Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to this show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, Wherever
Speaker 1: you are in the world, it is so great to
Speaker 1: have you here. Back for another episode where we break
Speaker 1: down the psychology of our twenties. Today is a special
Speaker 1: episode because at the time I'm recording this and at
Speaker 1: the time you might be listening, it is Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: and each year on Valentine's Day, I like to pick
Speaker 1: an episode to do with how we can build and
Speaker 1: sustain healthy relationships, not just the romantic kind, of course,
Speaker 1: but our platonic ones as well, and how we can
Speaker 1: kind of apply psychology to better understand all the forms
Speaker 1: of love that we experience in this lifetime, specifically in
Speaker 1: our twenties of course, but also some of the concepts
Speaker 1: and theories that we should have like a good understanding
Speaker 1: of before the decade is out to really set ourselves
Speaker 1: up for good, healthy love. And in today's episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to do just that. We're going to be discussing
Speaker 1: the idea of the mental load, so I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: surprised if you hadn't already heard about this concept. This
Speaker 1: term the mental load has been doing its rounds on
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram recently. It is the latest term that
Speaker 1: has become part of the psychobabble. But I really have
Speaker 1: my good friend Aaron to thank for this episode. If
Speaker 1: you are a longtime listener of the show, you'll know
Speaker 1: that Aaron, my best friend, is where I get a
Speaker 1: lot of my inspiration because she thinks about these things
Speaker 1: very deeply. She thinks about self awareness. She's very self aware,
Speaker 1: very thoughtful. She's always introducing me to so many new
Speaker 1: theories and ideas that I actually never came across when
Speaker 1: I was studying psychology. She's just like a book of knowledge.
Speaker 1: And last time I was visiting her, we got to
Speaker 1: discussing the idea of the mental load in our relationships.
Speaker 1: Because we are both in very committed long term relationships
Speaker 1: with very lovely men. And although we love our partners
Speaker 1: so deeply and they are such good people, we've chosen
Speaker 1: very well. There is a lot of invisible mental and
Speaker 1: emotional labor that just happens to fall on women in relationships.
Speaker 1: Even if you think that your partner is very much
Speaker 1: your equal, Even if they are, there is such a
Speaker 1: hidden facet, a hidden component of love and effort that
Speaker 1: sustains a relationship that women often take on. So also
Speaker 1: known as cognitive labor. Mental loads specifically refers to the
Speaker 1: kind of extra energy and efforts women take on in
Speaker 1: order to organize the lives of themselves and their partners,
Speaker 1: specifically in hetero relationships. You know, the time taken to
Speaker 1: plan what we're having for dinner, when people's birthdays are,
Speaker 1: what we're doing on the weekend, what we need to
Speaker 1: bring to the family gathering on Friday, The mental logistics
Speaker 1: of the week and of our lives. You know, the
Speaker 1: date night that's coming up that we need to plan
Speaker 1: and organize. All of these small mental kind of gymnastics,
Speaker 1: all these small mental tasks that contribute to kind of
Speaker 1: the I wouldn't say domestic burden, but the relational burden
Speaker 1: that each member of a partnership is kind of carrying.
Speaker 1: For example, say that you know your partner's parents are
Speaker 1: coming into town next weekend, which means we have to
Speaker 1: make plans for dinner that night that they come in,
Speaker 1: but they don't like Italian food and it would have
Speaker 1: been a really long flight, so we should make dinner
Speaker 1: at home, which means I'll need to go to the
Speaker 1: grocery store before then, and I have to make sure
Speaker 1: the bed sheets are washed and pick up extra toothbrushes.
Speaker 1: But the bed sheets can't go on the dryer, so
Speaker 1: I'll have to make sure that they're getting washed on
Speaker 1: a day that's really sunny. That will have to be Friday.
Speaker 1: But we're out of laundry detergents, so we'll pick that
Speaker 1: up as well. It's this running to do list of
Speaker 1: tasks that is honestly never ending, and that I think
Speaker 1: sometimes men in relationships don't pick up on. I think
Speaker 1: we're all very aware these days of the unequal division
Speaker 1: of labor in relationships, particularly in the past, how one partner,
Speaker 1: normally the woman just seems to be instantly more responsible
Speaker 1: for household chores, even when they work the same amount
Speaker 1: of hours as their partner or have other obligations. How
Speaker 1: women are often more responsible for child rearing activities, domestic duties,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. However, it goes a lot deeper
Speaker 1: than just performing the task, Women also spend a lot
Speaker 1: more time thinking about what tasks have to be done,
Speaker 1: playing almost the role of admin for the lives of themselves,
Speaker 1: their partners, their families, even their friends. As one study
Speaker 1: published in the American Sociological Review describes it, women just
Speaker 1: spend more time anticipating needs, identifying options, making decisions, and
Speaker 1: ensuring that what they asked someone to do is actually completed.
