Episode 4: Mental Load: What It Is and How to Stop It from Destroying Your Relationship

We are all human. We make a lot of mistakes. We are not perfect. And so we have to give our partners that same grace that we would want them to give to us. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with 20 years.

Of experience, and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while keeping giving you step by step techniques for improving yours.

So make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. Today we are talking about, I think, one of the most popular topics that we have ever talked about.

Yeah, definitely. Other than how to clean up after sex, that also was a surprisingly popular topic. Unexpectedly popular.

So today we are talking about mental load.

Ooh. Yeah.

We did a few posts about mental load on Instagram and people went bonkers. I think so many people don't even know the phrase mental load. And when they finally heard it, described it like just set off light bulbs in people's heads of. Oh my God. Holy crap. I didn't realize that this was a thing.

Yeah, it feels very validating once you understand what it is. If you are someone that you will find out carries a lot of mental load.

Yeah. So we will get into a much bigger definition of what mental load is and how it comes up in relationships. But the basic idea is that mental load is the mental energy that it takes to keep track of all of the many moving parts of life. And mental load is something that, you know, it feels bad to just carry it on your own, but it can have a huge impact on your relationship, making it feel like you and your partner are opponents rather than teammates, always contributing the sense of like, things aren't being fair. We're keeping track, keeping score of who's doing what.

Not fun.

Yeah. Was one partner doing more than the other? So today we're going to get all into exactly what mental load is, especially if you've never heard of it before. The ways that it can impact your relationship and your sex life, and some concrete action items for how to prevent mental load dynamics from ruining your relationship. This is going to be such a big one.

Awesome. Can't wait. So should I start by telling the people what mental load is?

Yes, please.

All right. Mental load is the invisible mental burden of keeping track of household needs. Now, mental load can also refer to really keeping track of any type of stuff. And we'll get into that later. But for the most part, what we're talking about in this podcast is sort of the dynamic of there tends to be one partner that takes on a bit more responsibility for household needs, kids, et cetera. And so we're going to focus mainly on that dynamic. We'll deviate a little bit, talk about some other types, but for the most part, that's what we're talking about.

Yeah, the household needs.

Yeah. More specifically, that can be organizing everything that needs to be done around the house, making a plan for how all of that stuff is going to get done, and then constantly readjusting or shifting that plan as things inevitably come up, change, et cetera.

Oh yeah, our plans never go the way that we wanted them to, do they?

No, they don't. So then it's ensuring that all that work does get done, anticipating what else might need to be done or what will need to be done in the future if this happens or if that doesn't happen, or if this plan changes. And then sadly, oftentimes it is actually doing that work yourself.

Mental load is a really hard thing to carry. I think it's important for us to recognize that organizing and planning, these are full time jobs that people get paid a full salary for. But this is just an extra piece of responsibility that we have on top of our regular lives and jobs and all the other responsibilities that we have. The other thing that can make mental load feel really challenging is that it literally never ends. I mean, there are constantly new things that you have to think about, anticipate, plan for. So it's really exhausting. It feels like you never get a break from this. So we went on Instagram and we asked people share with us, what is your least favorite type of mental load? We got some amazing responses back. So here are some of the things that people hate doing. Remembering everything for the kids. So someone wrote their activities, doctor's appointments, size of their diapers, do they need new clothes or new shoes? Just this constant list of things that you're keeping track of in your head. Another one was family calendars, especially if you have multiple kids. All the different sports practices and, you know, chess tournaments or whatever. It is a random example that came out there.

Fancy kids. I mean, I can imagine how hard that is just given the challenge of my own personal calendar, my work calendar. Imagine adding a number of other calendars on top of that. It gets real complicated real quick.

Oh yeah, there's also parenting decisions, keeping the house Clean. What's for dinner? Was a big one. I think this drives a lot of people nuts. So someone wrote, I would rather starve and literally not eat just so I can avoid planning meals.

Yeah, I mean, this is one that we experience ourselves. And our meal planning, admittedly is fairly simple, but you just get to the end of a long day and it's almost dinner time, time's ticking down and you have that conversation, what do you want for dinner?

Oh, that's just radid conversation. I don't know. What do you want?

I don't know.

What do you want? I asked you first. We have definitely done that one many times.

Yeah. So not a lot of fun.

Someone mentioned laundry. That one was funny because I actually love doing laundry. I am totally fine carrying the mental load of laundry. Good with. Another person wrote gift giving. And this one was really interesting for me to read because personally I love giving gifts. It's really fun for me. But someone wrote, I love gift giving, but always feel like if I don't get a thoughtful gift for someone in my husband's family, the blame falls on me as the female. And I had never put that into words for myself before, but that totally clicked with me, realizing, like, oh, yeah, I do feel like I carry the responsibility of it, that if there's a time where I'm not super inspired, I'm just not as excited about giving a gift. If it's not great, then I'm gonna get blamed for it.

Yeah, I feel like societally we just kind of have a low bar for men in terms of gift giving. Like, you know, I don't think anyone expects guys to be very good gift givers.

Sad. Another one was budgeting and paying the bills. Really just keeping track of finances in general. Fix it projects around the house. I mean, who doesn't have a long list of. I think a lot of people call it the honey do list. All the things that you need to do around the house. Adult things was a good category. Things like taxes, insurance, financial planning. I was reading over all of those examples and I was thinking to myself, like, yeah, why does no one teach us how to do all this adult stuff? Like, I don't know if you ever had to take a home EC class in high school. No, I did. And the only thing I remember is learning how to write a check. It's like, it's not that hard. It tells you on the check what you're supposed to put in what field.

And now it's a completely outdated form of payment.

Exactly. But I Feel like there are so many adult things that I'm a 37 year old woman, I am a full fledged adult, but I still feel like there are so many things that sometimes I catch myself thinking, like, where's my mom and dad to help me out with this one?

Yeah. I was about to answer and say, well, I think that's what they should teach you in home EC class. But that's not really a thing anymore. But it sounds like you did have a home EC class and didn't really learn that kind of stuff. It's kind of like sex ed where it's like, oh, yeah, I had it, but I didn't get anything out of it.

Exactly. Well, our next course will be Adulting 101.

Oh, yeah. Plus there's the other adult things that like you just found out about cleaning out the clothes washer.

