Setting Boundaries: How to Stop Being Enmeshed With Your Family

I began a discussion about enmeshment in an earlier article, Overcoming Shame in an Enmeshed Family.

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

Topics in the Current Article

In the current article, I'm covering:

• What is Enmeshment?
• What Causes Enmeshment in Families?
• How to Overcome Enmeshment
• Getting Help in Therapy to Overcome Enmeshment

What is Enmeshment?

If you grew up in an enmeshed family you probably had at least some of the following issues:

• There was a lack of physical and emotional boundaries.

• There was a tendency to focus on what's best for other family members and not what's best for you.

• You put other family members' happiness above your own.

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

• You feel guilt and shame, as an adult, if you put your needs above other family members. For instance,  you might not want to call your mother every week, but you feel guilty and ashamed if you don't because you know she wants you to call weekly.

• Your family's self worth is dependent upon your success.

• Your family expects you to share everything about your life--even things you might want to keep private. They get offended if you say something in your life is private.

• Your family might have imposed their ideas on you when you were a young adult instead of encouraging you to follow your own hopes and dreams. If you wanted to follow your own aspirations, they felt offended and you felt guilty and ashamed.

• Parents in enmeshed families tend to treat their children like friends instead of children because there is a lack of boundaries.

• You tend to avoid conflicts, even now as an adult, because you have difficulty setting limits.

• You lack a strong sense of who you are.

• You absorb other people's emotions around you because you lack appropriate boundaries (this is different from being an empath).

What Causes Enmeshment in Families?

Enmeshment usually develops in dysfunctional families and repeats the pattern from one generation to the next (see my article: 

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

It can be difficult to pinpoint when an enmeshed family dynamic started since it might go back generations and family members often have little to no awareness about the enmeshment.

Enmeshment often develops due to unresolved trauma, mental health problems, substance abuse, compulsive gambling or other related issues.

What is the Impact of Enmeshment in Adult Relationships?

The following characteristics are common for adults who grew up in enmeshed families?

• Low self esteem
  

• Anxiety
  

• Fear of abandonment
  

• Being out of touch with your feelings

• Feeling burdened by guilt and shame

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

• An overdeveloped sense of responsibility

• Poor personal boundaries

• Difficulty setting boundaries with others

• Codependency
  

• Difficulty with assertiveness

• Difficulty with emotional regulation 

• Difficulty calming or soothing yourself emotionally

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates the negative impact of enmeshed family dynamics and how psychotherapy can help:

Maria

Maria grew up in crowded family home where she shared a bed with her two older sisters. She had no privacy. 

When Maria was 15 years old, her oldest sister found Maria's diary, she read it to their parents, grandparents and siblings and they laughed at what Maria wrote about feeling sad.

Her parents and grandparents invalidated her feelings and told her she had nothing to feel sad about since she had a roof over her head, food and clothing.  They told her that only someone who had something terrible to hide from the family would even want to write in a diary.  Then, her father tore up her diary and threw it in the garbage. He told her she should be ashamed of herself for what she wrote.

When she turned 16 years old, Maria's maternal uncle, who came to live with her family, began touching her inappropriately when no one was around. He told her that he would hurt her sisters if she told anyone about the sexual abuse (see my article: Overcoming the Trauma of Sexual Abuse).

One day her mother happened to come home early and she found her brother touching Maria's breasts. She threw her brother out of the house and she also blamed Maria for the sexual abuse.  

She told Maria it was her fault that the uncle touched her inappropriately. Then, she made Maria promise not to tell Maria's father because she feared what he might do to the uncle if he found out.

When it was time for Maria to choose a major in college, her parents insisted that she become a teacher--even though Maria wanted to become a medical doctor. Her parents told her that women shouldn't become doctors because they would have to see men's naked bodies and this was shameful for a woman.

Maria was upset that her parents were trying to force her to choose a career she didn't want so she sought help from a professor who referred her to the college counseling center.  

In counseling, Maria learned to set boundaries with her family--even though they didn't like it and they threatened to stop paying her tuition.

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

Her counselor helped Maria to get a scholarship and a room in a dorm so she could live independently from her family.  She took pre-med courses and, eventually, she went to medical school.

