This has been a source of tension for me lately, and I’m wondering who else can relate. How do you feel about the division of labor between you and your partner? I’m not talking about physical things, like caring for children or cleaning, etc. I mean the mental labor. Who keeps track of doctors appointments, or even selected and knows who the doctors are? Who signs up for activities? Who plans what to cook? Who notices when new clothes are needed because of a changing season or outgrowing the current ones? Who researches and signs up for daycare and preschool waitlists, or remembers back to school nights? I feel like my husband believes we’re equal because we both do things physically around the home. But I just CANNOT get him to understand the amount of energy that goes into mental labor, which I feel like I do at least 95 percent of, if not 100. It’s getting really hard to not be resentful. Especially now—I’m pregnant and exhausted, and my brain is tired. But I feel like we just argue about it, and then nothing changes. Can anyone relate? FWIW, we both work outside the home full time.
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And yes, sometimes my husband says I should have asked and it makes me raaaage. Because this. If I waited for someone to ask me to do stuff, nothing would get done. https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/
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I do 100% of that stuff, and sometimes I don’t mind because I’m a bit of a control freak and sometimes I really resent it because even when I try to outsource things to my husband half the time he forgets or I have to nag him or he does it wrong and I have to redo it.
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I do 100% of it which is fine bc I’m a SAHM. BUT. DH will be on Paternity leave when new baby comes in 6 weeks and will have to pick up a lot of that slack when it comes to DS’s school/therapy etc and I am a little worried bc he’s not as detail oriented as I am. But i need to let him own it while I am handling other stuff, and hope for the best.
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YESSSS!! DH and I just had a conversation about this last week. I feel like chores are distributed fairly evenly. We don't have to "assign" anything, we both just do what needs to be done. There's never any feelings of unfairness or resentment in terms of physical chores.
But I feel like my brain is exhausted from mental labor. A friend of mine called it "decision-making fatigue." I know most of it is brought on myself, because my husband would be more than willing to research too. But for whatever reason, I feel like I am always the decision maker. For instance: when to wean off bottles, how to sleep-train, calling about a bill that's wrong, making travel plans etc. It such small things that add up and literally make my brain hurt.
Last week I broke down. DH came home with a W4 for a new part-time job. He wanted to go over how we should be filing with added income. He genuinely wanted me to be included in this decision, but had zero knowledge of how to go about this. I didn't either. So I get on the computer and start researching and he is playing with LO. I kind of snapped at him. I said I was happy he wanted me to be informed about our finances, but I was so frustrated that he had zero knowledge and it felt like the research was put on me. It was totally self-inflicted, but it was so frustrating. He agreed and went into our room. He took like 30mins and then came to me with all of our options, pros and cons, etc. It felt like such a relief. We made the decision together but didn't have to do all of the work behind it. For me it was a lesson that sometimes I need to be explicit of what I need him to do
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@MrsSCB: Most of the mental labor does fall on me because DH travels a lot for work. It's tough and exhausting and no, I don't think men get it.
We really struggled with this when we had our first, and something that has really helped us is the Keep app. We set it up with a joint gmail account and can keep a running daily to do list we can both add to, a running grocery list, and a list of clothes needed for the kids and whatever else comes up. This way I'm not nagging, DH can see when he's home exactly what needs to be done, and I'm not trying to keep everything running alone.
I still do most (almost all) of the planning and preparing, but at least he can execute the items, such as calling the doctor to schedule the appointment, so it makes it a bit more "fair" in my mind in a way.
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I do 95% of the mental labor. He owns investment mental labor, because he enjoys it. I do everything else. I sometimes resent it, but he is really good at acknowledging that it is a lot of work, which helps a lot. It is also why I stopped working full time- I felt like I had two full time jobs and I couldn’t do it anymore. So it feels like him being supportive of me staying home (I was working part time for a while) is him seeing how much invisible work I was doing.
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@MrsSCB: I have commiserated with even my mom about this. She’s a very conservative, a-woman’s-place-is-in-the-home kind of lady which I clash with on most feminist issues, but after decades of kid-raising with my dad, she was just like: “Men just don’t get it.”
Before we had DS, I think things were 60/40 with me doing the majority of the mental labor and DH doing much less of that. The big balancing effect for us was meals. I helped plan meals and buy groceries, but he did 80-90% of food prep because he enjoys it. And we evenly shared the care of our dogs who are a ton of work (health issues mostly). I managed all of the health, home and financial stuff.
