How to Lessen the Mental Load, A Framework from a Marriage and Family Therapist
With a new year comes new schedules. As our lives are ramping back up, school and work can get hectic. It’s tough to balance for even the most dedicated of families. There’s a lot on our plates right now with the pandemic.
How we divide the mental load between ourselves and our partners is so important right now.
Resources are scarce due to daycare being closed. Loved ones are unavailable for childcare due to risk, etc.
One way to think about divvying up tasks comes from Eve Rodsky’s book Fair Play. For each task there're three parts:
Conception- noticing that the task you hold needs doing/conceiving of the overall need
e.g. if the family needs to eat dinner and you create the menu
Planning- how and what is required to get the task done completely
e.g. adding the items to the grocery list
Execution- doing the actual task
e.g. cooking the meal
We think of helping someone as doing the actual thing they need to do, or the execution part. But to truly share the mental load one partner must take on the conception and planning parts of a task too.
Traditionally, women have been more socialized to think about the conception and planning of a household. That doesn’t mean a man can’t learn. In non-heteronormative relationships one partner may do more of the conception and planning than the other.
It’s important for both partners to do it for things to feel fair.
To start, a couple must agree on a shared definition/ standard of the task. E.g. if you take on dinner it must include one green vegetable.
No getting only meat and potatoes.
The standard must be agreed upon and negotiated by both parties. Each partner must let the other do it as agreed. Even if they’re worried it won’t be done right.
This is also about letting go and learning to trust the load will be shared. Many partners are happy to know how to finally help. Even if they might need some practice at it.
Once you’ve agreed on the standard for each task, you can divide up the tasks that are applicable to your household. It’s important here to note that each partner will likely not have the same number of tasks and that’s ok.
You do this divvying up of tasks for your household every week. This process is definitely a learning curve. It takes a bit the first time you do it. But it will help ease any tension between a couple in the long run.
I recommend doing it over dinner or a date night so it’s already a more enjoyable time. Good food also helps make the experience even richer.
For more information I would recommend reading Eve Rodsky’s book. She even has a card deck to make the process more tangible.