Speaker 1: In my mind, we've all reached a point where we
Speaker 1: understand that men are expected to do more labor than
Speaker 1: their fathers or their grandfathers. Did you know we do
Speaker 1: split things fifty to fifty, But that doesn't always fully
Speaker 1: take into account the added cognitive labor that goes into
Speaker 1: getting those things done, you know. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of times people just partners. Male partners in particular,
Speaker 1: sometimes need to be told what to do. They may
Speaker 1: respond of like, oh, you know, you're upset that I
Speaker 1: didn't do the dishes, Well, why didn't you just tell me?
Speaker 1: You know, I would have done it if you had asked.
Speaker 1: But the very act of needing to ask for help
Speaker 1: and expecting your partner to tell you everything that needs
Speaker 1: to be done, means that you're kind of still treating
Speaker 1: your girlfriend, your wife, your partner as kind of like
Speaker 1: the manager of the house, the manager of the chores,
Speaker 1: the manager of your lives. It's kind of a lot
Speaker 1: like a workplace, where obviously, in a workplace, like we
Speaker 1: have the employees and we have the boss, and the
Speaker 1: boss is always going to be more responsible for what's
Speaker 1: going on. And as an employee, you go back to
Speaker 1: your boss and you ask God, what needs to be
Speaker 1: done next? Was some tasks that I should do. But
Speaker 1: a relationship is not like a workplace. You know, no
Speaker 1: one is the boss, no one is the employee. Both
Speaker 1: people need to be truly invested in the outcome, in
Speaker 1: it together, looking for things that need to be done,
Speaker 1: looking for things that are going to make the other
Speaker 1: person's life easier. And I don't think that that is
Speaker 1: always what occurs. You know, we understand physical and domestic
Speaker 1: labor needs to be equal, but the mental burden remains
Speaker 1: very strong. And with that, the psychological burden of having
Speaker 1: to overlook certain things, suppress resentment because he's still doing
Speaker 1: what you asked, but you kind of wish you didn't
Speaker 1: have to ask, and also just having less mental space
Speaker 1: for other parts of your life and your identity and
Speaker 1: your interests. I personally believe this wears down a relationship
Speaker 1: in a lot of invisible ways, because maybe you can't
Speaker 1: quite articulate why you feel exhausted in your relationship or
Speaker 1: why things feel unfair. You can't tell your partner why,
Speaker 1: you just know you feel that way, and I do
Speaker 1: think a lot of answers lie in this invisible cognitive
Speaker 1: and mental labor. Now, before we get into why exactly
Speaker 1: this occurs and the impact and some solutions, I do
Speaker 1: want to make a little bit of a disclaimer. I
Speaker 1: think this is by no means a rant on how
Speaker 1: men are terrible and incompetent and idiotic and deliberately make
Speaker 1: women's lives miserable. I don't believe that. And I also
Speaker 1: know my boyfriend listens to the podcast, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: he's probably thinking that if I was saying that some
Speaker 1: of those statements aren't particularly fair, I will say I
Speaker 1: am very lucky that this does not describe our partnership.
Speaker 1: My dad also was a stay at home dad, and
Speaker 1: I saw him take on so much more of the
Speaker 1: mental and domestic load than my mom at times, So
Speaker 1: I don't think that if we date men, if we
Speaker 1: know men, we are doomed to fail and kind of
Speaker 1: constantly be under the thumb of the mental load. By
Speaker 1: no means, I don't think that, and I don't want
Speaker 1: this episode to kind of like find its way onto
Speaker 1: the anti feminist feeds on TikTok and have a bunch
Speaker 1: of people coming at me. We are all about the
Speaker 1: science here and the psychology, and the mental load is
Speaker 1: simply an identifiable and measurable relationship pattern and factor that
Speaker 1: I've become a lot more aware of recently. I think
Speaker 1: it really deserves some exploration and curiosity because, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a subconscious reason why relationships struggle and fail
Speaker 1: and become unequal. We see a lot of people say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, my partner, my husband, he contributes so much,
Speaker 1: but I'm still so mentally exhausted. I feel unappreciated, but
Speaker 1: I cannot articulate why. That is at the core of
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today. You are describing the mental load,
Speaker 1: So let's quickly break down why exactly it occurs. And
Speaker 1: I want to talk about three reasons in particular. The
Speaker 1: first one is socially conditioned gender roles the second is
Speaker 1: weaponized in competence, and thirdly, it is just like deliberate
Speaker 1: ignorance and disrespect. I think this is the harshest reason,
Speaker 1: and I would also say it's the least common, but
Speaker 1: it's still worthwhile to discuss. I also want to talk
Speaker 1: about how the mental load applies to friendships well, because
Speaker 1: I think that that is an aspect of this that
Speaker 1: our conversations around the mental load often overlooks. Let's get
Speaker 1: back to that first factor, though, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about socially conditioned gender roles in their contribution. We have
Speaker 1: come a long way in terms of gender equality, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that boys and girls aren't still raised differently,
Speaker 1: socially conditioned differently. Even with our best efforts, even with
Speaker 1: all of our progressive rearing skills and progressive ways of
Speaker 1: teaching boys and girls, that traditional way of viewing gender
Speaker 1: is still incredibly ingrained. There are centuries and centuries of
Speaker 1: tradition there, and I don't think that one or two
Speaker 1: generations is going to fully eliminate some of the stereotypes overnight.