Oh my God, you guys. Yeah, I am 37 years old and I just found out several weeks ago that there is a thing in your washing machine that you're supposed to be cleaning out regularly, like once a month at least.

Yeah. This is like the third washer that you've had access to, like in your own home.

I never knew before. I've done so much laundry. I was doing my laundry at like age 17 and so 20 years of doing laundry and I had no freaking clue that you were supposed to like, take this little hose out, let it vent all this nasty water, pull the little trap thing. I don't even know what the names are, but now it is squeaky clean. Very excited about it. But yeah, where did I ever learn this?

Kind of makes you wonder what other appliances have secret little adult things you're supposed to be doing to them.

The dishwasher. I already tackled that one though. And then finally the last item on our most hated list was thinking about what I delegated to others. So this is a prime example of the mental part of mental load that people are saying, you know, I delegated this task, somebody else is doing it, but I'm still carrying the mental load of making sure it gets done done in the right way. What are the other backup plans? So there's still a of mental effort that you're doing?

Oh yeah, I can totally empathize with this one. You know, as I used to work in the consulting world where I would, you know, be responsible, I'd be a project manager and delegating work to other more junior people. Also currently, as a business owner, you have those thoughts of like, okay, well I should delegate this to that person. But then you think, oh, well, that person just started their job fairly recently. They probably don't know how to do it very well. Like, I could do it. How long would it take for me to do it? How long would it take for me to explain to my employee to do it? Will I actually save any time? When it comes to the amount of time it takes to explain, the amount of time it takes to check to see if they did it right, the likelihood that they won't have done it right, that's something I used to worry about a lot more than I do now. I've worked on that a lot personally, but it can be really exhausting. And it kind of results in this paralysis where you don't end up delegating very much because you fall into this trap of being like, oh, well, I already know how to do it. I can do it better and faster, so I'll just do it.

You know, we got a lot of questions from people asking, like, how do I describe mental load to my partner? Like, they just don't get it. And that's actually making me think, maybe that's a really great example that could get through to some people who don't, you know, naturally or easily understand this concept. Now, another really important point that we want to make about mental load is that everyone carries some amount of mental load, but women in particular are socialized to carry the majority of it. When it comes to the household stuff, you know, we're taught that we're supposed to be the homemakers and kind of like what I mentioned in that example earlier with the gift giving thing, like, even though we're in 2021, you know, a lot of us are trying to break away from traditional gender stereotypes. Like Xander and I don't want to have a super traditional relationship. Yet as a woman, I still feel myself falling into this very traditional, very outdated role of, like, oh, this is my job. I'm supposed to be taking care of these things. So I think it's important for us to recognize, even if that's not you want, that's very often what happens.

And the other really big problem with mental load is that it is almost always invisible. If you're doing a really good job at carrying the mental load and doing all those tasks associated with it, the more successful you are doing all the work, the less your partner is going to see and notice all the work that you're putting in. Like, if everything happens seamlessly, the kids are getting to all their appointments and practices and events and everything in the house. Is restocked and meals are prepped and planned. The person that is not so involved in that work just kind of sees like a well oiled machine and probably is like, oh, great, the kids are happy, everything is as I'm expecting it to be. And it's like, oh great, everything's running itself. Rather than realizing, oh, like that the person doing all this work is busting their ass.

And I think it leads to this horrible catch 22. If you're the person who's carrying the majority of the mental load, it's like, either you do a really great job job at it and your partner does not notice and maybe you feel unappreciated, maybe you feel resentful or overly burdened, or you do a bad job at it. I'm putting that in air quotes. And your partner sees and maybe is able to help a little bit more. But then you feel like, I'm doing a bad job, I can't carry all of this. I'm a bad parent or spouse or whatever it is. So it's like, maybe you get a little more help but you feel bad about yourself. It's like there's no good option.

Or even worse, your partner jumps in and goes, hey, like, what's wrong? Or like, what happened? I thought. Or I was like, oh, I thought Peter was supposed to have soccer practice.

Oh God. Yeah, I'm feeling my heart rate go up already. So we are starting to talk about it, but let's transition fully now into how can mental load affect your relationship. So like we were mentioning a minute ago, like, it feels exhausting in and of itself to be carrying that mental load. But there's definitely a way in your relationship that it can also make you feel like you're not feeling very seen by each other. Just like we were saying, if you do a really good job at it, your partner's probably not going to see you.

Yeah. And then even worse, it can make it feel like you and your partner are pitted against each other. So let's take the example of someone who's doing a really good job at it, not getting any recognition, not being very seen. It's really easy to start building resentment against your partner and be like, hey, like, you're not, you're not helping out, you're not doing anything. You're not seeing what I'm doing. I'm really struggling. I'm pushing so hard to do this and I'm not getting any recognition for it. That's not fair. Or on the flip side, you could be really Struggling with it and then not be getting very much recognition at all because your partner's like, they're not doing a very good job.

Yeah. It creates this feeling, pitting you guys against each other. You're keeping score. And then it definitely leads to feelings of resentment. So because it's so invisible, you're never really getting an accurate gauge of how much each partner is caring. And it's just very easy to feel like I'm the one doing everything. That's what we heard so much on Instagram. When we asked about this. The vast majority of people said, I carry everything. My partner does nothing. And so it leads to this feeling of resentment. Being angry at. Frustrated with your partner. Again, it feels like you're opponents instead of being teammates. We also want to discuss the ways that it can impact your sex life and your sex drive in particular. I was just talking about resentment. It's really hard to wanna have sex with somebody that you're feeling resentful of or angry at. It also creates huge amounts of stress. Stress can absolutely tank your libido. It can make it really difficult to enjoy the sex that you do have. I mean, how many people have complained to us saying, you know, I try to enjoy the moment with my partner, be present with them, but I've got my laundry list of to do list items, like, going through my head and I can't focus.

And then on the flip side, your partner is probably going to notice, like, oh, like, they're seeming really distracted. Why can't you just be present in the moment? Am I not enough for you? Are you not happy with me? Do you not want to be having sex with me?

Oh, yeah. Can create so many complicated dynamics. And another piece of this, too, is that you might be the partner carrying the mental load of your sex life and relationship. So, like, are you the person listening to this podcast but your partner's not? Are you reading books about relationships? Are you following us on Instagram? Are you the one trying to initiate conversations with your partner or suggest new things that you guys try in the bedroom together? Like, there is a lot of mental load that someone can carry around their sex life.

