What is Weaponized Incompetence?
I was reading a question this morning in one of the divorced parent groups I am a part of. A woman was asking questions about custody orders on behalf of her boyfriend. I presume that this man is a fully grown, competent individual capable of getting answers to his legal questions *if he wanted to.* I don’t know him or the situation, but I do know many men who pretend to be clueless in order to get women to do the emotional and physical labor necessary to accomplish some goal for them. And given the pervasiveness of this issue, I have to believe that we, as women, have been socialized to bear this burden and do this work.
When my oldest son was in preschool many moons ago, I remember coming back from a trip I had taken. I didn’t take many trips, to be honest, in part because I was afraid that the world would fall apart if I did. But I had also been sick at the time, and I occasionally had to fly to see a specialist. I walked into the preschool class the next day, and the teacher came up to me. She said, “I knew you were out of town. [Son] came to school with a lunch box full of cheese.” That was it. Just cheese. We laughed at X’s inability to pack a lunch.
A couple of years later, X and my oldest son went on a school camping trip. The parents were supposed to bring food for themselves. I wasn’t participating, and I was in the midst of a million other projects. X just didn’t bring anything. So they didn’t eat. I felt guilty that I had let my son down and not done the work that X was fully capable of doing.
Near the end of our marriage, I once again went out of town. The boys had scheduled haircuts. X didn’t take them. He claims he forgot, despite the 10 text messages I sent reminding him, including shortly before the appointments.
I have dozens of these examples, of times when X needed to be the adult and take some small amount of responsibility for participating in the goings on in our life. And he just didn’t. For a decade, I thought that X was just clueless, that he needed a guiding hand to help him figure out how to adult. I didn’t ever really consider that it was deliberate. But it was deliberate, a fact that became clearer during our divorce and “co-parenting” years. I believe that X packed the cheese and forgot the haircuts on purpose. He didn’t want me to leave or go on vacation or have any life beyond him. So he messed up on purpose so that I wouldn’t ask him to take any responsibility. The more overwhelmed I was with tasks, the less time I had to consider how unhealthy the relationship was.
This is Weaponized Incompetence. According to Choosing Therapy, “Weaponized incompetence is a poorly executed action or behavior that someone does on purpose, while appearing to do so out of incompetence. The goal of this tactic is to make oneself look like they are incapable of performing an action, therefore removing ownership and accountability for the action being completed.”
It’s really important to talk about the removal of ownership and accountability because I believe it is at the root of a lot of this behavior (in addition to be used as manipulation). In the first example of the woman asking questions about her partner’s custody battle, if she takes on all of the labor and does the work, but it ultimately fails and he does not get custody, she can be blamed. It’s on her. She got the advice. She led him astray. (I do not believe this, of course, but this is how it is twisted.) He can deflect all responsibility for the consequences because he was not the one who pursued the information or ultimately followed through. And with toxic individuals, they are either the Hero or the Victim. If it works out, they can take ownership and be the hero. If it doesn’t, they are the victim of their partner’s controlling ways. Never mind that their pretend incompetence is the reason she stepped in at all. And in the example of X not packing food for a camping trip, I am the one left feeling guilty. I don’t want my son to suffer, so I take on more and more and more tasks and responsibility – to the point of exhaustion.
Weaponized Incompetence in Divorce and Custody
In the context of divorce and custody, weaponized incompetence can be particularly damaging, as it not only strains relationships but can also impact legal outcomes and the well-being of children.
One example of weaponized incompetence during a divorce might involve a parent who consistently claims they are unable to manage basic childcare tasks, such as preparing meals or helping with homework. By pretending to be incapable, they might try to push the other parent into taking on a greater share of the caregiving duties, hoping to weaken the other parent’s case for custody by framing them as controlling or demanding.
Another example could be a parent who deliberately fails to keep track of important documents or court dates, claiming they are too disorganized or forgetful. This could lead to missed deadlines or incomplete filings, potentially sabotaging the legal process and causing delays, which can add stress and financial strain to the other party.
In a more subtle form, a parent might use weaponized incompetence by not following through on agreed-upon parenting plans, such as consistently being late for pick-ups or drop-offs, and then claiming they “just aren’t good with time management.” This behavior can cause frustration for the responsible parent.
Weaponized incompetence in these scenarios is a manipulative tactic that not only undermines the legal process but can also have long-lasting effects on family dynamics and the well-being of the children involved.
How to respond to Weaponized Incompetence?
When we move out of toxic and abusive relationships, it can be really hard to let go of the roles that we have been forced into, including doing everything for our ex-partners. But we must. In terms of those partners, as long as we keep doing for them, even if it’s to protect our children, we make it much harder for the court to intervene. All they see is our control, not the unwillingness of the other parent to step up. The court couldn’t see that his “incompetence” was a way to control me and keep me stuck. X knew that I cared about my kids and would step in. But he could then twist the narrative to show me “interfering” in his custodial time. I had to be willing to let him fall on his face (and ultimately I did that even though it made my children’s lives temporarily more difficult).
So, if you find yourself constantly doing for someone else and are frustrated by that work, what can you do? I’d start by asking yourself a couple of questions:
- Is this person an adult?
- Is this person capable in other areas of their lives?
- Is it MY responsibility to tell them how to perform this task/complete this job?
- What will happen if I don’t tell them how to do this thing?
- Can I sit with the discomfort of watching them fail and know that it is still not my responsibility?
At some point you have to let go. You have to draw a circle around yourself and around that other person and assign ownership of yourself to you and ownership of their responsibilities to them. They might fail. Or at least fail to act. It still doesn’t make it your responsibility to fix their life.
One final thought:
I have found for myself – and I imagine this is true for others – that because I was so conditioned to “help,” this was a pattern not just in my abusive marriage. Learning how to stop myself from intervening when someone (including my children) was capable of doing a task has been an ongoing lesson. If I step in, I am preventing that person from learning from mistakes and feeling good about accomplishing hard things. But I am also preventing myself from getting the important information I might need about a person and a relationship if I am constantly doing things to prevent their discomfort. You need to see how people deal with adversity. You need to see how they manage tasks that are difficult. And if it is a new partner in a difficult custody fight, you really need information to help you (and the court) discern where the problem truly lies.