Speaker 1: So we know that within society exists this blueprint or
Speaker 1: guidebook on what behaviors are female and what behaviors are male,
Speaker 1: what character traits are female, and what character traits are male.
Speaker 1: We all kind of know what I'm talking about, hopefully
Speaker 1: without meaning to tell you. I'll just elaborate for the
Speaker 1: sake of it. You know, the type of typical male
Speaker 1: behaviors that are acceptable are very different from those we
Speaker 1: expect from women. Boys are allowed to be rough and
Speaker 1: independent and strong, and women are instructed to be passive,
Speaker 1: nurturing and pathetic accommodating. These are all skills and character
Speaker 1: traits that will eventually make them more likely to take
Speaker 1: on that additional cognitive, emotional, and mental labor in a relationship,
Speaker 1: in a family, in a home. Now, when we talk
Speaker 1: about social conditioning in psychology, this refers to the ways
Speaker 1: in which we learn how to act by picking up
Speaker 1: clues or cues in our environment. When we behave in
Speaker 1: a certain way, especially as children, we are either reinforced
Speaker 1: or punished for that behavioravior. The simple premise is, when
Speaker 1: we are rewarded for a behavior, either through the addition
Speaker 1: of something that we want or the removal of something bad,
Speaker 1: that behavior is sustained and we learn to perform it
Speaker 1: more regularly. When we are punished, we associate that behavior
Speaker 1: with a bad outcome, Naturally we perform it less. That
Speaker 1: is a form of learning. So when girls as children
Speaker 1: act in a way that is motherly and nurturing and accommodating,
Speaker 1: they're applauded for that with praise, with kind words, all
Speaker 1: of which are a form of positive reinforcement, and it
Speaker 1: means that those behaviors are encouraged and are more likely
Speaker 1: to be performed again. In contrary, when they act in
Speaker 1: ways that are counter to gender norms, they're scolded or
Speaker 1: they're punished because it's not aligning with society's blueprints and expectations.
Speaker 1: For example, a young girl might be called bossy for
Speaker 1: standing up for herself, whereas a young boy is called
Speaker 1: a leader, he's called authoritative. He receives praise, the kind
Speaker 1: of praise that we only receive when we're kind and nurturing.
Speaker 1: I think that that is like a very basic feminism
Speaker 1: one oh one lesson. But how it relates to psychology
Speaker 1: is that these small moments, although we might disregard them,
Speaker 1: although we might look back on them and find them
Speaker 1: quite irritating, they are actually learning experiences, and our young
Speaker 1: brains absorb these like a sponge and carry them with
Speaker 1: us as a guide for how society expects us to act.
Speaker 1: So from a young age we kind of know the
Speaker 1: roles that we should be fulfilling, even if no one
Speaker 1: has explicitly told us we are caregivers. We are givers,
Speaker 1: we are meant to be responsible. I think further to this,
Speaker 1: we think about the toys that we played with a children,
Speaker 1: the movies that we watched, the kind of patterns that
Speaker 1: we were exposed to. The other example I always think
Speaker 1: of is when a female student who is studious and
Speaker 1: caring and hard working is made to sit with a
Speaker 1: rowdy male student and like help him do his work
Speaker 1: and help him stay focused as if she is his
Speaker 1: parent or the teacher herself, when actually she is just
Speaker 1: a student. She is there to learn as well. In
Speaker 1: those instances, though, we are playing this role of kind
Speaker 1: of the cognitive planner, the mental planner, the one who
Speaker 1: has to have everything organized out in our brain for
Speaker 1: how to get something done. The other factor here is,
Speaker 1: of course, observational learning. Girls often learn about domestic duties
Speaker 1: by observing their parents, particularly their mothers. And no matter
Speaker 1: how progressive your family was, my family was incredibly progressive,
Speaker 1: like my dad was a stay at home dad, but
Speaker 1: there were still times where I saw my mom take
Speaker 1: on more of those how use hold chores. The chores
Speaker 1: were still divided along gender lines. You know, women do
Speaker 1: a lot of the domestic duties boys. Men are a
Speaker 1: scientists that are perceived as more physically demanding, traditionally masculine
Speaker 1: yard work, taking out the trash. All of these are
Speaker 1: cues to us. They are a learning experience, and we
Speaker 1: model our behavior on these expectations. We model our behavior,
Speaker 1: we mimic our caregivers, and that is how we become
Speaker 1: the people we are today. We know in psychology and
Speaker 1: from some of those early experiments with Bundura, that a
Speaker 1: lot of what we learn is through observation and replication.
