Relationships: Sharing the Mental Load

A common complaint I hear from heterosexual women in my psychotherapy practice in New York City is that they feel exhausted by the mental load related to their household, especially if they have children.

What is the Mental Load?

The mental load, which is also called "worry work," refers to the cognitive and emotional work needed to manage a household.

Overwhelmed by the Mental Load

The mental load usually involves behind-the-scenes work necessary to keep a household running smoothly including:

• Meal planning
• Scheduling appointments
• Scheduling daily, monthly and annual plans
• Scheduling and planning vacations
• Remembering family members' appointments
• Staying on top of the children's scheduled activities
• Remembering and planning for birthdays, holidays and other events
• Buying gifts for family members, including her male partner's family members
• Making and working on to-do lists
• Delegating tasks to family members
• Overseeing tasks and making sure family members take care of assigned tasks
• Arranging playdates for the children
• Keeping a mental checklist of other tasks that need to get planned, delegated and done
• Many other responsibilities

How Does the Mental Load Affect Women?

The mental load is work done in addition to tangible household chores like cooking, cleaning, laundry and so on.

Many women feel especially drained by the mental load because not only is the list endless and tiring, it's often taken for granted by their male partner and children.

Overwhelmed by the Mental Load

The mental load often leaves women so exhausted that they have little or no energy for their own self care.  

Since many women feel overwhelmed by these tasks, they often report feeling dissatisfied with their relationships. 

This often means feeling emotionally and sexually disconnected from their male partner who isn't sharing in the mental load. 

If the mental load continues to fall disproportionately on the woman over time, it can contribute to the destruction of the relationship.

Why It's a Problem For Male Partners to Say, "You should've asked for help"

When women complain to their male partners, they often get a response along the lines of, "You should've asked for help," which is annoying and frustrating to many women.

Why? Because the question implies that the mental load is the woman's primary responsibility and the male partner is offering to "help" rather than sharing the tasks equally.

How to Share the Mental Load With Your Partner

• Talk to Your Partner About It: Even though you might have complained many times before about feeling exhausted from assuming the primary responsibility for the mental load, your partner might not have understood or, if he understood, he might have agreed to be better about it and then he quickly forgot about it. Don't wait until you're at your wits end. Make time to discuss this problem calmly when you both have time and privacy. Then, explain how you feel and how you're affected by all these responsibilities. Your partner needs to make a real commitment to change and then actually make changes.

• Share This Article: Sometimes when a partner reads an article, they're more receptive to change than when they feel you're trying to change or "fix" them. So, share this article so they can have another way to understand the concept of the mental load.

• Work Out a Way to Share the Responsibilities Equally: This can be tricky to work out. One possible way is to do things together. For instance, if you're usually the one who takes full responsibility for meal planning, work on it together. There might be some trial and error before you both feel you're sharing responsibilities equally, so think of it as a work in progress until you both get it worked out.

Give Up Control After Your Partner Shares the Mental Load

• Give Up Control: Once your partner shares responsibilities with you, you need to give up control. That means giving up on monitoring, criticizing or correcting your partner's way of doing things if it's different from your own. In addition, even if you and your partner are able to share the mental load equally, be aware that it's not unusual for heterosexual women to feel guilty about not living up to societal expectations with regard to traditional gender roles.

• Expect to Make Adjustments: As previously mentioned, it might take you and your partner many tries until you both adjust to sharing responsibilities. This usually isn't a one-and-done discussion. So, if you both know this in advance, you will expect it.

Getting Help in Therapy

Making changes in your relationship can be challenging--even when both people are motivated.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

If both of you have been unable to make changes on your own, you could benefit from working with a skilled couples therapist.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who works with couples.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.