Yeah. So we asked our Instagram audience how mental load is affecting their relationship right now. And here's what some people said. It makes me shut down. I get snippy and critical.

It impacts our sex life in such a huge way. I do not want to be touched at all.

It causes me to keep score, looking for ways that he could help but doesn't. Sometimes I try to test him, and he always fails.

Ooh, the dreaded testing. The secret test. It makes me feel like a nag.

The other dreaded nag.

Wow. I'm really triggered recording this episode today.

Great. My husband assumes these things are my responsibility simply because I'm a woman. I feel extremely bitter about his outdated.

Gender roles, a lot of resentment and lack of connection when I feel like my load outweighs his. It feels like he gets to be carefree and do what he pleases while I am breaking under the weight of everything I'm carrying. He gets to be the happy one, and I'm miserable. That's a really good point, too. I think so many people can relate to that. I'm guessing there are a lot of hearts that just. Just sank when I read that one. You know, that. That feeling that your partner gets to be, like, carefree and happy. Maybe they're like, the good parent and you're the authoritarian one. It just. It makes us feel so, like, cranky and miserly, and it just. It really sucks.

Yeah, no fun at all. All right. Another one was, I feel like I do so much and then have no energy or desire to be intimate with him. Then he gets cranky at me. I always feel like I'm failing no matter what I do. That's like the. Yeah. Catch 22 camp.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Next one was, it keeps me from.

Being vulnerable and I feel alone.

I'm afraid to ask him to do things because I see it as my problem, not his. If I ask for help, it feels like I'm admitting I'm not doing a good job.

And finally, my husband will never, ever understand just how exhausted I am, how much I think about and handle silently. I feel unseen and unappreciated.

Oof, man, those are all some real kicks to the gut. Kicks to the gut.

Punches.

Punches to the gut. This is something you will learn about me in the course of our podcast. I mix up my phrases quite a lot.

Yeah, amazingly, this is episode four, and I don't think you've done it up until now. I was planning on maybe keeping a list of. Of when she does it, but I kind of forgot because she hasn't done it until today.

You know, kids, kicks to the gut could work. You could kick someone in the gut. Like a roundhouse kick. Is that what they're called?

I don't know.

I feel like I've done some kickboxing thing where I've kicked in that vicinity. All right, getting back on track here. So we've just shared some frankly Pretty heartbreaking quotes about the damage that mental load can cause in relationships. So we don't want to leave you hanging there. We are going to give you plenty of tips about what to do with this, how to balance the mental load in your relationship so it feels better between the two of you.

So if you were listening to those quotes and you felt like, wow, that really describes me, I can really relate with that. Or if you heard that and you're like, oh, my God, this probably describes my partner and I'm the one. I'm the carefree one. And it feels like, yeah, maybe that doesn't feel so fair. You don't want your partner to be feeling like that about you. Then keep listening because we've got some tips for ways to address this. And spoiler alert, it is not. The answer is not just split it all evenly.

So, before we get into these tips, I just want to say I think one of the tactics that a lot of couples take these days is thinking like, oh, well, we'll just split things up. I think a lot of couples say, you know, we don't want to have these stereotypical gender roles, so let's try to make it even. But the problem with that is that there's often still one person who's doing all the organizing and the planning and the tracking and the ensuring things get done. So it doesn't really end up feeling all that balanced. You have to address not only the physical tasks themselves, but also the mental load behind each of those tasks. So another thing that comes up is, like, a lot of people say, oh, well, I'll just tell my partner, let me know how I can help. And you might be doing that in a really great and generous way. Maybe you even ask them that every single day. Let me know how I can help. But that doesn't work either, because that still puts your partner in that default position of having to keep track of everything and having to delegate it to you and then make sure that you follow through on the things that they've delegated to you. So again, it's like, maybe you're doing some of the physical tasks themselves, but the mental load hasn't been relieved at all.

Yeah, I think in many cases, asking how you can help or asking if you can help with this or that, it can sometimes serve to do the opposite. Like, it actually feels like more of a burden because the person who's carrying the mental load is like, okay, I had a plan all set out for how this was going to get done. And the timing of this that and the other thing. And now you're asking me to shift it all around or, like, disrupt this nice plan that I already had. And so it can actually feel like. Oftentimes I think people will just say, oh, no, no, it's okay. Because in their mind, it's like, I just, I don't want to take on the responsibility of having to reshuffle things and explain to you what, what I want you to do. But I'm sure an hour or two later when they're in the thick of doing all these things, that's when the resentment starts to creep in and it's like, okay, well, maybe now I could use that help. But it's too late. And it's just like, that wasn't the right time to ask, what do I do?

Exactly? Okay, so if these techniques don't work, what actually does work? So we've got a whole bunch of tips for you, and we've broken them down into kind of a step by step process that you can follow with your partner. The first thing is to understand your mental loads individually. Before you even start talking about how this functions in your relationship, you want to take a little bit more time to better understand your own mental load. So actually write down a list, like, what are all of the areas of your home life or your relationship or family life that you keep track of? And get as specific as you can here. All the tasks, the duties, what are the things that are just in your brain, in the back of your brain that you're always keeping track of?

Yeah, I think this can be really powerful because so often we don't really want to acknowledge all the things that we actually do. And so, like, we, we aren't really aware of them up front or we haven't, we haven't admitted to ourselves, like, I'm responsible for this, these five things. But then because you haven't acknowledged it, you get into the middle of doing it and you almost start to feel resentful at yourself or at the world for, like, why do I have to do this? And it can be really powerful to just jot it all down and be like, okay, yeah, these are things that I'm responsible for. I'm acknowledging it. I can own these things. And just by being, like, aware of, yes, these are the things that I have to do. Then when you're in the middle of doing it, you don't feel so much like, oh, this isn't fair. It's like, oh, yeah, these are the responsibilities that I agreed to or that I signed up for before you even get into the aspect of like balancing that with another person.

