Why Do Relationships Become Power Struggles?
Jessica Benjamin’s “Doer and Done-To” Dynamic and the Possibility of Mutual Recognition
Have you ever entered a conversation hoping to be understood and found yourself in a conflict and increasingly determined to prove that you were right?
Maybe you explained yourself repeatedly, but the other person seemed to hear only criticism.
Maybe you felt blamed for everything that had happened, or you became so focused on what the other person had done that you temporarily lost sight of how you were affecting them.
A disagreement now became a struggle over who caused the problem, whose experience mattered, and who would have to give in.
Relationships can become embroiled in these opposing positions:
The one who acts and the one who is acted upon.
The one who controls and the one who submits.
The one who blames and the one who is blamed.
The one who demands and the one who withdraws.
The one who is right and the one who is wrong.
Psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin describes this relational pattern as the dynamic of the “doer and done-to.” Her work helps us understand why conflict can become so rigid, and what allows two people to shift toward mutual recognition, responsibility, and repair.
What Is the “Doer and Done-To” Dynamic?
In a doer-and-done-to dynamic, the relationship begins to feel as though only one person can have agency at a time. If I am the doer, you must be the person to whom something is being done. If I am the injured person, you must be the one who caused the injury. If my experience is true, yours must be false. We get lost in us-versus-them, as if they were on opposite sides of a polarized experience, yet they depend on each other.
Together, they create a closed system in which each person’s response confirms the other’s expectations. One person pursues, so the other withdraws. The withdrawal increases the pursuit. One person criticizes, so the other becomes defensive. The defensiveness intensifies the criticism. One person attempts to control the conversation, while the other stops participating or gains control through silence.
Neither person may experience themselves as powerful. Each may feel that they are only reacting to what the other has done.
The dynamic becomes:
I have no choice in how I react because you made me respond this way.
Shifting Positions
The doer and done-to dynamic
Is not always distinguished as one consistently powerful person and one consistently powerless person.
Within an ordinary conflict, people can rapidly shift between positions.
A person who feels ignored may make a demand. When the demand is resisted, they may experience themselves as rejected or victimized. The other person may initially feel controlled, then retaliate by withdrawing, criticizing, or refusing contact. Each person becomes both doer and done-to at different moments. This movement can be difficult to recognize because we usually experience our own behavior from the inside. We know the fear, frustration, or pain that motivated our response. We experience the other person’s behavior from the outside.
We see what they did, but we don't keep in mind the emotional history, expectations, or protective processes that shape their behavior. Understanding this reciprocity does not mean that both people are equally responsible for everything that occurs. It means that some conflicts are sustained through a relational pattern that neither person can see clearly while they are inside it.
Power Differences Still Matter
The discussion of relational dynamics must be used carefully. Not every situation is a mutual power struggle. Relationships may include real differences in physical, financial, institutional, social, or emotional power. Abuse, coercion, exploitation, discrimination, and violence cannot be explained away as two people simply creating a pattern together.
The person being harmed is not equally responsible for the harm because they reacted to it, attempted to survive it, or were unable to stop it.
Mutual recognition is not a demand that someone empathize with an abuser, remain available for dialogue, or locate their contribution to their own mistreatment. It’s a complicated dynamic worthy of understanding but not excusing.
Some situations require:
Protection.
Accountability.
Advocacy.
Outside intervention.
A firm boundary.
Physical or emotional distance.
The ending of a relationship.
Relational thinking should expand our awareness of complexity, inspire curiosity, and neither dismiss responsibility nor make power dynamics or other influences invisible.
Why Being Right May Not Restore the Relationship
Facts matter. Accountability matters. There are circumstances when establishing what happened is essential, but many conflicts can’t be repaired by determining who is right.
Remember there can be multiple truths and perspectives. A person may be factually correct and still communicate with contempt or fail to keep the bigger picture in focus.
Someone may have caused harm without intending to. Both people may have experienced the same interaction differently. This is a common occurrence. An action may be understandable and still be hurtful. We can become so invested in winning that we lose sight of the whole relationship.
Underneath the argument may be questions such as:
Do I matter to you?
Does my experience matter to you?
Will you listen without erasing yourself?
Can I acknowledge your pain without surrendering my truth?
Is there room for both of us here?
Can this relationship survive disappointment and conflict?
These questions can’t always be resolved, even when you're reasonable and use “I” statements. They require recognition.
What Is Mutual Recognition?
Benjamin’s theory of mutual recognition describes the process of experiencing the other person as a separate subject: someone with an inner world, perspective, center of feeling, and agency of their own.
Recognition is not the same, nor does it require agreement. I can recognize that your experience is real for you without deciding that your interpretation is the only possible one. I can acknowledge that my actions affected you, without believing I’m a bad person. I can remain connected to my own subjectivity while making room for yours.
Mutual recognition asks us to hold two realities: I am a person with a mind, history, and experience of my own, and so are you.