While she was in medical school, she sought help from a trauma therapist so she could deal with the impact of her enmeshed family, including the sexual abuse.

Even though her family didn't like that Maria was making her own decisions and setting boundaries with them, they accepted it reluctantly.  

While she was in medical school, Maria met her husband-to-be and she learned to have a healthy relationship with him with the tools she learned in therapy.

How to Overcome Enmeshment

To become a mature adult, children need to learn to become their own person at stages that are appropriate for their development at the time.  This is part of the individuation process.

Individuation means being your own person and not just an extension of your parents and other family members.

When you are appropriately individuated from your family, you can maintain your relationships with them with appropriate boundaries. You also learn how to be your own person physically, emotionally and psychologically.

To overcome enmeshment, you need to learn to:

• Set appropriate boundaries with family members (see my article: How to Set Boundaries Without Guilt).

• Discover who you are as an individual apart from your family.

• Learn to stop feeling ashamed and guilty if what's right for you might make your family unhappy.

• Get help in therapy when trying to overcome enmeshment becomes too challenging.

Getting Help in Therapy

Overcoming enmeshment can be challenging.

Getting Help in Therapy

A licensed mental health professional with the right expertise can help you to develop the skills you need to overcome enmeshment and develop healthier relationships.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a skilled psychotherapist so you can lead a more meaningful life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapy.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples to overcome trauma, including enmeshed relationships.

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.

Why is Family History Important in Psychotherapy?

New psychotherapy clients, who have never been in therapy before, often ask why therapists ask about family history as part of the beginning phase of therapy.

Talking About Family History as a First Step in Therapy

Why is Family History Important in Psychotherapy?

Here are the main reasons why asking about family history is so important to the success of therapy:

• Family Dynamics: The family dynamics often reflect how someone in that family sees themself and how they interact in their relationships with others, including romantic relationships. Family dynamics, which are internalized at an early age, often remain unconscious until someone begins therapy and learns to see connections between their early experiences and their adult relationships (see my article: Children's Roles in Dysfunctional Families).

• Attachment Patterns: Attachment patterns developed at an early age tend to affect adult relationships. Similar to internalized family dynamics, attachment patterns are often unconscious so that a client is often unaware of it until they develop insight about the affect of these dynamics in therapy (see my article: How Your Attachment Style Can Affect Your Relationship).

Attachment Styles Develop Early in Childhood

• Transmission of Psychological Trauma: It's not unusual for there to be unprocessed trauma that gets transmitted from one generation to the next in a family. When an individual gets help in trauma therapy, they can see the origins of their trauma and process the trauma so it no longer affects them and it doesn't get passed on to the next generation (see my article: What is Intergenerational Trauma?).

• Learned Behavior: Individuals often learn patterns of behavior early in their childhood. They might not be aware they learned this behavior, including how to express emotions, how to deal with stress and how to interact with others, until they become aware of these dynamics in therapy. During therapy their therapist helps them to make connections between their current behavior and what they learned (explicitly or implicitly) early in life (see my article: Developing Skills to Manage Your Emotions).

• Genetic Factors: Certain mental health conditions have a genetic component. This includes anxiety, depression, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), autism spectrum disorder and other mental health conditions. Knowing about the possibility of genetic factors can help a client to understand their risk for developing these conditions, help with early detection and make informed mental health treatment decisions.

How Do Psychotherapists Use Family History Information?

Different therapists use family history information in different ways.

As an Experiential therapist with a specialty in trauma therapy, I like to get a family history during the early phase of therapy.  This is part of history taking which, depending upon what the client wants to work on, includes family history, current family dynamics, the history of other significant relationships as well as the history of the presenting problem.

By having the family history, the client and I can work towards:

• Identify recurring patterns

• Understand the context of the client's current problems

• Develop coping skills, strategies and internal resources to do trauma therapy.

• Process the trauma using various forms of therapy (see below)

Conclusion

Getting a family history during the beginning phase of therapy is an important first step in helping clients to overcome their emotional challenges.

Experiential therapists know the client's awareness and insight isn't enough to heal (see my article: Healing From the Inside Out: Why Insight Isn't Enough).