Yeah. That takes us straight into our next tip, which is to share your mental loads with each other. So you're going to have to make sure that your partner makes their own list of their mental load tasks and set aside time to have a conversation about this. So make sure it's a good block of time. You guys can be uninterrupted. It's not after you've just had a fight about mental load. Don't do it then. But take this time to share your lists with each other of exactly what you're caring. And you want to make sure to do this as calmly as you can. So that's why you don't want to do it right after a fight. You know, you don't want this to be. Here are the million things that I'm doing. Tell me about the two that you have to do. Right. Like, you gotta be really calm and try to validate each other and recognize like, you guys are each carrying mental load to take care of each other, to take care of your relationship, your family, your household. Like we've said a bunch of times, like, we know it's easy for mental load to feel like it pits partners against each other. So it's really important for both of you to remind yourselves, like, hey, we are each doing things and we are each doing them with a really positive, loving, generous intention.

Yeah. I think it can also be helpful to talk a bit about how heavy the load of a given task is because I'm just kind of thinking out loud here. But there might be certain tasks that don't happen very frequently but have much higher stakes or more stressful. Like, let's say we're just about at the end of tax season now. Could be whoever does the taxes. It's like that's a once a year activity. But it is a really intense and and heavy activity because you know the difference between gathering all the right forms and all the right expenses and deductions. Like, there can be thousands of dollars of difference between like, you might need to pay money or you might get money back and you just kind of leave it to the last minute and do it in one hour. Like the outcome is probably not going to be as good for you as if you're really diligent and take the time to that you need to do it.

Yeah. I'm willing to bet that there are going to be some surprises at this step. Because mental load is so invisible. Most couples have never talked about it in their relationship. So you might be feeling like, I've been carrying everything. My partner does nothing. But you're going to hear the things that your partner has been carrying, and you're going to start to recognize, oh, yeah, they are carrying stuff too. I just never saw it. I never appreciated it. I didn't realize that's what they were doing. So it's just so important to. To put everything out on the table. And this is the first step of really letting that resentment start to fade away. Because you recognize, oh, no, my partner is doing stuff.

Yeah. And I think another really common dynamic that can come up, and this is. Can be a gender role thing. It can also not be a gender role thing. But I think it can be really easy for someone who maybe works outside of the house more or generates more income to have this mental shortcut of being like, oh, well, I'm making more money, and therefore my work is more important. And it can be really easy to be, like, sort of out of sight, out of mind about all the stuff that happens at home and just kind of be like, okay, well, if I weren't making this money, then none of this stuff would happen. And it's like, no, the reality is you have a home, you have a family. Like, you want that stuff to function. Like, just like, even if you did, if you didn't have a job and you weren't making any money, like, would everything at home just stop? Yeah, I don't think so.

Yep, exactly. All right, so our next step is to decide if you want to do things differently. Take a look at the mental load tasks that you're each carrying and ask yourselves, do you want to continue doing things the way that you've been doing them? Do you both enjoy keeping track of mental load in that way, or are there things that you don't want to keep track of anymore? So this is an opportunity to get really critical about how the mental load is being held by the two of you. And I mean critical critical, the two of you together as a team, not critical of each other. So some questions, for example, that you might want to ask are like, do we need to run our house in this way? So we got a lot of responses back from men when we asked all these questions about mental load on Instagram. And a lot of men said, you know, we never agreed in our relationship that this is how things would run. And so there were a lot of men who were feeling very frustrated or sad that their female partners were saying, you know, I feel so much pressure I'm carrying all these things when the guy was saying, well, well, I never wanted you to do that in the first place. So this is an opportunity to be really thoughtful about how you want mental load to function in your relationship. So a really great question that you can ask yourself is, do we need to run our house or our family or a relationship in this way or.

Just because we have been doing it in this way doesn't mean we have to continue in that way.

Exactly, exactly. I think we very often get into these patterns. We feel like this is how we've been doing it, so it's how we need to continue doing it for the rest of eternity.

Yeah, it's almost like it's. You take this mental shortcut of like, oh, this is how we've been doing it. And in your mind that almost turns into a memory of like, oh, yeah, we've agreed that it has to be done this way, when in reality it's just like, no, maybe you've just been doing it that way for the last year. But there was never an actual agreement about that.

Yeah, you know, we asked a follow up question on Instagram because the responses that we were getting to mental load were mostly from women. And so we specifically asked, hey, guys, tell us a little bit about what comes up for you around this. We don't want to be too heteronormative, but we wanted to specifically ask men what comes up for them. And so a lot of guys said, we never agreed that this is how our life or our relationship or our family was going to work. And so the guys were saying, I see my partner doing all this work and going a little nutty and feeling really stressed out and overloaded. And I just don't really understand because that's never what I wanted. That's never what I thought we agreed to. So this is such a great opportunity to kind of take a step back and say, okay, the ways that we have been doing things, is this really working for us or is there a different way that we could do this?

Yeah, I think you can actually make a lot of really interesting comparisons to like, being a good employee in the workplace as well, which I think can be helpful for people who are struggling to understand this concept of mental load because perhaps they are working full time out of the house. House. And so they aren't as involved in the household stuff. It's almost like when you get a new job, you have this fine balance of, like, you want to be really proactive, you want to do a good job, you Want to just run with things and make it happen so you can impress the boss or impress your team. But there's a fine balance of if you just take on too much stuff on your own without ever checking in with anybody else people, you're probably not going to get the best performance ratings. Like, eventually your boss is going to be like, hey, what are you doing? How come we never, we never talked about this. But at the same time, you also want to, you want to be critical of the stuff that's going on. You don't just come into a job and be like, okay, I'm going to do this the way that the former employee in this job did it, because that's what they did. And I'm. I'm not here to ask questions like, there's a balance of like looking at stuff critically and seeing is there a better way to do it? But also not just taking it and running with it in your own direction with. Without ever telling anyone.

Exactly. And I think that this question can come up in big ways and really small ways too. So small things, you know, there might be daily things like, okay, do the kids need to have that specific snack or this specific activity right after school? And then some of the bigger things that can come up is, you know, I think if you're in a heterosexual relationship, you know, for the guys out there, could this lead to a bigger conversation of you telling your female partner, like the other ways that you value her? So she's been really socialized and conditioned to believe that her value is in doing a good job, taking care of the household and the family, and being a good little homemaker. So can you really drill into her not just in this one conversation, but on an ongoing basis? Like, I value you for other things. I appreciate all of the work that you do around the house. And that's not the only value that I see in you.

