E13- Couples Series-Your Questions Answered: Parenting, Infertility & Mental Load

Hello and welcome to Unmasked Minds, the podcast with me, Sarah the Psych on Instagram. I am a psychologist in real life and I work mostly with millennial middle-aged women and all the things that come with this stage of life for us. Now I have just done 3 episodes on a couple series series where we have talked all things from getting back on the same team to conflict and communication management. The last one we talked all about sex, and today I am just going to kind of wrap it up with some of the questions that have come through on my Instagram. I'm going to read out the questions and answer them, and I've definitely picked out questions that I know are really, really common, and most of them kind of center around found when you and your partner are parenting and you have different views on parenting. So I'm going to read them out. The first one here says, how do you navigate different parenting styles? And the other one says, raising neurodiverse kids with husband who isn't as informed but wants to do old-school discipline often. Now this is something that is really difficult navigating different parenting styles, I guess, whether your children are neurodiverse or neurotypical, it's when there are conflicting values potentially, or methods in parenting. And one of the most common ones I am seeing at the moment, because I mostly deal with women who are breaking cycles and changing the way they parent from the way that they were parented, and they may have a partner who isn't on the same page with that. So it is really difficult because you never, when you first got pregnant or when you started to think about having a family, had these types of conversations, did you? And for those of you who did, for those of you who actually had those conversations and said, you know what, our values really align on parenting and this is really important to us, what we don't tend to plan for is when you are actually parenting and your own nervous system is being triggered, we often then end up defaulting into these old school or old-fashioned ways of parenting, even when we don't want to. Now, as I'm saying this, I'm being pulled to share that I do this more often than I'm comfortable with. You know, I am really clear on my values. I do have neurodivergent children, and it's really important to me to parent in a way that is significantly different to the way that I was parented. But sometimes when I am in the trenches, in the true depths of Whatever it is, I can get triggered and I notice that I behave in ways that number one, don't align with my values. Number two, I'm not proud of. And number three, very much reflect the way that I was parented. Right. Really simplify that. Sometimes when I'm really tired and really overstimulated and the kids aren't listening and my husband's being a dick and all of that, I might yell and I might yell really fucking loud. And then realize, oh my God, that is just not who I am and not how I want to parent, right? I just wanted to add that in because I think sometimes it's not actually about being on different pages with your values and how you want to parent. Sometimes it is more about having barriers to be able to parent the way you— or your partner having barriers to be able to parent the way that they want to. Okay, and in that situation, it's up to that individual, in this case me, to go and do the work myself on that. Yeah, and sometimes these are the conversations that need to come up What I'm noticing with you, husband, is that you say that you understand the needs of our child and you are, you want to advocate for them and you want to create a safe place for us to parent them. But in the moment when it's loud and the kid is defiant, maybe I notice that you default into this. Let's talk about that. Or I'd love for you to understand that better because it is really affecting, and I know you don't want to show up this way. Yeah, because unfortunately what tends to happen is you this, you that, you're doing that, and that then can even trigger them more. So I guess that's the first thing, is understanding, is it really— are you really on different pages, or is there something getting in the way for your partner? The other thing that might be getting in the way is lack of awareness. We as millennial women have so much access to so much information through social media, and depending on the types of people you hang out with. You know, there's a whole generation of us who are now spending our girl time actually chatting about the work and going deep rather than, you know, keeping it at this surface level stuff. So we tend to have access to more information. We tend to be very curious about our values and how we want to parent. And, you know, if your algorithm is delivering you podcasts podcasts and reels and information on this. You're getting lots of opportunity to check in and, you know, get clear on what's important to you when it comes to parenting and ways of adjusting that. Sometimes our partners just don't have access to that. I certainly know my husband, he's out on an excavator all day every day. He's not watching Instagram. He just sometimes has a lack of knowledge. And in those situations, it's important to sort of say, is there an opportunity here for them to get more knowledge, to get more what we call psych education, psychology education around this? And is that your job to do? Do you have the skills and the capacity to educate your partner, or do we create opportunities for their education and understanding to increase? You know, do