Once DS came along, it’s felt like 80/20 with me doing the lion’s share of all of the mental things you listed. There are just so many things to coordinate and life is way more complex. The few things that DH has almost purview over are daycare pickup, dogs and meals. He feels like these are SO many things and I see it as as a significant slice, but not at all balanced with what I take care of for us. I definitely don’t think he at all realizes all of the things that I do for us, in addition to my very demanding job. I guess I don’t get upset about it until he starts complaining that I do “just the bills.” I’m like...what?! Are you freaking kidding me?! I don’t have answers but I do think looking for big chunks of things (dogs, most meals, all car maintenance, home repairs, whatever) that you can mentally offload would be a place to start.
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@erinbaderin: yup, same.
I’ll say I do 98%. He is in charge of getting in touch with dog walker/sitter when necessary but I still have to remind him to text her when we hAve a change in schedule. He’s supposed to do the vet appointments too but never schedules them. He’ll bring them usually if I schedule bc someone has to stay home with the kids.
When I was on mat leave I was fine with this. Now that I’m back at work my resentment is slowly creeping up. He made a comment the other day that is still bothering me when he couldn’t keep track of our plans for the fall and I said good thing you have someone to keep track f everything (me)! And he goes “I have plenty to keep track of.” Talking about his job. I have a job too.
His brain just doesn’t work this way I don’t think. He cannot conceptualized everything. I just have to do it bc he just won’t without nagging and It’s not worth it. Most of the things I enjoy doing anyway, just when you add it all up it becomes too much at times.
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I stay home now, but even before that when we just had one child, I did 100% of the things you listed. But, I didn't necessarily mind. Some if it I enjoy and consider my hobby (meal planning, cooking) and a lot of the other stuff like appointments, keeping track of activities, changing clothes as kids grow, I would just prefer to do myself. I get resentful sometimes (and probably would be a LOT more resentful if I still worked full time) but I try to remind myself he does a lot of stuff that I would just rather not deal with, like anything having to do with our cars, home repairs either trying to fix himself or researching/making appointments with repairman, meeting with our financial planners on a regular basis, etc.
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I do the bulk of this for sure, but what helped recently was having a discussion about our plans and appointments for the next 2 months to decide who was going to do what (since we both WOH and need to make arrangements with work for doctors appointments and school parties). As a result DH now understands a lot better all the planning and coordination that goes on behind the scenes and has completely taken over a couple of things like our sons medication management and dentist appointments. He makes the appointments, takes the kids, fills the prescriptions etc. I am not involved anymore. But yeah I’m gendral I do think his brain works differently as he tends to stay in the moment instead of planning ahead, so it’s easier for us if I make the plans and he implements them.
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Same here I do close to 100% and did before I stayed home also. As a SAHM I do see it as part of my job but I wonder how the heck I can ever keep doing this if I go back to work, now that we have three. The thing I really hate is when dh tells me to just relax and stop doing things (evenings/weekends) and I’m like there are one million things seen and unseen that I always have on my mental list. Since having #3 I think he’s realized this a little more (because more things have been sliding) but it’s hard to change the mental load part even if he empties the dishwasher more.
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@MrsSCB: 99% of the mental labor and the subsequent mental anguish is me. I even pay all the bills (though my husband makes.rhe money
)
Sometimes I wonder if I didn't remember to change the toilet paper or God forbid sign my kid up for preschool, what would happen? Would my son go to school? Would he become a feral child running around naked in the neighborhood with crusty boogers, unvaccinated and chugging 3 Capri Suns simultaneously? -
DH and I talk about this a lot, and I often feel that he absolutely Does. Not. Get it. So many of our "big talks" end with him just telling me to make a list for him, which makes me think "great, another thing for ME to do."
One thing that is challenging for us is that, for the first several years of our relationship, he was the primary breadwinner, and I was often only employed part time. During that period, I took on things like bookkeeping, home maintenance, etc. Now, our roles have reversed, and I am the primary breadwinner while DH works part time, but I still do all of the same mental labor that I did before (plus added mental labor for LO!). Figuring out how to change and/or accept this is probably the primary challenge in our marriage.