Yeah, I think the trap that the non primary mental load partner, that's a mouthful. The person that's not taking on most of the. I think a really easy trap to fall into is like you have a conversation once about it and you're like, no, no, you don't need to do it like that. Or like, I value you in this, in these other ways. And then like a year later you have the conversation about mental load and you see that your partner's super stressed out and you're like, oh, we talked about that a year ago. I told you it didn't need to be this way. And it's like, you can't say something one time and negate like an entire lifetime worth of socialization.

Oh, yeah.

Like, it's a. It's an ongoing thing, like Vanessa said. Like, keep validating your partner. Keep telling your partner the ways that you value them that are beyond just the tasks that they do around the house.

So we'll give you some personal examples here. I carry the mental load of keeping our house stocked. That's one of the things that I do. Do we have the toilet paper, the hand lotion, dishwashing, detergent.

Were we ever close to running out of toilets paper at the beginning of the pandemic?

Absolutely not. Because I am so good at keeping track of that toilet paper.

Did we ever even need to order toilet paper?

No, we did not. I did. No panic buying because I was already fully stocked.

Did we perhaps have too much toilet paper?

Debatable. So anyways, I actually genuinely enjoy that mental load. It just connects with some little ocdish part of my brain. Like I like having overstock of all the items, like finding little places to store them. And so I don't mind carrying that mental load at all.

Mind you, our house does not have a particularly large amount of storage.

I knew you were going to say that. It really does not. But I squirrel things away where I can.

The other funny thing is Vanessa is very short. She's five feet. Half of these things are in places that only I can reach.

Well, I carry the mental load of remembering where they are and telling you to come back. Get them down.

It's amazing how you always manage to get them up into the storage places but can't get them down.

Oh, I can toss them. You can toss things up. You just can't, can't get it back down after that.

For me, I tend to take on most of the, like, financial mental load aspects and also kind of planning and logistics around travel, whether that's stuff we're doing out of the house. We live in la, so there's lots of traffic. So if it's like, like we're going to dinner at this place or we, we're gonna, we need to go drop this thing off and then get here and go see this friend. Like, I tend to do the logistics around what order to do things in how long it's gonna take, which freeways to take, all that stuff. And then also like travel planning. We, Vanessa and I like to travel. Whenever we go on vacation. I basically do all the planning around how we're getting places when trying to choose the best flights and blah, blah, blah. I Actually used to do that for my dad. Dad, when I was a kid, he put me to work. He traveled a lot for work, and it was at the very beginning of the Internet and being able to buy flights online without having to call, like, an agent. And I. I don't know, I was probably, like, 8 or 9 years old, and he showed me how to do it, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And then he just put me to work.

We will get back to that tip in a little bit.

For me, if I ever start to feel resentful about Vanessa asking me a lot of questions when we travel level, for example, I start to remind myself that I actually enjoy doing the planning. I didn't ask her for help doing the planning, so it's unfair for me to expect that she should just know exactly what we're doing or where we're going or how we're getting there. Because she wasn't involved in it. I took it on without anybody asking me to.

All right, so that takes us into our next step, which is to divide your mental load up in a way that feels balanced and doable for both parties. Notice that we didn't use the word fair. There. There is no such thing as fair, especially in relationships. So what you want to do is that now that you've got all the tasks laid out in front of you, you've kind of started talking about which ones you do and don't like. Now it's time to divvy up all the tasks in a way that feels more equitable, talk through all the responsibilities, assign them to each other. You can get kind of playful with this, like, you know, oh, I'll trade you the laundry for the dis. Stuff like that. So hopefully, you guys will get some of the tasks that you do enjoy doing, and you can battle it out over the less desirable ones.

Yeah, I think it's important to think about the ones that you like, the ones that feel easy versus hard for you. It's important to look at that because for Vanessa and I, for example, Vanessa loves doing laundry. I don't hate it, but I don't particularly enjoy it. So if we look at, like, how long would it take Vanessa to do the laundry versus how long would it take me and. And, like, how easy is it for her to do it in terms of, like, it doesn't really take a lot of effort, I guess, for you.

Getting into dangerous territory, buddy.

My perception is that you enjoy doing it. You tend to do it. You'll be watching a show in the background or you'll be doing this or that you'll do a little here, a little there.

You're always enjoyable, but it's an effort. It's still an effort for sure.

Sure. I would be dreading it and then I would be putting it off. And so if I think about all the time that would go into me doing it, it's like, you know, I'll take, I'll take on another task that I enjoy more. That that for me is faster because it's something that comes more naturally to me. And obviously not all of them are gonna. It's not gonna like slide in easily. Of like, okay, well, half of them are easy for me and half of them are easy for her.

Yeah, this is gonna take some negotiation. The other part of this that we really recommend is that you make some sort of chart document. It is about what the exact responsibilities are. So in our relationship, we have this big list of all the different responsibilities that we have and exactly who's responsible for each one. Because frankly, like, there are a lot of tasks on the list. It's really hard to memorize it. So it's just helpful to have track of it.

And even still, we tend to. We forget. We'll go back to it and be like, oh, shoot, like I've been doing Vanessa's job for the last six months. Like that's how easy it is to forget or how easy it is is to just slide into doing someone else's. Like you do something for someone for a couple days because they're sick or something like that and then all of a sudden you just forget and it becomes part of your normal day to day.

All right, so that brings us to our next step. I kind of have a hunch that we're going to need to do an entirely separate follow up episode. Just about this step, I'm going to.

Go out on a limb and say, we're definitely going to do this.

So this step is to let go and let your partner take the the reins. So here's the thing. Most of us have ways that we like doing things and we may have been doing them in that way for a while or really honed in on the exact perfect technique.

Or we might know the kids expect things in a certain way or they're used to something so it's not even just you. It could be, you know, your entire family.

And so it can be really hard to let go and allow your partner to take over that task task and do it in their way. And even if you're resentful of your partner, resentful that you've been having to do that task for all these years. It still can be really hard to give up that control.

Yeah. So, for example, someone commented, I have to carry all the mental load because my husband just doesn't get it.

Here's what ends up happening. You micromanage how your partner does it. You're really watching them, making sure they're doing it exactly right. You might might critique their end result or even critique their process or any little step along the way. And you might get so frustrated that you just end up taking that task back. Like, so who here has not seen their partner struggling to do a task and just been like, ugh, I'll do it myself.

