I was talking with another mom back in January at elementary drop-off. My youngest is pulling at my leg and talking at increasingly louder decibels, vying for my attention, while I try to get a few words in with another adult.
Ironically, the mom was thanking me for my Instagram account (where I provide relationship tips and advice). I pick my son up, and he presses my face against mine, grabbing my chin, and talks directly into my mouth.
I give the other mom a half-smile and I say, “Thank you” and, “I’m so sorry, the demands are endless, I’m on the verge of losing it, this motherhood stuff is so suffocating sometimes.”
Her eyes light up, and she says, “Yes, that’s the word for it—sometimes, I go to my closet and hide or cry.” I look her in the eyes and say, “Same.”
This is one of those magical motherhood moments, where two moms lay their hearts out and put aside appearances to just be vulnerable and real about what life can feel like sometimes when we’re carrying such a heavy load. We can totally feel suffocated by it all.
This feeling, this chronic overwhelm, has a label. It’s called the mental load. Sometimes, it’s referred to as invisible labor or emotional labor.
I discovered this label just a year ago, but it was made famous in 2017 in a comic by Emma Clit called, “You should have asked.”
Once I discovered this label, I went digging into all the information I could find about this concept, because, oh my gosh, did it resonate with me.
If you aren’t familiar with the mental load, just some of what it involves is:
• Management: of the family, of the home (the noticer of things), of inventory of food, toiletries, clothing, etc. in the home, important dates to remember, and all the things.
• Researching: things like the best schools, pediatricians, choices for our kids, how we want to discipline and raise our kids, cheapest way to order all the snacks we feed our kids and so on.
• Organizing: holidays, the home, schedules, memory making, and so on.
• The worry work: thinking about the emotional and relational needs of your family and worrying about things like if your child is making enough friends, getting bullied, is stressed out, or is meeting his/her developmental milestones.
When I’ve polled women about what carrying the mental load feels like, they consistently use words such as: endless, overwhelming, stressful, anxiety-producing, spinning, relentless, and unfair.
You are in the majority if you have felt any of these at some point or another.
Unfair is the feeling that sticks out to me the most. Unfair is a signal that something needs to give. Unfairness and the feelings of inequity are the seeds that grow into deep-rooted resentments.
When this happens, the relationship will begin to suffer.
I write this to you all, not to scare you or create more for you to worry about, but to encourage you to make a change.
To encourage you to have a difficult conversation with your partner that may be incredibly necessary to renegotiate the division of responsibilities in your family and your relationship.
If you’re not sure where to start, let me give you a few suggestions:
1. Watch for the unspoken precedents you set in your relationship.
These precedents usually start as small gestures of love and care and eventually add up to be responsibilities you carry but never spoke about with your partner. So often these began early in your relationship. Things like, “I would love to cook him his favorite meal and then let him chill out on the couch while I clean up too.”
This is a sweet gesture of love and care, but what message does this send? It says, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.” And I promise you, your partner doesn’t worry. Your partner has absolutely removed this from his mental list of “to-do’s” and now lets you take it on.
This happens over and over in relationships. So, pay attention to it.
If you don’t have kids yet, be careful what you take on when you introduce kids to your relationship; be intentional about involving your partner early.
If you already have piled on the precedents, be careful what more you take on. Be mindful of the moments you are just “taking care of things” and if it isn’t something you want to be forever yours, then let your partner know. Something like, “Hey, I vacuumed the floor this week. Next time, will you make sure to handle that?”
2. Provide your partner with some context
This isn’t always the case, but usually, partners are more than happy to help but fall back on, “I didn’t know.” This excuse can get old quickly, but there is a lot of truth to it.
If you have set unspoken precedents, like I mentioned above, then it is very likely your partner hasn’t really given much thought to any of those tasks for a long time. Additionally, so much of the mental load is invisible. Things like: wow—the pillows are always straightened, underwear shows up in my drawer, and the mail is magically sorted and taken care of.
In order to start renegotiating the mental load, it is important to provide your partner with some context. To make the invisible visible. One of the best ways to do this is to write down what you do.
It can be time-consuming, but this clearly defines what it is that you do to take care of the family and the home and all the things.
When I say write it down, I mean put it in a spreadsheet or a notebook or something tangible that your partner can look over. After you have done this, sit down and discuss what changes you’d like to make.
Think about and discuss what you’d like to delegate to your partner, what you can reasonably afford to hire out (e.g. order groceries online), and what you can let go of in this season of life.
This conversation should be the beginning of many in discussing the division of responsibilities in your home because our workloads and circumstances are always changing.
3. It doesn’t have to be equal, but it should feel fair
When I was growing up, my parents used this line to describe how they did things for my sister and me. They would say, “Things won’t be equal, but we will always work to make them fair.”
This same statement applies to renegotiating the mental load.
If you have a partner that travels, works shifts, or has odd hours, it is likely that you will carry the load more often than they will. However, the goal is to work toward a redistribution that feels fairer. That feels like you have the support and help that you need.
So keep that in mind as you are discussing the new division of responsibilities. What will help you to feel like your partner gets your world, what you do, and is there to offer you support?
If you find these suggestions helpful, I’d love for you to check out my new course, The Mother Load: Helping Couples Unite to Tackle the Mental Load. I share greater detail on these suggestions as well as dig deeper into handing off parts of the mental load, how the mental load can trickle into other aspects of your relationship, and stories that sabotage and behaviors that backfire when trying to hand off more of the mental load.
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