Posts in The Mental Load
Are 50-50 marriages exactly 50-50?

One of my friends and I were recently discussing what success in a 50-50 partnership looks like. Does it mean that each person does exactly 50% of household work at all times? Or, that over the course of a marriage, each partner does roughly 50% of work? Is there a world in which someone could be in an equal partnership but do more or less than 50% of household labor and/or childcare?

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How do you handle the mental load?

There’s been a lot of discussion lately on the “mental load” or “emotional labor” in a relationship and how that work disproportionately falls onto one partner, often the woman. That partner is the “manager” of the household who delegates work to the other partner. For example, both people decide to go on vacation, but one partner is “managing” the process (making sure hotels and flights are booked, planning an itinerary, ensuring everyone’s visas and passports are in order) while the other partner cruises along and only does the work he/she is asked to do. It’s exhausting for the first partner and can cause a frustrating dynamic. We wanted to be proactive and avoid defaulting the mental load to one person. 

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