How OverFunctioning Could Be Ruining Your Relationship According to Rori Raye

A key aspect in the success of a relationship, according to Rori Raye, is the balance of the feminine and masculine energy. One way that we, as women, drive a relationship into imbalance is by overfunctioning within the relationship. Put very simply, overfunctioning is doing too much. Rori Raye talks about this in the Have the Relationship You Want eBook, and I would like to share some key insights with you here today.

First, let’s define overfunctioning. Overfunctioning is a term coined by Rori Raye, and it basically means doing more than your fair share. Its “doing other family members’ work, and helping where no help is needed. It’s stepping in when you know you could do a better job, stepping up to rescue someone, jumping in to save the situation” (Rori Raye, p 116). Doing this, doing too much, will actually deprive your MAN of his ability to be the masculine partner, because surprisingly, the nurturing in the relationship is a masculine energy, and not a feminine energy.

By taking all these things on, we make it actually unrewarding for men to act like men, and they become lazy and complacent and vaguely resentful and then, they quit trying to make us happy. “They opt out of Masculinity, hand it over to us, and let us do it all” (Rori Raye, p 117). And how many of us, as women, FEEL like we are doing it all and WISH that the man in our lives would step up and take some of the burden? Well, more than likely, we created this situation by essentially emasculating our men by over-doing and overfunctioning.

The real eye opener for me, though, was learning how nurturing is actually a masculine energy. It seems counter-intuitive, right? I mean, really, we as women – moms, wives, girlfriends – we live to give love, to grow our children and help out. But, nurturing is about DOING things, giving things, and literally giving your energy away. And as we know from previous discussions (see my blog if you did not read them), when you give energy out, that is a masculine action.

“Feeling compassion, connection, love, sensual delight in the way your baby feels to your touch, excitement at the way your lover feels to your touch – is completely different from reaching over and picking the baby up when it cries, from driving the kids to school, from reaching over and massaging your husband or boyfriend’s back when he never massages yours, from starting the conversation with a man you’ve never met because he seems too shy to take the first step, from soothing a man when his feelings are hurt by you or anyone else” (Rori Raye, p 117). But feeling things is completely different from doing things. And, allow me to say that there is nothing inherently wrong with doing because we are all a MIXTURE of the female and male energies is a relationship. Where the trouble lies is when we, as women, who should be in the feminine energy, take OVER the masculine energy by doing TOO MUCH.
Do you understand what I am saying? When we are functioning in a balanced way, we have the fluidity of movement between masculine and feminine energies. But, when we overfunction, we get literally STUCK in the masculine energy. And that leads to overbalance, and leads your man to have no recourse because you have taken HIS role in the relationship.

Let’s not get confused here, though, because we cannot confuse being loving with nurturing. “We completely miss the joy of loving our men by experiencing them. Experiencing men, like experiencing a sunset, or a walk in the forest, or a work of art, or childbirth, or rain, or sex requires that we let go of the urge to Do” (Rori Raye, p 117). EXPERIENCING these things is different than DOING these things, like taking pictures of the sunset is different than simply experiencing it. Taking a hike in the forest for exercise is different than simply EXPERIENCING what the forest has to offer you.

So try simply experiencing things – take a small moment and go outside, sit in the sunshine and experience the day. Feel the sun on your skin, the breeze in your hair, notice the smells and the sounds and the experience of it all. Don’t analyze it, judge it, assimilate it, just FEEL it. Do that until you get GOOD at it. Then start trying to do this in your relationship. Just EXPERIENCE it at times instead of fixing it.

When you are directing your masculine energy of nurturing toward your man, you may be making him feel like you are mothering him, and men don’t like that or want that. That makes you seem judgmental and apart from them. Instead, give him some attention and love, but don’t treat him like something that needs fixed. So stop overfunctioning – stop doing everything and give him the room to take it over. Instead, step back and start being cherished for what you are. This is what your husband or boyfriend wants – to love you for who and what you are.

References: Raye, Rori. "Have the Relationship You Want". 2007. Coach Rori LLC. Web.