Speaker 1: There are so many other factors here. The final one
Speaker 1: I will say is that we also see this pattern
Speaker 1: a lot of men being allowed to have like a
Speaker 1: longer period of adolescence compared to women. I'm going to
Speaker 1: explain that a little bit more. I think that it
Speaker 1: is very kind of acceptable for men to be irresponsible,
Speaker 1: for men to make dumb mistakes, for men to like
Speaker 1: not know how to cook, not know how to clean.
Speaker 1: It's quirky it's funny, whereas with women it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you hit twenty one, Are you an adult? Yet? If not,
Speaker 1: you're you're immature. You're not growing up fast enough, like
Speaker 1: you're just acting like a child. Men are allowed to
Speaker 1: stay in this period of infancy and adolescence and lesser
Speaker 1: responsibility for a lot longer. So women are the ones
Speaker 1: who are gaining those cognitive and mental skills around organization,
Speaker 1: around responsibility a lot earlier than their male counterparts, and
Speaker 1: that is then reflected in hetero relationships. I think just
Speaker 1: the simple premise is that the reason we see the
Speaker 1: mental load again and again and again is that men
Speaker 1: have not been socialized in the same way as women
Speaker 1: to be attuned to the needs of others and to
Speaker 1: apply kind of the same level of cognitive processing as
Speaker 1: women do. It may also come down to genuine differences
Speaker 1: in personality, and I feel like I need to throw
Speaker 1: this in here. There has been a lot of research
Speaker 1: that has shown that women are more empathetic than men,
Speaker 1: and we know that empathy really at its core is
Speaker 1: the ability to recognize and relate to what's going on
Speaker 1: in someone else's mind. That includes that invisible list of
Speaker 1: things that need to get done around the house, in
Speaker 1: the relationship, whatever it is. And it just might seem
Speaker 1: that men are not as clued into the inner workings
Speaker 1: of someone else's brain as women are, not just because
Speaker 1: they haven't been socialized that way, but also because they're
Speaker 1: levels of empathy may be a little bit less. Empathy
Speaker 1: is a skill, it's a muscle, and I think that
Speaker 1: it can be built up if you're prepared to kind
Speaker 1: of do the work. And I think if you care
Speaker 1: about someone else, if you're around them a lot, eventually
Speaker 1: should be able to pick up on the way that
Speaker 1: they do things, what they prioritize, what they need to
Speaker 1: get done, what creates stress for them, and kind of
Speaker 1: act without needing to be asked. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about one final aspect of the mental load and its
Speaker 1: causes here, And you know what, maybe this might piss
Speaker 1: somebody off. I don't really mind, because I think that
Speaker 1: it is highly relevant to this discussion, and that has
Speaker 1: to do with weaponized incompetence. Again, this has been making
Speaker 1: its rounds on social media. I think because people are
Speaker 1: getting a lot more clued in to the labor that
Speaker 1: women do that isn't just domestic and physical and in psychology,
Speaker 1: weaponized incompetence refers to a deliberate or strategic use of falsified, fake,
Speaker 1: incompetence or ineffectiveness as a tactic to avoid doing something,
Speaker 1: in this case taking on the mental life keywords in
Speaker 1: that it is deliberate, it's strategic, it's false, and also
Speaker 1: obviously in competence, like it's not that this person actually
Speaker 1: is incompetent, they're pretending to be, so they're weaponizing it,
Speaker 1: you know, Weaponized incompetence sounds like you know, Oh, you
Speaker 1: just do it so much better than me. Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do it. I'll just make more
Speaker 1: of a mess. You're just you're so much more organized,
Speaker 1: you have a system, Like I'm just gonna screw it up.
Speaker 1: Why don't you just let me know what I can
Speaker 1: help with? And by intentionally appearing incompetent trying to elevate
Speaker 1: your ineffectiveness in certain areas, this lowers expectations for you
Speaker 1: to actually get stuff done, and it also causes you
Speaker 1: to gain sympathy whilst avoiding responsibility. I have seen so
Speaker 1: many videos of this in recent months, where a woman
Speaker 1: asks her husband to do something while she's away and
Speaker 1: he just does a terrible job, as if she hasn't
Speaker 1: you know, he hasn't seen her do it a million times,
Speaker 1: or you ask him to like do your to do
Speaker 1: li or take something off your agenda, and sometimes you think,
Speaker 1: like this person cannot possibly be that incompetent. They have
Speaker 1: a full time job, like they're probably very respected at work.
Speaker 1: You married him for a reason. Like this has to
Speaker 1: be deliberate in some ways. And you know what's worse
Speaker 1: than having to ask someone to do something, it's asking
Speaker 1: they're having them do it, and then you having to
Speaker 1: redo it later. It leaves you feeling really angry and disappointed.