Insight is only the first step before the therapist helps clients to work through and overcome their problems through a variety of Experiential Therapy including:

• EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• Somatic Psychotherapy
  

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Hypnotherapy (also known as Clinical Hypnosis
  

• Parts Work Therapy (Internal Family System also known as IFS as well as Ego States Therapy)

• Contemporary Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (also known as depth therapy)

All of these Experiential therapy modalities are effective types of therapy depending upon the client and the presenting problem.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you're struggling with emotional issues you have been unable to resolve on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional.

Getting Help in Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a skilled psychotherapist so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience working 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.

The Connection Between "Tough Love" and Verbal Abuse

The concept of tough love has been around for decades and it has often been used to justify verbal abuse and bullying.

Rationalizing Verbal Abuse With Tough Love

The practice of tough love is used in many families, sports teams and gymnastic competitions.

In recent years, tough love has been exposed, especially in gymnastics, foir what it really is--a form of verbal abuse and bullying.

The Connection Between "Tough Love" and Verbal Abuse

For many years, tough love has been justified as a way to disparage any form of mental anguish including grief, sadness and other forms of mental and physical distress.

In my psychotherapy private practice in New York City, many clients have recounted how they were ridiculed and shamed by parents who justified the verbal abuse of tough love by telling their young children that they were doing this for the children's own good.

Clinical Vignette:

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many different cases to protect confidentiality, illustrates the trauma of tough love and how trauma therapy can help:

Jim

When Jim described his upbringing, he said his father used tough love with him.

Jim said he was never good at sports. He preferred to draw, play piano, and go out into nature, but his father, who was also Jim's baseball coach, told him that those activities were for "sissies". He told Jim he needed to "toughen up".

Jim was nine years old when he played on the baseball team his father coached his team.

Whenever Jim made mistakes during baseball practice, his father would lose his temper and yell at him, "What the hell are you doing, you sissy! You missed the ball by a mile!"

Jim said he would feel so ashamed and humiliated by his father's bullying that he try to hide his tears, but his father's response was, "Stop crying, you crybaby!"

Usually his father would refuse to speak to him on the drive back home, which made Jim feel even worse.  

Then, when they got home, his father would disappear in the garage to avoid Jim and Jim would sit with his mother in the kitchen.

His mother tended to be the more compassionate parent, but she seemed to be intimidated by her husband's temper, so she would try to soothe Jim by telling him, "You know your father loves you. When he yells at you, that's just his way of using tough love to help you."

Even though he knew his parents loved him, Jim was confused when his mother told him this. He couldn't understand why his father's attempts to help him made him feel so bad.

He was also aware that his father was raised by parents who constantly berated him and so he was repeating this pattern with Jim because he grew up believing that tough love was the best way to raise children.

As an adult, Jim tended to choose romantic partners who were verbally abusive. These relationships were very painful for him and further eroded his self esteem.

During his time in therapy, Jim was able to make the connection between his unhealthy romantic choices and his early childhood experiences with his father (see my article: Choosing Healthier Romantic Relationships).

Once he saw the connection, he wanted to overcome his history of trauma because he realized his history was getting unconsciously repeated in his adult relationships with women.

Using a combination of EMDR Therapy and Parts Work Therapy (Internal Family Systems as well as Ego States Therapy), we worked on his history of trauma.

The work was neither quick nor easy, but Jim made steady progress so that, by the time he completed therapy, he no longer felt affected by his traumatic childhood and he chose healthier relationships.

Conclusion

Tough love by any other name is verbal abuse, shame inducing, a form of bullying and traumatic.

Verbal abuse can have lifelong consequences for adults including the choices relationship choices they make.

If you're experiencing the negative impact of tough love, you could benefit from seeking help from a trauma therapist.

Rather than struggling alone, seek help so you can lead a more fulfilling life free of your history of trauma.

About Me

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

I work with individual adults and couples.

As a trauma therapist for over 20 years, I have helped many clients to overcome unresolved trauma (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

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.

Relationships: Coping With a Passive Partner

Coping with a passive partner can be very frustrating. 

When you ask them what they want to do when it comes to making decisions, you might get a response like, "Whatever you want to do" or "I don't know. It doesn't matter to me."