you go to parenting groups? Do you go— do you bring your partner to a couple of sessions with the psychologist of child to help explain their needs. I know I certainly did that when one of my children was diagnosed. I brought their father into the appointments because to them, they— and I don't want to, you know, share too much here that, um, would be disrespectful, but in order to get onto the same page that I was they needed to be there and to ask all the questions and to resist it and to challenge it and to navigate that. And my learning from navigating that process is just because I know all of this and understand all of this and value all of this doesn't mean that everybody else is on the same page or at that level. I am extremely privileged to work in this space and have education and understanding. So sometimes it's about instead of saying they're just not there yet, asking yourself, how can we, if we're on the same team, get back on this same page? I guess the another option is that they— your partner says, this is what I believe when it comes to parenting. And that's probably even more difficult, isn't it? You know, I believe that kids should be raised this way, and you're saying you believe they don't. Let's take something like discipline. You know, there are so many people our age, millennials, that say, well, I was smacked and that didn't affect me, so I'm going to smack my kids. And they genuinely believe that. People are entitled to believe what they want, but it's very difficult when it's your children being affected, right? And this, this is where we need to have some critical conversations around that and set some really clear boundaries. And you may choose to get some support in these conversations. It may be something like going to couples therapy where both of you can sit in a room and both feel validated and supported and talk through, here are my beliefs and here are my beliefs, and they're very different. Based on that, how can we agree to parent the children? And it might be that there's certain areas of parenting such as discipline where you manage that, because if you allow your partner to manage it, they'll be led by different values. Now, what's coming up for me as I say this is to also get back on the same team, which was episode 1 of this couple series. You know, just because your partner has different beliefs when it comes to parenting doesn't necessarily make them a bad parent, doesn't necessarily mean they don't love your children, doesn't necessarily mean they don't love and support you. But it does mean there needs to be conversations around this. If you are just continuing to parent differently and hoping it will change, it is unlikely to happen. And one of the side effects of that is kids getting caught up in not understanding what's going on and what's expected from them. Okay, I have another question, or maybe a comment here. Combining neurodivergent minds. How my Autism married his ADHD. And I don't, I don't understand the question, but I, I'm smiling because this is a conversation that I have in therapy a lot. There's this whole sort of, um, group of families at the moment where parents are so in tune these days with their children's needs, and we have so much more information that we're recognizing our children might be struggling or having some challenges, and we're supporting them to be diagnosed. Diagnosed at a young age. Throughout that diagnostic process, we're actually starting to realize, holy shit, maybe we're neurodiverse as well. And then throughout that process, we're also starting to realize, oh my gosh, so is my partner, right? We also know neurodivergence is, you know, highly hereditary. And a lot of people, myself included, was like, ah, you know, We believe that neurodiverse people feel safer and are often more connected to other neurodiverse people. So we're all of a sudden realizing we have a whole neurodiverse family here. So I wanted to read that out because that is a very, um, common experience and was ours. You know, my husband knew he was ADHD, and I didn't know I was up until a few years ago, let alone then we started having children that were obviously neurodiverse as well. So a very interesting observation that a lot of people are noticing as they go through this process as well. Okay, here is a good one: how to discuss the mental family load with your partner so that they understand. Now, I did an Instagram story last week where I explained to my husband— he was asking me, where do you want the aircon positioned in your clinic, right? So this is my clinic space and we're having an aircon put in, and it, it makes a lot of sense that he's asking me, the user of the space, where I want my aircon. But I had just had a really big day in clinic. I was mentally drained. I had stuff to do with the kids. And I shared on my Instagram stories that I responded to him and I said, hey, right now I would like you to make that decision. I want you to make the decision because I don't have the capacity to do that. And I just want you to choose the wall and just put it in and tell me what wall it went on. And I had a lot of people responding to that saying that you just made that seem so simple, where I feel like that all of the time. And it is, it comes down to the mental load. I guess in that moment I was saying I don't have any mental capacity to make that decision. And you know what, you're fucking capable of making decisions around here too, so why don't you just make the decision, right? Sometimes it's about boundaries, sometimes it's about being assertive, sometimes it's about aligning on