This sounds logical, yet in emotionally charged relationships, it can be really challenging. When we feel threatened, the other person’s separateness may feel like opposition. Their boundary may feel like rejection. Their disagreement may feel like invalidation. Their needs may compete with ours. We may unconsciously believe that one of us must surrender for the other to exist. Mutual recognition creates another possibility. There can be differences without destruction.
Recognition Is Not Perfect Harmony
No relationship remains in mutual recognition at all times. We misunderstand each other, and we can become defensive. It’s fairly common. We project familiar expectations, we lose curiosity, and we may treat the other person as an obstacle, an audience, a caretaker, a threat, or an extension of ourselves.
The meaningful question is not whether recognition ever breaks down; it is inevitable.
The question is whether the relationship can recognize the breakdown and move toward repair. This is the developmental opportunity of rupture and repair.
Repair might begin when someone can say:
“I became so focused on defending myself that I stopped hearing you.”
“I can understand why that affected you, even though I experienced it differently.”
“I was trying to make you agree rather than helping you understand me.”
“I withdrew because I felt overwhelmed, but I can see how my silence affected you.”
“I am still angry, and I also recognize my part.”
“I can’t continue this conversation in the same way. Let’s take a pause and then start over.”
These responses do not erase what happened, but they communicate the willingness to see the other person while also being seen and known. We don’t have to be in a battle for who’s right or who’s going to win. More than one person can have a say, be in pain, or hold the truth.
The Possibility of a “Third”
Benjamin also writes about the third: a relational space that becomes possible when two people are no longer entirely trapped in opposing positions. The third is not a third person who settles the dispute. It can be understood as a shared orientation toward something larger than either person’s immediate need to win or defend.
In the clinical world, we also talk about the analytic third, proposed by Thomas Ogden, which describes the therapeutic relationship as a co-created third space that offers perspective and opportunities for new experiences and different outcomes through collaborative sharing of minds.
When we make room for more of our own mind and the mind of an experience of another, now we’re in the space of creating a new way of being, maybe even more fully ourselves in the presence of someone else who can be fully themselves without there having to be one truth and somebody destroyed. It invites dignity, safety, fairness, and curiosity not only in the process but also in the relationship itself. Or at least it allows for a return to dignity, respect, and love once the dust settles.
Instead of asking, How do I get you to accept my point of view?
We might ask:
What is happening between us?
What pattern are we creating together?
What principle do we want this relationship to reflect?
What would protect both truth and dignity?
What response could neither of us discover while occupying only our original position?
Thirdness creates psychological room. It allows us to observe the pattern without being completely engulfed by it. That space may also be created through reflection, time, therapy, a mutually respected agreement, or the presence of another person who can help hold complexity. Sometimes it can’t be created. Mutuality requires some capacity for honesty, safety, and recognition from both people, and sometimes past experiences, powerful emotions like pride, shame, fear, or competition, or defenses at work outside our current view really get in the way.
Responsibility Without Collapse
One reason people resist acknowledging their contribution to conflict is the fear that accepting any responsibility means accepting all of it. If I admit that I hurt you, maybe it means my own hurt will no longer matter. If I recognize my defensiveness, maybe you will use that to prove that everything was my fault. If I apologize, perhaps I will lose my position entirely. This is another version of doer and done-to: one person must be guilty so that the other can remain innocent.
Mature responsibility is more complex. We can recognize our impact without denying our intention.
We can acknowledge another person’s suffering without accepting claims that are not true. We can regret our behavior without collapsing into shame. We can understand why we protected ourselves and still decide to hurt someone. Responsibility becomes more possible when it doesn’t require the disappearance of the Self.
When the Pattern Lives Inside Us
The struggle between doer and done-to can also reflect our internal conflict. One part of us may demand productivity while another lapses into procrastination. We may criticize ourselves for being weak, then feel defeated by our own inner critic.
We may attempt to control every emotion, only to experience our feelings as forces happening to us.
The internal dialogue becomes another sadomasochistic struggle.
We may say:
“I have to force myself.”
“My anxiety will not let me.”
“I should be over this.”
“Something is wrong with me.”
“I can’t trust myself unless I stay in control.”
Self-awareness can help us approach the conflict differently.
Instead of asking which part should win, we might ask what each part is trying to protect, communicate, or make possible. Internal recognition allows us the opportunity to remain responsible for our choices without treating parts of ourselves as enemies. We can tolerate the struggle, the ambivalence, and the existence of multiple truths.
Using CARE to Interrupt the Pattern
My CARE framework offers one way to pause when a relationship slips into these opposing positions.
Center
Notice what is happening in your body.
Take a moment to take a breath. Are you bracing, becoming louder, going blank, preparing your defense, or feeling an urge to leave?
Centering does not mean you have to force yourself to become calm, though we often have more options for responding than when we are just reacting, when we can regulate ourselves. Even without the calm, taking a moment to observe yourself and the situation gives you more options for how you respond. I call this damage control.
