The Psychology of your 20s - 169. The mental load in relationships

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

Sustaining a relationship has a lot more to do with the division of domestic, emotional and physical labour. A massive component is the mental load - the additional energy that goes into organising, scheduling and managing the daily tasks, chores and things that need to be done whilst also accounting for your partners needs. It's not a secret that women carry a lot more of the mental load than their male counterparts and in this episode we break down exactly why that is, how an unfair division of cognitive labour can lead to resentment and relationship breakdown and how we can address this in our relationships, including our friendships. Listen now!  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian. Michael Mancini.

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Hello everybody. Welcome back to this show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode where we break down the psychology of our 20s. Today is a special episode because at the time I'm recording this and at the time you might be listening, it is Valentine's Day. And each year on Valentine's Day, I like to pick an episode to do with how we can build and sustain healthy relationships, not just the romantic kind of course, but our platonic ones as well. And how we can kind of apply psychology to better understand all the forms of love that we experience in this lifetime, specifically in our 20s, of course, but also,

some of the concepts and theories that we should have like a good understanding of before the decade is out to really set ourselves up for good, healthy love. And in today's episode, we're going to do just that. We're going to be discussing the idea of the mental load. So I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't already heard about this concept. This term, the mental load, has been doing its rounds on TikTok and Instagram recently. It is the latest term that has become part of the psychobabble. But I really have my good friend Aaron to thank for this episode. If you are a long-time listener of the show,

you will know that Aaron, my best friend, is where I get a lot of my inspiration because she thinks about these things very deeply. She thinks about self-awareness. She's very self-aware, very thoughtful. She's always introducing me to, so many new theories and ideas that I actually never came across when I was studying psychology. She's just like a book of knowledge. And last time I was visiting her, we got to discussing the idea

of the mental load in our relationships because we are both in very committed long-term relationships with very lovely men. And although we love our partners so deeply and they are such good people, we've chosen very well, there is a lot of invisible, mental and emotional labour that just happens to fall on women in relationships. Even if you think that your partner is very much your equal, even if they are, there is such a hidden facet, a hidden component of love and effort that sustains a relationship that women often take on. So also known as cognitive labor, mental load specifically refers to the kind of extra energy and efforts women take on in order to organize the lives of themselves and their partners, specifically in hetero relationships. You know,

the time taken to plan what we're having for dinner. When people's birthdays are, what we're doing on the weekend, what we need to bring to the family gathering on Friday, the mental logistics of the week and of our lives, you know, the date night that's coming up that we need to plan and organize all of these small mental kind of gymnastics, all these small mental tasks that contribute to kind of the, I wouldn't say domestic burden, but the relational burden that each member of a partnership is kind of carrying. For example, say that you know your partner's parents are coming into town next weekend, which means we have to make plans for dinner that night that they come in but they don't like Italian food and it would have been a really long flight so

we should make dinner at home which means I'll need to go to the grocery store before then I'll have to make sure the bed sheets are washed and pick up extra toothbrushes but the bed sheets can't go in the dryer so I'll have to make sure that they're getting washed on a day that's really sunny that will have to be Friday but we're out of laundry detergent so we'll pick that up as well it's this running to do list of tasks that is honestly never-ending and that I think sometimes men in relationships don't pick up on. I think we are all very aware these days of the unequal division of labor in relationships, particularly in the past, how one partner, normally the woman, just seems to be instantly more responsible for household chores, even when they work the same amount of

hours as their partner or have other obligations, how women are often more responsible. for child rearing activities, domestic duties, that sort of thing. However, it goes a lot deeper than just performing the task. Women also spend a lot more time thinking about what tasks have to be done, playing almost the role of like admin for the lives of themselves, their partners, their families, even their friends. As one study published in the American Sociological Review describes it, women just spend more time anticipating needs, identifying options, making decisions, and ensuring that what they asked someone to do is actually completed. In my mind, we've all reached a point where we understand that men are expected to do more labor than their fathers or

the grandfathers did. You know, we do split things 50-50, but that doesn't always fully take into account the added cognitive labor that goes into getting those things. done, you know, and I think a lot of times people just partners, male partners in particular, sometimes need to be told what to do. They may respond of like, oh, you know, you're upset that I didn't do the dishes. Well, why didn't you just tell me? You know, I would have done it if you had asked. But the very act of needing to ask for help and expecting your partner to tell you everything that needs to be done means that you're kind of still treating your girlfriend, your wife, your partner as kind of like the manager of the house, the manager of the chores, the manager of your

lives. It's kind of a lot like a workplace where obviously in a workplace we have like we have the employees and we have the boss and the boss is always going to be more responsible for what's going on and as an employee you go back to your boss and you ask oh what needs to be done next or some tasks that I should do but a relationship is not like a workplace you know the no one is the boss no one is the employee both people need to be truly invested in the outcome in it together looking for things that need to be done looking for things that are going to make the other person's life easier. And I don't think that that is always what occurs. You know, we understand physical and domestic labor needs to be equal, but the mental burden remains very strong. And with that, the psychological burden of having to

overlook certain things, suppress resentment, because he's still doing what you asked, but you kind of wish you didn't have to ask and also just having less mental space for other parts of your life and your identity and your interests. I personally believe this wears down a relationship in a lot of invisible ways because maybe you can't quite articulate why you feel exhausted in your relationship or why things feel unfair. You can't tell your partner why. You just know you feel that way and I do think a lot of answers lie in this invisible, cognitive and mental labour. Now, before we get into why exactly this occurs and the impact and some solutions, I do want to make a little bit of a disclaimer.