our values. There are so many conversations we could have around getting on the same page when it comes to mental load. But I guess the first thing I would consider is, are you having conversations about it? What I see so many times, and I'm also guilty of, is carrying the mental load, picking up the kids' mental load, picking up the household mental load, my own work mental load, the work I'm doing on myself mental load, I'm booking his appointments mental load, and I'm so at capacity that I don't even know how to manage that conversation with him. I don't even know where to start because that's going to take more mental load to have that conversation, and I've got nothing left at the moment. At the end of the day, it just needs to be a conversation, but it needs to be a safe conversation. I also see a lot of people stay really passive about the mental load really passive, like, yeah, I'm just doing it all myself. Yeah, I guess I'll do it all myself. I'm doing it all myself. I'm doing it anyway. It's just easier when I do it all myself. And then we snap. You don't do anything. You don't help. You don't understand the mental load. And it's like, sometimes I actually look at that behavior and I say, you know that you're enabling this because there were 50 opportunities to ask for help or to change things and you enabled it. You sucked it up. You just did it. You just did it. And then you snapped. And then what I often see is the person that snaps feels guilty for snapping that they just go back to the start again. I better not ask because last time I asked that ended really badly. So if this is important for you, that your husband or your partner understands your mental load, then how are you prioritizing that conversation and making it a safe conversation? So how are you making sure you're having these conversations either in a supported way with a therapist, which sometimes it needs to be— there is no shame in that, right? If we haven't learned to communicate safely, then sometimes we need to do that in an environment that is new and that is safe. The other thing that I see all the time is women, millennial women, who have what I would call unrelenting standard schemas, right? I know if— I know so many of you will be listening to this going, I know where she's going now, because I talk about it in therapy all the time, right? We need to recognize our own role in this, right? I have an unrelenting standard schema. I, you know, was raised in a way that I started to believe that my value and worth comes from what I achieve. And so I put all of this pressure on myself to achieve all of these things, and I project that pressure onto others as well and expect them to operate at that level. You know, if I gave you an example, it's like, I want the house to be clean when visitors come over. I want everything to look perfect because if it doesn't look perfect, then I feel less than. I worry people people will judge me and that's the worst thing in the world. So, hubby, clean the house quick, there's people coming over, clean the house. And I'm projecting it on them, and then he goes and cleans the house and he doesn't clean it to my standards, and I'm like, why did I ask you in the first place? And that's really about recognizing your mental load, all the things on your plate. Why are they there? Do they need to be there? Did you really want those things to be done, or are you creating this unrelenting pressure on yourself? And that in itself is increasing your mental load. I know so often I will have conversations with Rob where I say, I need you to help with this and this. I've got 3 kids' sports on one day, and then the 4th kid needs doing, and it needs to be this, and it needs— and they all need food, and they all need this, and they all need this. And he's like, or we could just not do that. And sometimes I actually have to listen and go, that's fair. It's actually fair. What he's saying is that he doesn't have an unrelenting standards schema. So then it becomes about, well, why is this important to me? Why is that important to you? And let's say I decide, no, we're doing this. Then it becomes, how can you help me? What I do see a lot of is, well, you decided to do that. You decided to have an extra kid. You decided to sign them up to school sport. So now you have to manage all of the mental load to do with that. And that's an important discussion, one I had to have recently, where you signed them up to all this sport, you're doing all that. And I said, yeah, I did, but we are still a team and we need to navigate this challenge together. Because when you say things like that we're going back to the stuff we did in, um, the Gottman Four Horsemen stuff. Now, when you say things like that, I feel really unsupported. I feel like you're actually having a go at me and telling me that what I've done is wrong, whereas we need to be on the same team for this. These are our children, and this is a part of parenting, and we need to share this mental load, or there's going to be resentment and things that build up. And then the outcome is probably going to be part 3, which is I'm going to be withdrawing from you, and things like intimacy aren't gonna be happening. Right? So I know that went in many different ways, but do you see how there's never one answer for these types of questions? It always depends on what's happening in the situation and what's happened to that person to make them that way. I guess one more thing I'd like to talk about when I'm looking at this question of how to discuss mental load with your partner, you know, you make it safe, you, you have