled in order to be safe.” Meanwhile, the person who weaponizes incompetence may have been the younger child, or just one who grew up used to having parents or siblings step in and do things for them.
While weaponized incompetence is more commonly associated with men in heterosexual relationships, anyone is capable of it. In fact, Logan says she was the “under-functioner” in her marriage.
Ultimately, everyone’s different, and the only way to really get to the bottom of what’s causing your relationship to fall into this trap is to talk to your partner and dig deeper — an approach we’ll get to shortly.
Weaponized incompetence at work
While the common portrayal of this problem might be a husband who pretends he doesn’t know what a mop is, this dynamic can show up in a number of settings, including the office.
In the workplace, it might look like a coworker attending meetings unprepared, requiring other people to fill them in or refusing to learn new technology — like that oft-repeated meme of the high-paid executive who consistently asks their Gen Z intern “how to save a document as a PDF.” Or maybe you work with someone who keeps making the same mistake over and over so that eventually, they’ll stop being assigned a certain task.
Logan cautions against framing every single incident of failure or error as weaponized incompetence, particularly when it comes to technology and older coworkers: “If they don’t know how to do something, that’s not necessarily a weapon. That might be the truth.” Still, that doesn’t mean the best course of action is to immediately swoop in and correct their mistakes. The better approach is to walk the person through how to do the task at hand. “It might be a little uncomfortable in the moment,” Logan says, “but the more caring thing to do is to support that person so they have the agency to do it themselves the next time.”
The mental health nonprofit Give an Hour recommends a number of strategies to tackle weaponized incompetence in the workplace, such as having clear communication when it comes to delineating tasks, and offering mentorship to teammates in need. If necessary, you might want to involve management or HR if the problem persists.
How to deal with weaponized incompetence in a relationship
As with most other relationship issues, the common conflict resolution advice applies when bringing up the issue of weaponized incompetence with your partner. You’ll want to pick a good time to have a conversation, when you can discuss the issue openly, using “I” statements and trying to avoid placing blame.
How can I take responsibility for the part that I’m playing, which has led to me feeling like my partner is incompetent?
Dené Logan
Unlike in the workplace, relationships don’t have an HR department — but the same strategy of showing your partner how to do a task effectively, versus swooping in and taking over for them, can help break the cycle. If your approach to dividing household labor isn’t working, it might be time to switch it up. For example, instead of having to remind your partner every other week that it’s their turn to vacuum, maybe it would be more effective to divide and conquer per task, and have each person commit to owning a certain chore.
But Logan also has some advice that may be tough to swallow for anyone who feels they’ve been the victim of weaponized incompetence. She recommends asking yourself, “How can I take responsibility for the part that I’m playing, which has led to me feeling like my partner is incompetent?” Going further: “How can I help interrupt this pattern?”
That might mean taking a long, hard look at your interactions, and assessing how you might be perpetuating this cycle. She says her male clients often say that after a few times of doing a task with their partner “coming behind me, telling me how I’m doing it wrong… they’ll shut down and say, ‘Just tell me what you want me to do.’” So if your partner misses some spots vacuuming, you can ask them to go over the carpet again — rather than your usual tactic of sighing in frustration and grabbing the Hoover from them.
Logan adds that in order to truly break the cycle of weaponized incompetence, both partners need to make a shift. “The only way relationship dynamics ever change is if each person stops pointing the finger at their partner and points it back at themselves and says, How do I take responsibility for what I’m willing to change?”
