Who is the Primary Driver of Family Decisions in Your Household?

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Readers had an interesting threadjack a while ago on “who is the primary driver of family decisions in your household,” and I thought it was so interesting that we should talk about it! Who is the primary driver in your household? Do you think this is a “duty” that should be more equally split between partners, or something else? If you have tried to share the decision-making duties with your partner, what steps have you taken? (Do you think resentment can build between spouses over this kind of issue?)

For my $.02, I am absolutely the primary driver of family decisions in my household — I’ve always sort of thought of it as a “cruise director” role, where lots of things are happening in the background to make a pleasant, seamless experience for the family.

{related: how to get help when you’re “the default parent”}

But… having said that, it kind of does sound like a job — and I certainly have a lot of background noise in my head about various things (next week meal plan! summer camp! baritone lessons! spring break 2023!). I’m ok at assigning tasks to my husband — make 3 calls, book these flights, take them to X — and I kind of see it as a personality flaw that I’m not great at relinquishing control.

{related: how to share emotional labor as parents}

In the book Fair Play, she talks a lot about how true partnership looks like being able to assign entire subjects to your spouse, giving them “CPE” control — conception, planning, and execution. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since reading the book — and in this area of “big family decisions” I’d absolutely say that we make all of our decisions together, but that I hold all of the CPE tasks. Hmmn.

Which kind of gets to the root of the reader question, where the commenter worried that her husband’s “go with the flow” personality would lead to resentment over time because “everything is my choice.” But, she notes, “[w]e always talk things through, and I always make sure he’s on board. We’ve never changed our lives over his objections. So I feel like he shares responsibility.”

{related: what to know about weaponized incompetence}

Some of the comments from readers in the threadjack:

• “I sort of fear what would happen should I die with young kids, but am hopeful that I’ve got a foundation that is buildable in place (good doctors, OK neighborhood for schools and school choices, reasonable house that could be sold easily if needed, good financial planning). Some things one person is just better at (one parent may be good at dealing with a very sick kid in the ER and the other parent is better wired to stay home with the other kids; one parent may have a work schedule where they are always the morning or noon or night dog walker; one may be better at being the family quartermaster or gutter cleaning; or driving with a student driver or doing math homework). It’s like football — your linebacker linebacks, your runner runs.”

• “I’m the strategic thinker and long-term planner in our relationship and that’s fine until it’s not…Either I feel overburdened by the responsibility / being the only one who can do math or my husband feels like he hasn’t had a say and will pester me with things (ie. we currently have an affidavit that we’re not allowed to talk about electric cars until the end of 2022 after the 3rd argument). My husband is lovely and great at many things, but he’s crap at math and struggles to prioritise.”
• ” I do try to just make the decision when he says doesn’t care about little things or things that I clearly have a strong opinion about. And I remind myself he unilaterally makes some decisions for us too.”

• “Often, I feel like I’m the driver (or the accelerator?), and DH is the brakes.”

• “I push him to actively make, or at least participate in, decisions by pointing out that not acting is its own decision.”

• “My husband actively tries to do this and I find it annoying as hell and basically won’t let him. On the plus side, me saying ‘I don’t care that you don’t care, I need you to be my partner in this decision’ usually works, I just get frustrated in having to say that to him repeatedly.”

• “I’ve had some luck with separating out big areas of decision making and giving my husband primary responsibility for them. For example, he handles everything relating to home bills (gas, electric, water, cable), tech, household maintenance, appliance research and purchasing, etc. He will ask my opinion and discuss things with me, but he’s the driver and decision-maker in those areas. We’re also transitioning some of the kid-related decisions to him, which have mostly fallen on me so far. I think it’s helped both of us feel like we’re a management team rather than a president and VP.“

• “Decision making is work, whether researching, determining that it doesn’t warrant research, or even just the mental energy to make the choice. I am the one who decides a lot of things (we did jointly determined our house, and we each pick our own cars). But it’s totally part of the mental load and we’ve been trying to do better at having him take over some things because I resent having to be the one to move things along.” 

{related: how to deal when your partner works so late that s/he never sees your kids}

Readers, what are your thoughts? Do you think you’re the primary driver of family decisions? Is it a shared duty? What if things have been chosen and planned and changes need to be made — who drives those changes?