capacity to hold all of these things that could be going on, but but you also need to listen to your partner, share your side of it. This is what being assertive is, right? I often talk about assertive, passive, and aggressive communication. Passive communication, which a lot of women are very passive in their relationships, is kind of like, you know what, I know I have needs, but I will never prioritize my needs in any conversation or in any situation. I'm going to just set back and yes, yes, all right, whatever you want, all right, just do it, I'll just whatever, I'll keep you happy, right? Um, and I can do a whole episode on this actually. The, the other side is aggressive. Aggressive is where people are like, my needs matter and they matter more than yours, right? So I'm going to tell you how it is, I'm going to tell you that this is what's happening. And often what I see with women is we are passive, passive, passive, suppress our needs, do everything for everybody else, and then all of a sudden we snap and and we get aggressive. No one fucking helps me, and you're all this, and no one cares about me. And then we're aggressive, and then we go, oh God, that was bad, that was ugly, I'm gonna go back to being passive. You see that pattern? Or we become passive-aggressive. What we want to be is assertive, which is in the middle. We want to be able to respect and acknowledge that we have needs but also hold space for our partner to have needs as well. And instead of going into a conversation knowing what the outcome needs to be for you to be happy, is going in knowing that it may change. You're open to it changing, but you're not open to not having your needs met and considered in the situation. So when you're, you know, back to the question, how do I communicate this with my partner, is you communicate what's important to you, but you also listen to what they say. You know, you listen and you say, okay, yeah, I understand that, but you're allowed to say, but this is what I need, and how do we, being on the same team, get through that? Okay, I have another one here, which is infertility struggles in a marriage. Now, I will start by saying I almost didn't read this one out because I really have not experienced this and feel a little bit, um, I would never want to say anything that is invalidating to anyone going through this. I've had best friends going through this and I've seen just how huge a role this plays, not only for the individual but on the relationship. So the two individuals, but also on the relationship. So I guess I will respond by validating that if that feels huge to you and all-consuming, then it is, and that makes sense. And what I will also explain as a psychologist is infertility issues can be extremely traumatic for an individual and for the relationship. And if you are struggling to navigate that and you are struggling to communicate and stay on the same page, right? Because if it's triggering for both of you, the chances are we're getting a bit defensive and we're getting a bit all of that stonewalling and criticizing and that type of thing. I've seen it. Um, then get some support because it is a truly— it can be a truly traumatic experience. For couples, and I have seen many, many times it become a wedge between couples and they are unable to survive it. So my advice— I don't know if I'm giving advice, but I think, um, if you need to get support, that is a really healthy thing to do as you navigate that. And I think there are sort of things in relationships where we— it's known that we should get support. Oh, about to divorce, let's go get support. Unfortunately, often it's too late by that point. There is so much water under the bridge. I believe couples should be getting therapy and support at the start of relationships. I believe we should be going to therapy when things feel good so that we can learn to make it better, so that when there are troubled waters, we've already built the boat to get us across, right? Um, but this particular one is one I think that we just expect people to be able to deal with it. And maybe just because another couple dealt with it, you should deal with it as well. And I want to highlight here that trauma is not the situation that happened to you or that you found yourself in. Trauma is the impact of that on your body. So depending on how you do or don't process, that will determine if that's traumatic for you. Dependent on what you have been through in your life and what your values and beliefs are will affect how that affects you. So if it— if you are noticing troubles in the relationship because of your infertility journey, then I highly, highly recommend you reach out and get some support on that sooner rather than later. Okay, so there are a lot of questions I haven't answered, but I think that sort of goes into the main themes. There were a lot of sex questions which I answered in the last episode, and then today I think it was more about those when there's conflict or when we're on different pages when it comes to parenting, um, how to navigate that. So I'd love to hear your feedback. I think that is the last one I'm doing in this couples series, uh, but if you have any ideas for more series or if you want me to go deeper on any of those topics, I'm more than happy to. Please reach out. Please don't forget to like, share the podcast if you're finding it useful. Let your friends know. Give me the feedback. Give it a rating. Apparently that is the best way to support me and what I'm doing, is to go in and give it a 5-star rating if you're loving it. Um, thank you so much. Talk to you soon.