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@pachamama:
that is a hilarious description of what I wonder sometimes too. Hopefully if I die he'll realize he needs to hire like 4 different professional services to keep the house afloat.Sometimes I'll decide to give myself a break and drop some of the mental load. Like decide to not keep on top of diaper supply or laundry. Even if it means we are scrambling later on to make up for it it feels liberating. Shrug.
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I used to do 100% of this, but lately I’ve given my husband some domains (the lawn care, rental home) that are solely his and I’d like to be left out of any decision making unless absolutely necessary. But I don’t mind too much that it falls on me. I care about the outcomes and so I like that I get to make all the decisions. I do feel like it holds me back more at work. The feminist in me wants to change that, but if I’m honest with myself, I’m ok with it so *shrug*
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@MrsSCB: I do 100% of all that. Just like you DH is great at helping with physical chores but just expects that we havw a constant supply of everthing the kids need, the right size clothing for the season etc... I don't mind doing it because of my personality I will actually take the time to make things work with our schedule and find the best deals but yeah it is a lot of work!
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@MrsSCB: Me! I also do 95% of the mental (child related) labor just as you describe it. But DW does much more of the household stuff and car and cooking and taxes etc - that kind of mental work. I was annoyed this morning when I overheard a dad ask what his kid’s teacher’s name was. I thought that wasn’t really acceptable....
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@MrsSCB: I am just a few months ahead of you in the home buying/baby-having schedule and this summer was fucking exhausting. Working, commuting, parenting, unpacking and setting up house during pregnancy = ugh. I was so tired and miserable the past few months that I kept wondering if I had a chronic illness. Now that I’m a month pp I feel a thousand times better and I bet you will soon too
About the load, I do the lion’s share, but after a LOT of bickering I’ve come to recognize that my husband has his own mental load that’s invisible to me, and appreciating that has helped. He does so much financial planning stuff, bill paying, car maintenance, now lots of home maintenance. And I’m a control freak about a lot of the minutiae you mentioned, so when I start to get resentful I try to remember how annoying and bossy I can be about that crap.
When you guys bought, did your husband research mortgages, inspectors, insurance, and figure out what had to be done and when? Or did it all fall on you? To me, that sort of thing (even if it’s infrequent or one-off tasks) does count. I think a way to feel better about your never-ending mental load is to give him more and more chores, since you say he’s good about them. It doesn’t resolve your problem but at least it helps with your time.
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I do 100% of this stuff. I work PT and my husband works FT so it kind of makes sense. Even when I was FT I did it all though. I don’t really mind though, but it makes me rage when he randomly voices a thought about our schedule and thinks it can just happen. Months of planning go into some of these things!
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I do 100% of that stuff too, and actually just had a talk with my husband about it this morning! I don’t need it to be 50/50 but honestly 80/20 would help me out so much. I feel like he just gets to work work work all day and then comes home and keeps working all night by choice, and even plans work things on the weekends and I’m over here like helllooooo I wish you’d spend even 10 mins a day thinking about what needs to happen in your home life. It’s exhausting.
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Who keeps track of doctors appointments, or even selected and knows who the doctors are? ME
Who signs up for activities? ME
Who plans what to cook? ME
Who notices when new clothes are needed because of a changing season or outgrowing the current ones? ME
Who researches and signs up for daycare and preschool waitlists, or remembers back to school nights? ME
I also do maintenance, finances, researching stuff related to buying a house, and pretty much everything else mentioned in the replies that is relevant to us...Plus drop off and pickup since daycare is near my work and much of the childcare, since LO is still a baby and breastfeeding.
My husband is incredibly disorganized. Before we were married, his apartment was a massive train wreck, bills super overdue if somehow they weren't on auto pay, etc. He never knows where anything is either, it's always "Honey, where's my..." When LO was a tiny newborn and I was constantly breastfeeding, it was sort of hilarious because he couldn't find anything. And our elderly, stern postpartum doula ordered him to take care of some home maintenance I couldn't do while pregnant so it had just been undone for months...
The problem I think goes back to his mother, who always (and still will) waited on him hand and foot. But I knew I was getting myself into this before I married him, and honestly I've just accepted it. I don't think it's going to change. In contrast, I've always been a super organized person. He has other strengths....though it doesn't change the fact that life is exhausting...