Coping With a Passive Partner

You're Carrying the Mental Load When It Comes to Making Decisions

Not only is it frustrating to get passive responses from your partner, but it also places you in the position of carrying the mental load for decision-making, which can be exhausting (see my article: Sharing the Mental Load in Your Relationship).

Passivity is Often Centered Around Anxiety That Originated in Your Partner's Childhood

Your partner might not realize it, but their passivity is probably part of a maladaptive coping strategy they learned unconsciously in childhood (see my article: Maladaptive Coping Strategies: Passive Behavior).

Coping With a Passive Partner

When stress goes up, your partner's anxiety and passive response get activated. This is often a learned response from seeing one or both parents respond to stress with passivity. 

Children, who grow up to be passive adults, often learn to stay under the radar by being passive, especially if they had siblings who responded to family stress by being vocal or acting out. 

If your partner witnessed the negative consequences to their sibling, your partner learned to be passive so they wouldn't suffer the same consequences.

Passivity and Low Self Esteem From Childhood

Your partner might have developed low self esteem in childhood from subtle or not-so-subtle messages they received.

For instance, it's possible that when they needed emotional support as a child, one or both parents, who might have been emotionally avoidant, might have criticized them ("Stop acting like a baby!" or "Don't bother me. Figure it out yourself").

When a child gets a negative response when they want emotional support, they usually don't think there's anything wrong with their parent--they believe their parents are right. 

The child comes away feeling, "I'm not good enough" or "I'm unlovable".  

They learn to appease their parents by not complaining and fawning as part of a trauma response.

These feelings of being unworthy carry over into adulthood including adult relationships. This can result in not trusting their own judgment so they either defer to you or find another way to avoid dealing with whatever decision needs to be made.

Another common childhood problem is that their parents might not have been capable of managing their own emotions so your partner, as a child, might have over-functioned for the  parents through a role reversal where the they took care of the parents.

Perfectionism Related to Childhood Experiences

Another way that a passive partner might cope with anxiety is to resort to perfectionism (see my article: Overcoming Perfectionism).

This usually involves all or nothing thinking. When they think they can't do it perfectly, they avoid the situation or leave it for you to handle.

Problems Expressing Emotions

Since your partner might not have learned to identify their feelings as a child because they deferred to a parent, they probably have problems identifying and expressing emotions now, especially so-called negative emotions, like anger or sadness, because they haven't developed emotional intelligence (EQ).

This means they can't assert themselves because they don't know what they feel and, even if they do, they're afraid to be vulnerable enough to express it.

Problems With Change

There might be many reasons why your partner might have problems with change. 

It's possible that their parents didn't cope well with change so your partner never saw this coping skill modeled for them.

Since change is an inevitable part of life, your partner probably struggles with transitions.  Rather than face the change in an assertive way, your partner might sink into passivity, which leaves you to deal with the change.

Problems Initiating Sex

If your partner's lack of confidence includes lack of sexual confidence, they might have problems initiating sex (see my article: How Unresolved Trauma Affects Adult Relationships).

This can make you feel your partner doesn't love you or doesn't find you sexually appealing. But their lack of initiation might not mean this at all. It might have nothing to do with you--it might have more to do with how your partner feels about him or herself.

If you're the one who is usually initiating sex, you might be fed up. 

This often results in no sex--possibly for long periods of time--because you and your partner might both be avoid dealing with sex (see my article: How to Talk to Your Partner About Sex).

If this has happened in your relationship and talking about it hasn't helped, you and your partner could benefit from seeking help in sex therapy (see my article: What Are Common Misconceptions About Sex Therapy?).

How to Cope With a Passive Partner

• Ask Your Partner to Be in Charge of a Particular Task: Rather than taking on all the decision-making responsibilities, ask your partner to be in charge of a relatively easy task to begin with so your partner is more likely to experience success with it. If your partner does it, don't try to manage it or criticize your partner's efforts.

• Talk to Your Partner About Upcoming Changes in Advance: If your partner has problems with change, try to provide advanced notice if you can. For instance, if you know there's an upcoming event you both need to attend, tell your partner in advance of the event instead of bringing it up at the last minute. This might not always be possible because change can occur without warning, but if you know in advance, tell your partner so your partner has time to adjust.