Yeah, all those things you just mentioned, micromanaging how they do it, critiquing the end result, and then just getting frustrated. If that's happening to you, you're not getting any time back back.

None for giving up those tasks.

In fact, it sounds like you're probably spending more time and definitely more emotional effort.

Oh, yes. You know, the bottom line here is you deserve to have a balanced relationship. You deserve to have a relationship where it feels like mental load is carried in an equitable way. So it's really important to you to let go of how you want things to be done.

And then here's where we get into the part where there probably will need to do another podcast.

You guys might hate us in a.

Second, but you are going to have to learn to accept the fact that your partner will probably, nay, almost certainly fail at the tasks you give them.

Did you say nay?

I did. Yes.

So they are gonna fail. They are definitely going to fail. And you're. If this is so hard to watch, it's so hard to not want to jump in and say, like, let me just do it. Fine. But here are some really important things that you need to remember. Your partner needs time to learn a task, just like you needed time to learn that task initially too. So think back.

No, I did it perfect from the start.

Think back to whatever that task was when you were first learning how to do it. All the ways that you might have messed up at it. You know, you probably failed at some of that task too. You know, maybe there ways that you did it wrong, horrible catastrophes that you had with it. Like, we all learn by doing and failure. I'm going to put that in air quotes too. You know, that's a part of the learning process. So your partner needs that same grace and empathy to Be able to learn those tasks, too.

Yeah. So you need to be okay with them failing. And maybe then you jump in with a little playful training. So try to find a way to make the training process fun where it's not just like, okay, here's 10 things. Like, go see if you can figure it out.

Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, you can definitely be playful with each other and you can say, you know, okay, so you're taking over this. Are you open to me giving you a little training session about how I do it or the things that I've learned along the way?

Way, yeah. And so when you're doing that trading session, be really nice, be really fun. It's not like, don't set the stakes really high. Like, okay, I'm only going to tell you how to do this once. And, you know, if you screw this up, the kids are going to have a tantrum and everyone's going to be unhappy, and you're not going to get sex for a week.

Oh, boy.

Oh, yeah, I went there.

Yeah. Yeah. You can make a. Make it feel fun and playful and you can share with each other, you know, things that you've learned. Learned about it. But do it in a way that feels gracious and warm. And I think the other interesting thing to keep in mind here, too, is that. So let's say your partner is training you on some of their tasks. You might fail at some of their things, too. So I think it's really easy for us to feel like, oh, I've perfected this thing. I'm really good at it. I've been handling it like a champ. But maybe there's stuff that your partner has been perfecting and handling for years that you're not going to be so great at doing initially, too. So the same sort of grace that you would want your partner to extend to you, extend that to your partner. All right. And that leads us to our last step, which is to keep checking in with each other. So we do not want to make it sound like you just have this one conversation about mental load and you guys are set for life. I wish. But this is something that you guys are going to be needing to actively and consistently check in about. So it can really help to have regular meetings. Put it on the calendar. So at the beginning, maybe you want to do something like once a week, but eventually, eventually you could transition to once a month where you just check in with each other and say, how's your mental load going? What's this like for you? Are there any ways that we need to tweak our plan, adjustments that we need to make. And you also want to have a bigger meeting maybe like once a year. This is what we do in our relationship where you just take another look at that list. So we look at our big list that we have and we say, okay, do we like the way that we've broken it up or do we want to make some adjustments to it?

Yeah, so those are the big steps. But what are some little, like, quick wins or some pro tips for how to supercharge your mental load sharing or whatever we want to call it?

Wow. Okay. Well, we got those too.

Yeah. So the first tip is use an app. Put technology to work for you. You could put all of your tasks in an app like Cozy or Google or one that we just started using personally. It's called Notion. This is not a paid promotion at all.

Because Notion you're trying to get.

Because Notion. Notion is free. It is free. We use it. It's amazing. For like, lists, you can do tasks, lists, you can assign dates to things. You can like, really make it do whatever you want. And yeah, you can both keep track of everything. You can even use, you know, any of those things to have both tasks. And also, like, descriptions of what a certain task is or how to do. Do something.

Yeah. So that's another tip. We kind of mentioned it a little bit earlier, but making like a joint household manual, you can again, get kind of like fun and playful about it. But this is where you keep track of everything. Where you put, maybe put descriptions of how things should be done or maybe some good reminders about different tasks. It just allows you to kind of like train or educate each other about the ways to handle the different tasks.

And then outsourcing is always an option. Depending on your budget, you can outsource anything from the house cleaner, cleaning to meal prep to laundry.

Not the laundry. Outsource it to me.

Yeah. You know, I think that if this, if, if any of these things can fit into your budget, it can be really helpful to just think about, like, how much is it worth to me to have that time back or could I be spending that time doing something else that, you know, depending on your work or what you do, like, could I be doing something else that could, could be generating more income or something like that? Like, it's not always, it's not always like, we have to do every single thing.

And when it comes to outsourcing, I highly recommend. This is my pro tip here is prioritize the tasks that you hate. The Most or the tasks that cause the most conflict or friction in your relationship. So if you guys are always arguing about whose turn it is to clean out the toilets or do the dishes is prioritize getting a house cleaner first. Whatever it is that causes the most tension, get that taken care of first.

Yeah, you're going to be so much happier having those things that you dislike the most taken off your plate. It's going to disproportionately improve your mood and your mental capacity around the other stuff. Another tip is just keep automating things. So for example, if there's a certain household item or, or food thing or whatever that you're always ordering, you're always running out of. Try Amazon subscribe feature, for example, and just set it to come every week or every month. And probably, I think that saves you a couple bucks anyway. You can also add recurring calendar invites like in probably any calendar software. Like, I think that can be a really big one where like I do that for myself. I just put a reminder like every week at a certain time, like, oh, like, like check to make sure that you've done this or something like that. Yeah. Never underestimate the power of just that recurring reminder.

And then our last tip is to enlist the kids if you have them. So Xander was talking about how his dad put him to work booking his flights for him at 8 years old. So they're definitely things that you can ask your kids to help out with and maybe even prioritize some of the tasks that you hate the most if your kid is capable of doing it.

Just to be clear, my. I was not actually purchasing the flight flights. I was, I was finding all of the details and giving him an itinerary. I think he didn't quite trust me with the credit card. Honestly, I'm not even sure back in those days of like Internet 1.0, if you could even like pay online. But.