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I do 98% of it. I don’t mind too much because I part time SAH. Recently my husband lost his job and was unemployed for 2 months so he took over all the mental labor. It was AUHMAZING. It was so liberating to just not think about anything. Him being unemployed was a HUGE blessing because, even though he’s a great dad and helps with other stuff when it’s needed, he really saw how insanely difficult it is to bear the burden of handling every detail. He tells me how much more he appreciates me now
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I think this is so interesting because for everyone I know IRL and whenever there’s a thread on this, it’s ALWAYS the woman in a heterosexual relationship. Is it just falling into gender roles like the cartoon someone posted above?? Laziness? Lack of interest? I dunno.
For us, we are two women and it feels more equal and not resentful most of the time because we both have our designated things: I do the shopping lists, meal planning, the bulk of appointments for kids and generally am a planner type person so gifts, events, etc. Fall to me. DW does the car stuff, bill payments/finances and dog stuff. For home reno stuff, I did more of it recently as she was pregnant and I wanted it all DONE. I guess we just gravitate towards our strengths. I definitely always have a to do list in my head and hate having things hanging over me not getting done so sometimes I’ll ask her ‘can you just take this over so it doesn’t make me crazy?’ As DW is definitely more patient than I am.
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@pachamama: I'm dying!!
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So, I definitely do 95% of the mental load in our house and I have discussed this with my husband and so we decided he would do more around the house (dishes, he cooks dinners, lawn care, pick up dog poop etc.)
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Me. Everything for kids and out daily life. My husband is clueless even tho it’s on calendar and I sit him down and explain things. He still doesn’t know. It is exhausting but...he does all the mortgage, insurance, credit card bills, house things so he gets a pass
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I do 100% of the mental labor relating to having a kid and keeping the house up. Even though he mows the lawn and takes care of the car stuff, I usually have to remind him. The one area that he does exclusively is finances.
I really hate how much mental labor I do. We frequently have discussions about it and it gets better for a few weeks, and then back to me.
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I do all the kid mental labor (appointments, activities, school, doctors appointments...). But he does all the bills and monitoring savings and stuff like that, in addition to making the money, and he mostly handles the home stuff like lawn, repairs, when we need to have maintenance stuff done. When we hire service people I typically handle researching and hiring them (like pest control or whatever).
So I feel like the division is usually pretty fair, although we both get frustrate and or resentful now and then.
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@Foodnerd81: ditto to everything you said except service people. My hubby handles that. I do get grumpy at him, but I know we’re each tackling a lot of stuff.
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@LCTBQE: I feel similarly. My husband takes care of a lot of things around the house so I don't have to think about it, down to the "cleaning lady envelopes."
I try not to spend too much of my time thinking about what the division of labor is, whether it be physical or mental. I just do what I can, and as I have gotten older, I have just changed what I am willing to say yes and no to.
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@looch: I think we are about the same. We both take care of a bunch of stuff, we aren't always sensitive to what the other one does, but most of the time I think we appreciate each other.
I do think you have to be careful about micromanaging and bandwidth. I know I am reluctant to do something when my husband micromanages me and I see the same in him. I also sometimes think I get invested in him doing something that I really want done but don't have the mental or physical energy to take on. I am getting better about telling myself that either I need to do it or accept that it's not getting done. We both do a lot, and it's not fair for me to assign him tasks that neither of us have the bandwidth to take on.
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I do 100% of the mental load stuff (booking and taking kids to all appointments, paying all the bills, buying kids clothes, buying dog food, booking weekends away etc) It’s EXHAUSTING.
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@muffinsmuffins: I'm really glad you chimed in. My best friends and I often wonder if this is as much of an issue for same-sex couples as it is for us in heterosexual relationships, and you're confirming my suspicion that it isn't. I'm so happy to hear you and your wife are able to divide this evenly. I'm envious!!
It's all on me. I will admit that I'm a Type A personality that likes things done a certain way so a fair amount is just my nature to do, but sometimes I'd really love if he followed up with some of these tasks. Yes, I'm better at contacting customer service but that doesn't mean I always love making those calls. I really do need to work on giving him tasks that he can handle, and that I won't mind if they're done differently than how I'd do them.
