Five Moves. One Pattern. The Neuroscience and Psychology of Carrying Everything Alone.

As I prepare for my fifth and final move, I’m struck by something I hadn’t fully appreciated before.

I’ve spent decades moving homes.

But more than that…

I’ve spent decades moving almost entirely on my own.

The first move was into his house.

The second was into the home I bought myself. While I packed up an entire household, organised every detail and managed the move, he went on a fishing trip to Canada.

The third move was from the UK to France.

Once again, I packed most of our lives into boxes. When we arrived, he disappeared into one of his familiar bad moods, leaving me to unpack every box, make every bed, hang every picture and turn an empty house into a home.

The fourth move was from France to Spain.

Again, every box was carefully packed, labelled and organised by me for the removal company. Once in Spain, while I unpacked and organised everything, he was off playing tennis.

At the time, I accepted it because that had become normal.

Now I’m preparing for my fifth move.

This time, I’m doing it alone.

The difference is that this time I’m doing it in peace.

Friends and family will be arriving next week—not because they’re expected to carry my burden, but because they genuinely want to help.

That is what healthy relationships look like.

It Was Never About the Boxes

The boxes were never really the issue.

They represented something much deeper.

Responsibility.

Partnership.

Reliability.

Every move became another demonstration of who carried the emotional and practical load.

Psychologists sometimes refer to this as relationship labour or emotional labour—the invisible work of organising, planning, anticipating problems, remembering details and ensuring everything gets done.

In healthy relationships, that labour shifts back and forth over time.

In unhealthy ones, it becomes permanently one-sided.

The Psychology of Disengagement

Why would someone repeatedly disappear whenever responsibility appeared?

There isn’t a single explanation, but psychology offers several possibilities.

Some people have a strong tendency to avoid responsibility because it creates discomfort or threatens their self-image. Others rely on withdrawal, irritability or bad moods to avoid tasks they simply don’t want to do. Over time, those moods can become a powerful way of shifting responsibility onto someone else. The other partner learns that it is easier to do everything themselves than to face conflict or criticism.

The result is that one person becomes increasingly competent while the other becomes increasingly absent.

What Neuroscience Tells Us

Our brains are designed to conserve energy.

When a particular pattern consistently achieves the desired outcome, the brain strengthens it.

This is neuroplasticity in action.

If every time a difficult job appeared someone withdrew, became irritable or simply disappeared—and someone else stepped in to complete the work—the brain learned that avoidance was effective.

The behaviour became reinforced because it worked.

Not necessarily through conscious planning, but through repeated experience.

Meanwhile, my own brain learned something very different.

It learned that if anything important needed doing, I had better do it myself.

That pattern also became deeply wired.

It created independence, competence and resilience—but it also came at a cost.

It meant carrying far more than any one person should.