All right, so let's get into some listener questions.

All right, so the first question is why isn't it a two way street? There is no mental load that my partner bears for the family.

And that no was in all caps, wasn't it?

No method, mental load.

So I wanted to stick this question in here. I think we already answered it in that, you know, everybody carries a mental load. And I know it's really easy to feel like your partner carries none unless they literally, they.

They don't work, they don't leave the house, they don't. They just sit and do nothing. Which I think is most people are.

Not in that situation, I. I don't think so. So I think that's why it's so important to have this conversation where you're sharing with each other the ways that you hold mental load to recognize like, oh, okay, my partner is still doing something. It may not be a perfect 50, 50 balance, because I don't think any couple has a perfect 50, 50 balance. It might be a 9010 balance. And so, but just like being able to recognize my partner is doing something and my partner is having this conversation with me and willing to talk about sharing it in a way that feels more balance to us.

Yeah. So another question was, how do you help your partner understand mental load? I tried to talk about it here and there, but I don't want to overwhelm him.

The thing that jumped out at me from this question was the. I don't want to overwhelm him. It seems like this person is really like, caretaking for their partner and saying, oh, you know, I don't want to overwhelm him. When in reality, they're probably pretty overwhelmed themselves. The person who's, you know, sending this question in, in. I think that if you try to protect your partner too much, that's just gonna lead to you feeling more and more resentment.

Yeah. That's just like. Yeah. Further entrenches the, the current split of responsibilities and can get you into. You can get you into a bad situation where you're doing a lot of things because you don't want to overwhelm your partner. Your partner is maybe not noticing because you're just taking that stuff on. And then once you reach a breaking point, you're like, oh my, like, I've been doing all this stuff and you haven't been doing anything. It's like they're caught off guard because they're like, wait, what? Like, I didn't even know that this was going on. How has this gone on for so long without me being aware of it?

Yeah. So you. Do you deserve to share the burden that you're carrying with your partner?

Yeah. Just like sometimes you have to let them fail at a task, sometimes you have to let them be overwhelmed. Share that overwhelm realm. All right, the next question was, I'm a stay at home mom and my partner works. I feel bad asking him to do things since he works a stressful job all day.

This is a really interesting question that I wanted to address because it gets back to this idea that the mental load is not going to be fair. It's not going to be this 50, 50 split. You know, every couple has a different situation, different circumstances, and those circumstances can change over the course of your life together too. So the idea is not that you're dividing it up and like, I have 40 tasks and you have 40 tasks. It's keeping track of like, okay, yeah, I'm the partner who goes outside and is the primary bread winner. So I'm carrying that mental load of our finances. And so maybe, you know, in some relationships, a 20, 80 or a 40, 60 or a 25, 75 kind of split is going to feel good for their relationship. So it's totally flexible here. I also want to say though, stay at home mom is a pretty freaking hard and stressful job too. It's not like you're just sitting around watching tv, eating bonbons, doing nothing. So to all the mamas out there, please do not discount the work that you do or feel like it's not as valuable because it's not outside of the house or it's not being paid. It should be paid, but that's another episode.

Yeah. And I think the other thing to remember is that when, if you're a stay at home mom, your shift doesn't end at 5 o' clock or, you know, you don't, you don't, you don't get to like go to another home and just like, you know, wipe your hands clean, like, okay, I'm done for the day. Now it's time to relax.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Whereas, you know, in many jobs you leave the office and work is done for the day. That is less and less common with the rise of the smartphone and, you know, slack and all of that stuff. But still there's, you know, a lot of that. Oftentimes that work mental load kind of disappears on the weekend or when you go home. So, you know, it's not just like, oh, someone who works out of the house is therefore off the hook when they get home. All right, so another one was, my partner says it's not fair for me to expect him to read my mind. I assume they're talking about, like, about what needs to get done or that like, he should just know what to do.

Yeah, this sounds like what they're doing and they're really relationship is falling under that. Like one partner is just asking, like, well, tell me what you want me to do to help. You know, I can't read your mind. You have to tell me what you want to do to help. And that's why we talked about that. That's an approach that does not work in relationships, because most of the time, yeah, it's still leaving you as the default partner who's carrying all the load. So, again, this is why we really want you to have this conversation where you speak openly and you share the mental load that you're each carrying. Carrying. So your partner really gets a sense of what it is that you're carrying, and then that you're super specific about assigning those responsibilities between the two of you so that you are not left in the position of being the primary default partner.

Yeah, it's like assigning responsibility and also assigning ownership.

Exactly.

All right, so another one. How do I remind my partner to do their mental load tasks? If I don't remind, he won't notice.

Oh, this is a tough one. I think this is going to be a really challenging one. And this is one that I relate to. Like, the example that popped to mind right away for me was the trash. Like, the trash is your responsibility. It's your mental load. So I don't think about it. I don't do it. But there are definitely times where the trash is piling up. I can't even close the little drawer to it anymore, and I start feeling frustrated of, like, I don't want to have to be reminding you to do the trash. Right. Like, this is not my job, and yet it's in my face. So it's hard for me to, like, completely ignore it. So I definitely relate to this one. I think that it's something that should be a part of that conversation of, you know, recognizing what it is that you guys being really clear about what you guys are each having responsibility for talking about how you're going to do it and, you know, making a certain strategic plan for it. And then it also falls under that, like, really letting your partner take over that thing and maybe not do it in the exact way that you would want them to do it. Again, like, the whole conversation that we listed out, that's super important to walk through anyways, to, you know, be really clear about who's doing what. And you can have a conversation within that where you talk about, like, hey, this is what I need from this task, or these are the ways that that this task affects my life. You do also have to, like, let your partner take the reins and do it in their certain way. That might not be exactly your specific way, too.

Another option that may be a bit counterintuitive, but let's say that the task this person is talking about, it's something that impacts the person who's asking the question more than like the guy himself. Let's just. So let's say maybe you try reshuffling responsibilities so that he is responsible for something that if he forgets to do it, it's going to impact him more directly. So it might be something. It might be like a bigger responsibility, like the meal planning. And it's like, if you don't do it, then we're just not going to have dinner tonight.