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Yes - you've described the women's mental load perfectly - I think a lot of moms can relate to this comic
https://www.workingmother.com/this-comic-perfectly-explains-mental-load-working-mothers-bear#page-12
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@MrsSCB: so I do almost all of the things you mention in your post, BUT, my husband deals with ALL of the bills for our home & utilities and including my cell phone, car, and my EZ Pass, etc.... He also carries the insurance so deals with that. Basically all of the money stuff, of which I am blissfully unaware....
It feels like a good trade-off to me.
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So, I'm thinking about this, because I want to be fair to my husband, who is a SAHD while I work full time. But, I think the answer is 99/1.
I don't get resentful OFTEN, but it does happen sometimes. I am a type-A control-freak who would be very uncomfortable with someone else handling certain things (bills, namely), and he is very laid back and gets overwhelmed with details, so the dynamic works.
The thing that makes me the MOST resentful is some double standard. An example is: one day I came home from work to him cleaning the kitchen (like, emptying the junk drawer, reorganizing, checking expiration dates and clearing out cupboards level of cleaning). It was on a to-do list for me to accomplish some weekend and he was trying to help. But as soon as I walked in, he asked me to help him finish. It was a job I wanted done and I appreciated the initiative, so I helped (even though all I *wanted* to do was sit on the couch and play with DD). Now, if I had done the same thing when he was working, when HE got home from work? 0% chance he would help, 0% chance he would be anything but annoyed if I had asked, even if it was a job he wanted done.
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@hitchhiker: completely agree with your point on micromanaging. i used to get so annoyed when after i asked him to take care of something, he was coming back to me about the smallest details. after many silly arguments, he revealed it was because i would criticize a decision he made. he now trusts that when i ask him to take care of something, i will fully leave it with him.
We are both aware of what's going on in the household, but he is always keeping on top of dental, car and house maintenance appointments, and i never have to nag him - he knows those are his areas. He will be the one to initiate conversations around mortgage/finances/investments. I can easily ask him to look into after school programs for our kids but honestly, he'll probably just find the closest one from our house, register them and boom, done in 10 minutes. I will spend way more time than that, but is it really necessary? And is he doing it wrong just because he spent so little time researching different programs?
While i probably take on more of the mental and physical load at home, I am in a place where i don't feel any resentment.
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This is and always will be a point of contention for me and my husband. He has absolutely no concept of how much this drains me to constantly be the one who has to handle making all appointments, securing childcare, organizing gifts for birthdays and Christmas, etc. It is exhausting. I also work significantly more hours than he does and I am almost always the one who has to take off work if someone is sick. Honestly, this was such a big deal to me about a year ago that I started going back to therapy for it. The idea that even as I brought it up with my husband, he still didn't get it made me so upset that I felt like I needed to remedy it in therapy to avoid a rift in our marriage. I even sent him the amazing comic about mental load (up-thread) and he still didn't understand.
The thing that really bothers me is the 'you just have to ask' bullshit. Because no one ever has to ask me to get something done, so why should that be something that I have to do for another member of the family who is equally invested in our successes and failures?
And now I am cranky...
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100% me.
DH would say that his job/career is more mentally taxing than mine, which is true, but I still don't think it even outs
There are SO many aspects to this -
A) I agree with some that I don't mind doing it because that way I'm in control of it all. I think I only get annoyed when it's stuff that he CAN take over but doesn't. For example, since he takes care of all house/outside stuff, can I not have to remember when filters have to be changed, etc? Or I tell him a thousand times when car inspections, etc are due and it literally gets done a day after it's overdue! Yet he won't let me just take it somewhere local b/c he HAS to take it to his trusted mechanic friend.
B) For us personality plays a big part too. He is just not good with being organized and remembering a thousand things at the same time. So even if he volunteers I'd be very hesitant to let him take over anything
C) I think the core issue is that as long as I am being reconigzed for all the work I have between working full time, taking care of him/kids PLUS this mental load that I carry, I'll be happy. I think usually when I have resentment, it's towards the fact that no one is understanding/appreciating the mental load I constantly carry on top of everything else. Like he is looking at me funny because I am already researching summer camp options for 2020 but we moms all know how needed early research/prep work is!
The problem I think goes back to his mother, who always (and still will) waited on him hand and foot. But I knew I was getting myself into this before I married him, and honestly I've just accepted it. I don't think it's going to change. In contrast, I've always been a super organized person. He has other strengths....though it doesn't change the fact that life is exhausting...
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