Speaker 1: But you also don't want to sound like a nag
Speaker 1: because at least they put in the effort, and that
Speaker 1: is weaponized in competence. Again, we can look for the
Speaker 1: origins of this behavior. Sometimes it is learned from childhood
Speaker 1: where boys men are allowed to escape responsibilities, and they
Speaker 1: may have learned that if their parent has asked them
Speaker 1: to do the dishes or fold the laundry and they
Speaker 1: did a really terrible job, or they said that they forgot,
Speaker 1: they would get away with it. And so now it's
Speaker 1: a tactic to avoid doing a task altogether. We can
Speaker 1: make excuses, we can have reasons, we can have explanations,
Speaker 1: but regardless, I think it's really exhausting, especially in like
Speaker 1: a day and age where like no one really has
Speaker 1: the time to be doing more mental labor than they
Speaker 1: have to. And I know we've been talking a lot
Speaker 1: about this in the context of long term relationships where
Speaker 1: there is maybe a home to maintain or children whatnot,
Speaker 1: but this can also occur on the early stages of
Speaker 1: dating as well. If you're just like you've been dating
Speaker 1: someone for a couple of years, whereby once they realize
Speaker 1: that you'll take on more of the responsibility of maintaining
Speaker 1: your lives together, of course they're going to say yes
Speaker 1: to that, because that's less responsibility on their plate. The
Speaker 1: biggest example I think that I've been that I've seen
Speaker 1: in like friends relationships, not necessarily my own, but I
Speaker 1: see it quite a bit is planning date nights. You know,
Speaker 1: you say to your partner, Hey, I'd really like to
Speaker 1: do a date night, but like every time we do it,
Speaker 1: I plan it. I'm always the one who has to
Speaker 1: find something fun, something that's open at eight pm on
Speaker 1: a Monday, Like can you do it? And As the
Speaker 1: date gets closer and closer, there's nothing planned. They keep
Speaker 1: saying they'll think of something, until you're at the stage
Speaker 1: where you have to decide whether A you just plan
Speaker 1: it or B you wait for them to do it,
Speaker 1: and you're disappointed because it's another night of sitting at
Speaker 1: home watching TV ordering takeout. That is not what you deserve.
Speaker 1: And I think although no relationship is perfect, when you're
Speaker 1: with someone that you love and who respects you, you
Speaker 1: both still need to show up for each other, even
Speaker 1: if you're not feeling one hundred percent, you know. I
Speaker 1: think it's once again linked to that empathy thing. If this,
Speaker 1: if your partner is like, well, I'm just so exhausted
Speaker 1: from work, I'm so tired, like I never think of things,
Speaker 1: you're probably also in that same boat. Make sure you
Speaker 1: communicate that like they should want to step up for
Speaker 1: you to make it equal on both your parts. We
Speaker 1: also see the mental load in friendships. I think it's
Speaker 1: talked about enough, but I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: us relate to this kind of experience whereby our friends
Speaker 1: just begin to expect that where the ones who will
Speaker 1: always make plans, we will make sure that the reservation
Speaker 1: is booked, the tickets are purchased, everyone has transportation, everyone
Speaker 1: knows what's going on. The endless list continues, yet again.
Speaker 1: Friendships take effort, much like romantic relationships, and sometimes that
Speaker 1: effort can become unbalanced. You're always the one reaching out,
Speaker 1: You're always the one needing to think of fun things
Speaker 1: to do. And I think that that is an example
Speaker 1: of where someone has begun to expect you to take
Speaker 1: on the cognitive labor of sustaining the relationship. There comes
Speaker 1: a point where you have to evaluate if I love
Speaker 1: this saying, but like if the juice is worth the squeeze,
Speaker 1: Like whether this person has just come to expect you
Speaker 1: to take on all the mental energy of sustaining your connection,
Speaker 1: and what is that making you feel? Like? How is
Speaker 1: that making you feel? The answer is probably not amazing,
Speaker 1: probably not great, because you never want to feel like
Speaker 1: a relationship is unbalanced in such an extreme way. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to feel like someone is not mirroring
Speaker 1: your efforts, because what does that say about the respect
Speaker 1: they have for you, the respect they have for your connection,
Speaker 1: the respect they have for your relationship. I think it
Speaker 1: takes so much mental energy to initiate a conversation about
Speaker 1: these things. And maybe you don't have it in you
Speaker 1: to vote even more of your finite cognitive space and
Speaker 1: time to this one side of relationship, but I think
Speaker 1: it's worth it, and there is a way to approach
Speaker 1: this and this conversation in a manner that gets kind
Speaker 1: of the best outcome and the solution for everyone. I
Speaker 1: really don't think it's a matter of like, oh, this person,
Speaker 1: you know, my partner is not taking on the mental load,
Speaker 1: failing to communicate that that's what you need done, and
Speaker 1: then just leaving them without giving them a chance to
Speaker 1: maybe adapt their behavior. And I think the same thing
Speaker 1: goes with friendship. The older we get, the further into
Speaker 1: our twenties, I think the more we realize that you
Speaker 1: can't just cut people off willy nilly. You can't just
Speaker 1: have issues and not communicate them, because you will end
Speaker 1: up just hurting yourself more as those relationships break down.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to talk about next is how
Speaker 1: to manage a conversation about the mental load in your relationship,
Speaker 1: how to kind of get to a place where there
Speaker 1: is a solution either in your friendships, your relationships and
Speaker 1: other forms of connections that you might have, so all
Speaker 1: of that and more after this shortbreak, when you feel
Speaker 1: that you're taking on more of the mental load and relationship,
Speaker 1: that is going to have a number of bleed on effects,
Speaker 1: a lot of impacts not just on the relationship, but
Speaker 1: your health as well. The primary one I think is burnout.