• Encourage Your Partner to Express So-Called Negative Emotions: Since your partner might have had their feelings squelched as a child, encourage your partner to express so-called negative emotions to you so they might feel safer doing it. Whether your partner feels sad, angry, frustrated, impatient or whatever they might feel, be supportive as long as they express their emotions in a healthy and appropriate way. When they do express these feelings, give them positive feedback.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

If you and your partner haven't been able to resolve problems on your own, seek help in couples therapy.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own and continuing to get stuck in the same negative cycle, get help from a skilled couples therapy so you can have a more fulfilling relationship.

    See my article: Overcoming the Negative Cycle in Your Relationship With Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) For Couples).

About Me

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

I have over 20 years of experience helping 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.

What is Parentification and Why Is It Traumatic?

Many clients who come to see me for unresolved trauma grew up as parentified children (see my article: What is the Impact of Parentification on Adult Relationships?).

The Traumatic Impact of Parentification

What Are Parentified Children?

Parentification is a role reversal between parents and children.

Parentified children are children who grew up taking on adult responsibilities in their family. 

These responsibilities might include:

• Providing emotional support to their parents 

• Taking care of younger siblings as a regular part of their chores

• Taking on major household chores that are normally done by adults

• Taking on the stress of financial problems and other major stressors in the family

• Mediating arguments between their parents and/or other adult family members

• Paying bills

• Making doctor's appointments, and so on

This often occurs when children's parents either can't or won't assume parental responsibilities and they might also unable to take care of themselves.

What Are the Signs of Parentification?

Some of the signs of parentification include:

• Children being praised by their parents and other adults for being "so good" or "so responsible" when they take on tasks beyond their developmental stage

• Children feeling they have to be the peacemakers in the family

• Getting in trouble with their parents when they wanted to engage in children's activities because parents wanted them to stay home to take care of adult responsibilities

The Traumatic Impact of Parentification

• As an adult not being able to remember being allowed to be a child

• As an adult feeling they were given responsibilities beyond their capacity as a child

• As an adult feeling they had to "grow up fast" (beyond their developmental capacities)

• As an adult only feeling comfortable in the role of a caretaker to a partner or spouse 

• As an adult feeling they have to be so "self reliant" to the point of not trusting others, including significant others, to come through for them

Why Causes Parentification?

Parentification can occur for many reasons.

In many instances the parents of parentified children grew up as parentified children themselves so it seems normal and familiar to them.  

The Traumatic Impact of Parentification

Since they were parentified children, these parents might never have learned to manage their emotions because they were preoccupied with taking care of their parents' emotions.  

As a result, it's not unusual to find a long history of parentified children from one generation to the next.

In other instances parents might have mental health or substance abuse problems and they are unable to take on parental responsibilities so one or more of their children take on these responsibilities.

Why is Parentification Traumatic?

Parentified children often feel they are special when they are children because they feel they are helping their parents and often get complimented for it. But, as adults, they might begin to sense that something didn't go right when they were children (see my article: Why is Past Trauma Affecting You Now?).

For instance, when they hear other adults talk about their childhood, many adults who grew up as parentified children sense they missed out on being a child.  For many people this is the beginning of their questioning why they took on their parents' responsibilities and what affect it might have had on them (see my article: How Developmental Trauma Affects How You Feel About Yourself).

Parentification also causes the disruption of the child's natural maturational process which often leads to negative consequences for their long term health and mental health including anxiety and depression and chronic health problems.

Parentification Can Cause Anxiety and Depression

In addition, as previously mentioned, parentification often develops into intergenerational trauma as the trauma is perpetuated from one generation to the next.

How Can You Heal From the Trauma of Parentification?

There are specific types of therapy, known as trauma therapy, for parentification and other types of developmental trauma:

EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

Ego States Therapy (similar to Internal Family Systems Therapy or Parts Work Therapy)

AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

Somatic Experiencing Therapy 

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Parentification is more common than you might think.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Even though parentification might have been normalized in your family, you might realize it had a negative emotional impact on you.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a qualified trauma therapist so you can overcome trauma and lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

As a trauma therapist with over 20 years of experience, I work with individual adults and couples to help them overcome trauma.

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.

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.