Yeah. It will start to have an impact on your partner. So this is also something that you can really check in about on your weekly or monthly tasks and share with your partner. Like, hey, I'm noticing that this isn't getting done. It isn't getting done, period. It's not even that. It's not getting done in the way that I want it to. It's just not getting done and I need you to step up. Or is there something going on that you're not doing the task in the way that we both want you to be?

Yeah. And this is also a place where you can use technology to your advantage. I talked about recurring calendar invites. If you invite someone to a calendar thing, you can set up. Set up automated email reminders. You could be like, send an email every week at, you know, two hours before the task is due that says.

He can do that himself.

Or no, no, I mean, you could all. I mean, you could also. Yeah, either person could set it up, but that way it's a way for you to remind someone else without actually you having to talk to someone. And you, you can blame Google and be like, oh, Gmail sent that, not me.

That was tricky because I think that would be a mental load of like, as the partner, like, let's use us, for example. I wouldn't feel good. So setting up a calendar reminder for you to take out the trash, because that still feels like I'm taking on part of the mental load for about.

Two minutes one time. And then it would happen in perpetuity. What I'm saying is that it would just take away. It would take away the mental load of on a weekly basis, say, feeling like you need to do something. It would be a set it and forget it type of reminder.

Okay, so going back to my trash example, the thing that I do with the trash is I just keep putting the trash there. So I will leave the drawer open and just keep putting the trash there because that's how I need to clean up is putting things into the trash. And if it doesn't close, it doesn't close. And it becomes more obvious to Xander. So it's not the perfect solution, because there are definitely times for me where it feels like, am I being a little passive aggressive with this? Because, like, I don't want to have to give him this reminder of, hey, you've got to take the trash out. But I also kind of think of it as I'm going to continue going about doing my tasks and living my life in the way that feels good to me. And I think that he will catch on, and, you know, it'll be a little bit of a reminder to him.

Yeah, and I do catch on. I mean, the challenge is that our trash is closed up in a drawer. So if I'm not opening it on a regular basis, I don't always see it. So if Vanessa's opening. If Vanessa is utilizing the trash more than I am, then of course she's going to notice that it needs to go out more than I will. And then, you know, I just see it as a practical thing, like, okay, well, the trash is fine. So she put the trash, like, next to it instead of in it, and then I take it out.

I'll say one other thing about this, too. This is obviously a triggering question here. This has been a big episode. But I think one other thing is when you have these conversations about mental load and you are both actively working on it, it does create a sense of goodwill between the two of you. So, again, I'm being brutally honest here.

Yeah.

There are certain times where I get frustrated at Xander or resentful at Xander. And this is also something that we work on so consciously, we talk about so openly that the majority of the times, like, if I see the trash starting to overflow, I'll just tell him, hey, babe, can you take out the trash? And I feel okay about it. It doesn't feel like me taking on all the mental load or having to nag at him, because I recognize, hey, he's working at this too. He's taking care of his stuff. Maybe he's giving me some reminders of the things that I need to do. So it just feels like there's just more goodwill between the two of us, and we feel more open about giving each other those little reminders rather than feeling like we're nagging or my partner's not listening or never doing anything. It just. It makes it feel a lot easier.

Yeah. We've definitely not had an argument about the trash in years.

Yeah. In a very long time.

All right, the final question is, what if my partner, learning their new tasks Affects my family. Family, like, they forget to pack snacks for the kids, and then the kids have a tantrum.

Oh, this is another tricky one. You guys really got us with these questions. These are good ones. So I do think that this is part of the learning and the air quotes failing process. Obviously, like, if there's something that's going to put anyone in your family in actual physical danger or cause, like, real harm, like, please, you know, jump in and say something. Don't let that happen. But I think for a lot of things, like the consequences to our actions or our lack of actions, that's how we learn. And it's really painful, and it's really uncomfortable, and it sucks, and it's how we learn. I'm not saying, like, I don't want anyone to feel like I'm saying, like, yeah, just let the kids have a tantrum. That's totally fine. I know that's painful and that's challenging, and it's not fair to the kids that they're being put in situations like this. And I just also recognize, like, we are all human. Human. We make a lot of mistakes. We are not perfect. And so we have to give our partners that same grace that we would want them to give to us.

Yeah. Just to tie this one back to the workplace or like, the corporate world, if you. If you think about it from this perspective, like you say you have, like, a senior manager in a company. They've worked their way up. Like, they've been at this company for 20 years and they've worked their way up. They've been promoting, like, 10 times into the job they're in. They're probably really, really, really good at all the jobs below them because they've excelled in every single one of them. They might be better at all the work that needs to be done for their entire team, but they don't do it all because that's not their job.

All right, thanks, Mr. Former HR consultant for all the business examples today. I think this will really help some people who can't. I can't really understand mental load.

Otherwise, I'm happy to help.

All right, so let's wrap this all up here. So mental load is the mental energy that goes into running a household. If you want to keep your relationship and your sex life happy and healthy, it is important that you balance the mental load between partners by divvying it up clearly and intentionally. It will never feel perfectly fair, but it should feel balanced. Balanced. And you want to make sure to keep checking in with each other about how it's going. And keep making adjustments so that you both feel good. And remember that you are always teammates.

That's always a good reminder at the end.

Oh, yes.

I think we could probably put that as like the final bullet for every single one of our podcasts.

Oh, I think it could be.

Well, that you're always teammates. You know, that could, if we, in another lifetime, if we had chosen a different title for our podcast, it can be Always Teammates.

I wish you guys could have seen the little face that he just made. He was very pleased with himself about one.

All right, well, thank you all so much for listening. That is all for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Join us again next week when we talk about how to let go in air quotes during sex.

We are covering some real big topics. Got some heavy hitters from these first few episodes.

Oh, yeah, big guns.

So join us next time. We can't wait to share it with you. And if you are enjoying our podcast, it would mean so much to us if you could just take a minute and leave us a review. Reviews are so helpful, especially for brand new podcasts. It'll help us get in front of more people, help out more couples. So we really, really appreciate it. And we are doing something very fun with this. We're having a little contest. So here, here's how it works. If you leave us a review before June 20th. So what you'll need to do is leave us a review, take a quick screenshot, and send us a dmnessamarintherapy on Instagram just to make sure that we see it. We will enter you into a drawing to win any of our courses for free. So that is up to a $1,000 value just for taking a couple minutes of time to leave us a review. So thank you in advance and good luck. Make sure to subscribe for your weekly dose of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more.