Speaker 1: Of course, a lot of research on this has been
Speaker 1: done with mothers who don't only have partners, but children
Speaker 1: to look after it as well. Nearly nine to ten
Speaker 1: mothers in this one study felt that they were solely
Speaker 1: responsible for managing and organizing the family's schedule, and it
Speaker 1: left them feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, unable to make space for themselves.
Speaker 1: Similar study found that seventy two percent of working mums,
Speaker 1: so not just stay at home mum's. Working moms feel
Speaker 1: that it's their job to stay on top of kids' schedules.
Speaker 1: Fifty two percent of them are also facing burnout. So
Speaker 1: when we think about this from a more psychological perspective, right,
Speaker 1: we really do only have a finite amount of mental space,
Speaker 1: cognitive space, mental resources. There are always things that are
Speaker 1: going to be competing for our time. That includes things
Speaker 1: like work, personal things that you're going through, personal dilemmas friendships,
Speaker 1: making time to exercise, making time to prioritize yourself. When
Speaker 1: we feel like we are responsible for organizing someone else's
Speaker 1: life and the life that we share together, that is
Speaker 1: just more that is being taken out of this finite
Speaker 1: pool of what is available to us mentally, and it's
Speaker 1: going to lead to exhaustion if other parts of our
Speaker 1: lives don't make space for that growth in that area.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to see it this way and
Speaker 1: see it almost as like how we want to visualize it,
Speaker 1: whether it's like a cup or a pie or anything like,
Speaker 1: you really only have that much. Everything that you choose
Speaker 1: to put on your plate, you choose to devote your time,
Speaker 1: to your energy, to your love to takes away from
Speaker 1: that finite amount of thing that you have, and so
Speaker 1: what it requires you to do is sacrifice other things
Speaker 1: that are important to you. And those are the kinds
Speaker 1: of sacrifices that women often have to make more than men.
Speaker 1: Those things that they sacrifice first are normally going to
Speaker 1: be the things that they can live without, but they
Speaker 1: can't sustain themselves without things that actually contribute to self care,
Speaker 1: to a good sense of emotional wellbeing. If you have
Speaker 1: a really busy life, if you've got a lot going
Speaker 1: on and you know that you need to prioritize work,
Speaker 1: you need to prioritize your partner, you need to prioritize
Speaker 1: your family, and you don't have time for anything else.
Speaker 1: The things that are going to get chopped, that are
Speaker 1: going to get discarded is going to be things like exercise.
Speaker 1: It's going to be things like seeing your friends, things
Speaker 1: that are important for your self care. That it's going
Speaker 1: to further the cycle of burnout. That is the main impact.
Speaker 1: I also think that you just start feeling that exhaustion
Speaker 1: long before you feel burnt out. And that exhaustion also
Speaker 1: contributes to a sense of resentment in your relationship. You
Speaker 1: don't feel respected because this person is not contributing what
Speaker 1: you feel like you are contributing. They did a study
Speaker 1: on this back in two thousand and one, right when
Speaker 1: the mental load was really starting to take off, and
Speaker 1: they found that when women in particular feel they're doing
Speaker 1: more of the cognitive labor, the amount of satisfaction they
Speaker 1: report in their relationship declines. More mental load, less happy
Speaker 1: in relationship. It's a very i think simple correlation. When
Speaker 1: you're at that point where you're feeling really disappointed in
Speaker 1: your partner, but as we said before, you're not quite
Speaker 1: sure why, because the mental load and cognitive labor isn't
Speaker 1: as recognized as domestic labor. What you're going to do
Speaker 1: is unconsciously, subconsciously find ways to get their attention, find
Speaker 1: ways to bring them into a discussion in which you're
Speaker 1: allowed to kind of air your anger and air your resentment.