Attend
Pay attention to the relational pattern.
What position are you occupying? What position have you assigned to the other person? Are you pursuing, withdrawing, controlling, appeasing, blaming, or accepting blame to end the conflict?
Notice what is happening without turning the observation into another accusation.
Reflect
Ask:
What am I trying to make the other person understand?
What am I afraid will happen if I acknowledge their experience?
What am I protecting in myself?
Can I recognize my effect without erasing my experience?
Is there a real difference in power or safety that must be addressed?
What remains unknown?
Reflection invites curiosity and opens a window to a third perspective.
Embody
Choose a response that reflects the whole experience and respects your needs and values. You might acknowledge the impact of the conflict on a new perspective, express your experience without needing agreement, ask a genuine question, establish a boundary, request time, seek support, or leave an unsafe interaction.
Embodiment moves awareness and insight into the relationship and possible repair.
The goal is not to produce a perfect response, but to create one more possibility than the pattern previously allowed.
Repair Requires More Than One Person
We can interrupt our participation in a dynamic, but we can’t create mutual recognition on our own.
One person can become more reflective, accountable, and boundaried. One person can stop retaliating or refuse to continue a destructive exchange, but mutuality requires both people's willingness to recognize each other as separate persons with their own thoughts, feelings, experiences, needs, and wishes.
When the other person repeatedly denies reality, violates boundaries, refuses responsibility, or uses vulnerability as a weapon, our work may be to recognize what the relationship can’t currently provide.
Sometimes repair means restoring connection. Sometimes it means changing the terms of the relationship. Sometimes it means accepting that repair is not possible.
That recognition may be painful, but it can also restore freedom and choice.
Looking Through This Window
Think about a recurring conflict in one of your relationships.
Ask:
What usually begins the conflict?
What position do I tend to occupy?
How do I tend to view the other person?
When do I feel powerless and how do I respond?
What am I trying to make the other person acknowledge?
What might they be trying to make me acknowledge?
Is responsibility being shared, or is there a need for real ownership of a specific harm?
Is there enough safety for mutual recognition?
What happens when one of us admits a mistake or acknowledges impact?
What shared value might facilitate mutuality?
What would repair require?
What might I need to accept if mutuality is not possible?
You don’t need to decide that both people are equally responsible.
Begin by noticing if the relationship has a pattern of allowing only one person at a time to have agency, vulnerability, or truth.
Awareness may not resolve the conflict, but it can open a window of opportunity in which another response becomes possible.
Power Struggle → Awareness → Recognition → Responsibility → Repair
Acknowledgment and Sources
The concepts of mutual recognition and doer and done-to discussed in this article are drawn from the work of psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin. The concept of thirdness has been discussed by many psychoanalysts, including Jessica Benjamin and Thomas Ogden. These concepts are interpreted here through my clinical perspective, CARE framework, and reflections on everyday relationships.
Benjamin first developed her influential account of recognition and domination in The Bonds of Love (1988). She elaborated on the doer-and-done-to dynamic and thirdness in “Beyond Doer and Done To: An Intersubjective View of Thirdness” (2004) and later in Beyond Doer and Done To: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity and the Third (2018). PubMed record for the 2004 article and Routledge’s page for the 2018 book.
Continue Exploring
How Can You Stay Compassionate Without Losing Your Balance? Consider how compassion, equanimity, and boundaries can help you remain responsive without abandoning yourself.
What Can Emotional Triggers Teach You About Yourself? Explore why a present conflict may evoke feelings and expectations connected to earlier relationships.
Why Is It So Hard to Hold Mixed Feelings? Understand how emotional complexity can loosen the need to experience someone as entirely good or entirely bad.
What Is the Unconscious Mind and How Does It Shape Everyday Life? Notice the hidden expectations, defenses, and relational patterns influencing ordinary interactions.
How Does Psychoanalytic Therapy Create Lasting Change? Learn how patterns can become visible, understood, and transformed within a sustained relationship.
About Jamie Cromer Grue
Jamie Cromer Grue (Jamie Cromer, LCSW, ACSW, FABP) is a licensed clinical social worker, board-certified psychoanalyst, and Training and Supervising Analyst. She is also a Certified Ayurvedic lifestyle instructor and the founder of Windows to Wisdom.
Jamie brings more than 30 years of clinical experience to an integrated approach drawing from psychoanalysis, holistic wellness, contemplative practice, creativity, and the wisdom of everyday life. Through Windows to Wisdom, she makes complex ideas about the inner life more accessible, inviting people to listen more deeply to themselves, recognize meaningful patterns, and develop greater self-awareness, resilience, and freedom.
Jamie’s psychoanalytic knowledge and clinical experience inform the public education offered through Windows to Wisdom. Windows to Wisdom is separate from her clinical practice; reading these materials or participating in its programs does not constitute therapy or establish a therapist–patient relationship.
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