Partner overwhelmed?
Simplify their life!
A bit of conditioning and they'll be thanking you for no longer having to worry about simple tasks like feeding themselves or using the potty. At least, they would be if they could still talk.
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the price of love
You start small. That’s the key. A nudge here, a suggestion there nothing overt, nothing that would raise alarms. The first time you hand her a sippy cup instead of a wine glass, she laughs, rolls her eyes, and takes it anyway. "You’re ridiculous," she says, but she drinks from it. You smile. Progress.
By the third week, she doesn’t question the plastic plate at dinner, the way her meals are pre-cut, the way you’ve started referring to her as "baby" in public. Her friends raise eyebrows, but she just giggles, swats your arm, and plays along. "He’s just teasing," she tells them. You’re not. You’re testing.
The conditioning begins in earnest when you introduce the pacifier. You leave it on her pillow, a silent offering. She scoffs, tosses it aside. But the next night, after a long day at work, she picks it up, turns it over in her fingers. "This is stupid," she mutters, but she puts it in her mouth. The relief is instant, her shoulders relax, her breathing slows. You watch from the doorway, satisfied. "Good girl," you murmur. She doesn’t hear you, but she doesn’t need to.
The diapers are the hardest sell. You start by "joking" about how much easier life would be if she didn’t have to worry about the toilet. "Imagine never having to get up in the middle of the night," you say, half-serious. She laughs, but the seed is planted. Then, one evening, you "accidentally" spill water on her favorite pants. "Oops," you say, handing her a thick, crinkly diaper. "Better safe than sorry." She hesitates, but the pants are ruined anyway. She puts it on. The humiliation burns in her cheeks, but so does the strange, shameful thrill of surrender.
You reinforce the behavior with praise, with treats, with the kind of affection she’s been craving. "See how much easier this is?" you coo, ruffling her hair as she sits, pacifier in mouth, coloring in a book you bought her. She doesn’t argue. She’s too busy chasing the high of your approval, the way your voice softens when she obeys.
Her resistance fades in stages. First, she stops wearing real clothes at home. Then, she stops correcting you when you call her "little one." Then, one day, she wakes up and doesn’t reach for her phone, she reaches for the stuffed bunny you left on her nightstand. You watch, proud, as she curls around it, thumb in her mouth. She doesn’t even notice.
The final step is the most delicate: the loss of speech. You start by encouraging her to point at what she wants, to use gestures instead of words. "Use your words," you tease, but the irony is lost on her. She’s too busy trying to please you. When she stumbles over a sentence, you frown, shake your head. "Try again, baby." She does. And when she can’t, when the words won’t come, you reward her silence with a kiss on the forehead, a "That’s my good girl."
By the time she’s fully regressed, she doesn’t remember what it was like to be anything else. She crawls to you when she’s hungry, whimpers when she’s thirsty, and stares blankly when old friends visit, their shock barely registering. You’ve taken everything from her, her voice, her independence, her potty training and replaced it with something simpler. Something better, you tell yourself.
But there are moments, late at night, when she’s asleep in the crib you installed in the corner of the bedroom, when you catch a flicker of the woman she used to be in the set of her jaw, the furrow of her brow. For a second, you wonder if she’s still in there, trapped, screaming. Then she stirs, mumbles something incoherent, and rolls over, clutching her blanket. You exhale. Safe.
You’ve simplified her life, just like you promised. No more bills, no more deadlines, no more expectations. Just you, her caretaker, her world. She doesn’t thank you, of course. She can’t. But the way she looks at you, like you’re her sun, her gravity, her everythingis thanks enough.
And if, sometimes, you wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, wondering if you’ve gone too far… well. That’s the price of love, isn’t it?