Speaker 1: What I'm talking about here is emotional bids. Now we've
Speaker 1: spoken about this on the show before. I can't remember
Speaker 1: one episode, but essentially, emotional bids are like these efforts
Speaker 1: that we make to bring our partner's attention to some
Speaker 1: problem and have them reassure us. The best example I
Speaker 1: think of is picking a fight, or you know, being
Speaker 1: like Chipana, oh, hey, look at this, and then they
Speaker 1: don't look at it, and your emotional bid has been neglected. Essentially,
Speaker 1: what you're asking from your partner in those moments is
Speaker 1: for attention and is for their compassion, is for them
Speaker 1: to contribute to the partnership. When you start to pick
Speaker 1: fights and you don't even know what the problem is,
Speaker 1: I find that you're probably not going to find this
Speaker 1: allusion to it either, and it's just going to end
Speaker 1: up wearing down on both of you, creating a lot
Speaker 1: of stress, further exacerbating that resentment and leading to relationship breakdown.
Speaker 1: And I've seen this happen in a friend of mine's relationship,
Speaker 1: where after just so many times of trying to get
Speaker 1: her partner to do more for her, to just plan
Speaker 1: things to just like not have to ask her constantly, Hey,
Speaker 1: weds dinner tonight? What time? What am I meant to
Speaker 1: be wearing? Did you get my mom a birthday present? Like?
Speaker 1: She had asked so many times for him to understand
Speaker 1: where she was coming from that the relationship ended up
Speaker 1: not working out because she realized that he couldn't be
Speaker 1: a good partner. And I felt bad for him because
Speaker 1: I think that he had such an opportunity there to
Speaker 1: correct his behavior. All he required was a bit more empathy.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about how we can fix
Speaker 1: this dynamic in which you might be taking on more
Speaker 1: of the mental load. I think the first step in
Speaker 1: any relationship dispute whatever you want to call it, dissatisfaction
Speaker 1: problem why not, is to make sure you were both
Speaker 1: on the same page about what the problem is. So
Speaker 1: maybe A good first step is to actually send them
Speaker 1: this episode, not just trying to get more listens or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but seriously, like, I think it's really
Speaker 1: important that if they have never even heard of what
Speaker 1: the mental load is, if they have no clue what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, that conversation is not going to be productive.
Speaker 1: And I also think that I think sadly the conversation
Speaker 1: will fail because they will immediately be defensive. Not to
Speaker 1: say that they should be, but I think that going
Speaker 1: into it with a mutual understanding of what you want
Speaker 1: to discuss and what you're actually referring to is super important.
Speaker 1: Maybe they listen to this episode they go, oh my god, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I totally get where you're coming from. We don't need
Speaker 1: to talk about it anymore. I'm going to step up.
Speaker 1: After you have that genuine like mutual understanding, mutual knowledge,
Speaker 1: you have to decide whether you're going to tolerate a
Speaker 1: continuance of this behavior or not. That is not a
Speaker 1: conclusion that I can reach for you. I don't know
Speaker 1: the pros and cons of your relationship. I don't know
Speaker 1: your dynamic, but you know you know your emotional state,
Speaker 1: you know what you can tolerate you know what you're
Speaker 1: willing to tolerate, not just what you can, what you're
Speaker 1: willing to what you feel like you deserve. And if
Speaker 1: you're at this stage where you are so mentally fed
Speaker 1: up you're having the same fights over and over again,
Speaker 1: that is a good indicator that the ceiling of your
Speaker 1: relationship needs to shift upwards, particularly that someone is not
Speaker 1: doing their bit, especially as it refers to the mental load.
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to having this conversation around
Speaker 1: a sense of dissatisfaction that someone's not pulling their weight, sadly,
Speaker 1: the burden will probably fall on you to bring this
Speaker 1: up and discuss it with your partner, but hopefully it's
Speaker 1: a one time chat. I would say going into this,
Speaker 1: make sure obviously firstly they know what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: but also be mindful of the response ability bias. So
Speaker 1: this is this idea in psychology that basically we are
Speaker 1: only really aware, fully aware of what we're doing. We
Speaker 1: only know what we're responsible for, We only know our actions.
Speaker 1: We only know the times that we cleaned out the bin,
Speaker 1: not the times that you did. You know, and if
Speaker 1: you haven't verbalized the efforts that you're going to to
Speaker 1: keep the house up to scratch or to contribute to
Speaker 1: the relationship. It might be hard for them to know,
Speaker 1: and they're immediately going to come in with their perspective,
Speaker 1: and their perspective is, in my mind, here are all
Speaker 1: the things I'm doing. I have absolutely no clue how
Speaker 1: much you're doing. That is where communication is your best friend.
Speaker 1: Give them literal examples, but try not to guilt trip
Speaker 1: them in the process. Remember, you want this to work,
Speaker 1: like you want this relationship to work, That's why you're
Speaker 1: putting in this effort. Talk them through what it takes
Speaker 1: for you to do all this extra mental labor. What
Speaker 1: does your to do list look like? What is the
Speaker 1: extra stuf, extra ingredients that you're putting into this relationship
Speaker 1: that they could take on. Is it planning dates? Is
Speaker 1: it understanding when flights need to be booked for a
Speaker 1: weekend away? Is it making plans? Is it just listening
Speaker 1: and being aware of your schedule the way that you're
Speaker 1: aware of theirs. These are all small important things that
Speaker 1: they might not realize you've been doing until you communicate them.
Speaker 1: Was something that a friend of mine was telling me
Speaker 1: the other day, which when I was asking her about
Speaker 1: this episode, I was like, okay, so what would you
Speaker 1: do in this situation? And she used this really she
Speaker 1: gave me this really amazing advice, which is put a
Speaker 1: list of everything that you do each week on the fridge,
Speaker 1: everything that needs to be done, and each person gets
Speaker 1: a different colored pen and you take them off. It
Speaker 1: sounds so rudimentary, but it's really important to actually be like,
Speaker 1: is my resentment coming from a fair place or is
Speaker 1: my partner actually doing an equal amount of labor. It's
Speaker 1: just that I have this responsibility bias going on. I
Speaker 1: can't actually see what they're doing. Also, you can use
Speaker 1: some of that reverse reinforcement. You know, if they don't
Speaker 1: buy the birthday present for their mom, the mom doesn't
Speaker 1: get a birthday present, that is some negative punishment right there.
Speaker 1: They're gonna feel really bad. They're gonna feel the shame.
Speaker 1: It wasn't your responsibility. They're gonna learn through that if
Speaker 1: they don't plan the date, you go and do something
Speaker 1: else because they didn't make plans. Even if you're in
Speaker 1: a relationship. I know it sounds harsh, but it is
Speaker 1: this thing of like you need to continuously be dating
Speaker 1: me in a sense, and if you're not, like I
Speaker 1: am not just like your backup option. You're not just
Speaker 1: my backup option. We are like actively trying to be
Speaker 1: partners and be in each other's lives and make each
Speaker 1: other's lives better and easier and more vibrant. And if
Speaker 1: that's not what we're doing right now, I am going
Speaker 1: to find other ways to do that. I need you
Speaker 1: to step up. It might sound harsh, I think it works,
Speaker 1: especially when it's combined with really good communication and a
Speaker 1: really good open dialogue of like, how are you both
Speaker 1: actually feeling right now, and how are you feeling that
Speaker 1: you're taking on more of the mental load? What are
Speaker 1: some of the things that they might not know that
Speaker 1: it is creating for your mental state, for your limited
Speaker 1: cognitive resources, for your well being. Over communicate and then
Speaker 1: let them make a decision. You cannot control what they
Speaker 1: choose to do with that information. If you find yourself
Speaker 1: continuing to just like having to ask them and nag
Speaker 1: them and bring them up, bring it up again and
Speaker 1: again and again, I think that is a different conversation
Speaker 1: that is no longer a conversation about mental load. I
Speaker 1: think that is a conversation about disrespect and a lack
Speaker 1: of empathy, and maybe it's important to start thinking about
Speaker 1: when it is time to walk away and find someone
Speaker 1: who you don't need to tell this to. They already
Speaker 1: know how to do it. They already have done the work.
Speaker 1: They've already learned what it means to be an equal partner.
Speaker 1: It's not just domestic labor, it's not just physical labor.
Speaker 1: It is cognitive labor as well, being equally responsible for
Speaker 1: the life that you share. I really hope that this episode,
Speaker 1: this fun Valentine's Date episode, has been helpful. I'm realizing
Speaker 1: that it got a little bit less fun at the end,
Speaker 1: but I think it is an important reminder that just
Speaker 1: because you love this person, just because they're like your soulmate,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you have to be dissatisfied with areas
Speaker 1: of your relationship. Doesn't mean you need to tolerate something
Speaker 1: that can be fixed through a conversation and through like
Speaker 1: reverse reinforcement and learning and reconditioning. So I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode. I found it like super fascinating to look
Speaker 1: further into the science and the psychology. As I said,
Speaker 1: my very good friend Erin actually suggested this topic and
Speaker 1: she knew so much more than I ever did, so
Speaker 1: Thank you Aeron, love you Hapes. I'm glad that our
Speaker 1: relationship does not suffer from mental load problems. If there's
Speaker 1: someone you think would enjoy this episode, please feel free
Speaker 1: to share it with them, send them a link. Make
Speaker 1: sure you are leaving us a five star review if
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode. If you have an episode suggestion,
Speaker 1: they have been flowing in recently, but I always do
Speaker 1: like to read them, even if I cannot reply to
Speaker 1: every single one. Please follow us at that Psychology Podcast
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Speaker 1: Give us there and have a lovely rest of your week.
Speaker 1: We will be back on Friday with another episode.