I think this is by no means a rant on how men are terrible and incompetent and idiotic and deliberately make women's lives miserable. I don't believe that. And I also know my boyfriend listens to the podcast and I'm sure he's probably thinking that if I was saying that, some of those statements aren't particularly fair. I will say, I'm very lucky that this does not describe our partnership. My dad also was a stay-at-home dad, and I saw him take on so much more of the mental and domestic load than my mom at times. So I don't think that if we date men, if we know men, we are doomed to fail and kind of constantly be under the

thumb of the mental load. By no means, I don't think that. And I don't want this episode to kind of like find its way onto like the anti-feminist feeds on TikTok and have a bunch of people coming at me. We are all about the science here and the psychology. And the mental load is simply an identifiable and measurable relationship pattern and factor that I've become a lot more aware of recently. And I think it really deserves some exploration and curiosity because in my opinion, it's definitely a subconscious reason why relationships struggle and fail and become unequal. We see a lot of people say, oh yeah, you know, my partner and my husband, he contributes so much, but I'm still so mentally exhausted. I feel unappreciated, but I cannot articulate why. That is, at the core of what we're

talking about today, you are describing the mental load. So let's quickly break down why exactly it occurs. And I want to talk about three reasons in particular. The first one is socially conditioned gender roles. The second is weaponized incompetence. And thirdly, it's just like deliberate ignorance and disrespect. I think this is the harshest reason. And I would also say it's the least common, but it's still worthwhile to discuss. I also want to talk about how the mental load applies to friendships as well, because I think that that is an aspect of this that our conversations around the mental load often overlooks. Let's. Let's. get back to that first factor, though. I want to talk about socially conditioned gender roles

and their contribution. We have come a long way in terms of gender equality, but that doesn't mean that boys and girls aren't still raised differently, socially conditioned differently, even with our best efforts, even with all of our progressive rearing skills and progressive ways of teaching boys and girls. That traditional way of viewing gender is still incredibly ingrained. There are centuries and centuries of tradition there. And I don't think that one or two generations is going to fully eliminate some of the stereotypes overnight. So we know that within society exists this blueprint or guidebook on what behaviors are female and what behaviors are male, what character traits are female and what character traits are male.

We all kind of know what I'm talking about, hopefully, without me needing to tell you. I'll just elaborate for the sake of it. You know, the type of typical male behaviours that are acceptable are very different from those we expect from women. Boys are allowed to be rough and independent and strong and women are instructed to be passive, nurturing, empathetic, accommodating. These are all skills and character traits that will eventually make them more likely to take on that additional cognitive, emotional and mental labour in a relationship, in a family, family in a home. Now, when we talk about social conditioning in psychology, this refers to the ways in which we learn how to act by picking up clues or cues in our environment. When we behave in a

certain way, especially as children, we are either reinforced or punished for that behavior. The simple premise is when we are rewarded for a behavior, either through the addition of something that we want or the removal of something bad, that behavior is sustained and we learn to perform it more regularly. When we are punished, we associate that behavior with a bad outcome. Naturally, we perform it less. That is a form of learning. So when girls as children act in a way that is motherly and nurturing and accommodating, they're applauded for that with praise, with kind words, all of which are a form of positive

reinforcement and it means that those behaviours are encouraged and are more likely to be performed again. In contrary, when they act in ways that are counter to gender norms, they're scolded or they're punished because it's not aligning with society's blueprints and expectations. For example, a young girl might be called bossy for standing up for herself, whereas a young boy is called a leader, he's called authoritative. He receives praise, the kind of praise that we only receive when we're kind and nurturing.

I think that that is like a very basic feminism 101 lesson. But how it relates to psychology is that these small moments, although we might disregard them, although we might look back on them and find them quite irritating, they are actually learning experiences.

And our young brains absorb these like a sponge and carry them with us as a guide for how society expects us to act. So from a young age, we kind of know the roles that we should be fulfilling, even if no one has explicitly told us. We are caregivers. We are givers.

We are meant to be responsible. I think further to this, we think about the toys that we played with as children, the movies that we watched, the kind of patterns that we were exposed to. The other example I always think of is when a female student who is studious and caring, and hardworking is made to sit with a rowdy male student and like help him do his work and help him stay focused as if she is his parent or the teacher herself when actually she is just a student she is there to learn as well in those instances though we are playing this role of kind of the cognitive planner the mental planner the one who has to have everything organized out in our brain

for how to get something done. The other factor here is, of course, observational learning. Girls often learn about domestic duties by observing their parents, particularly their mothers. And no matter how progressive your family was, my family was incredibly progressive. Like, my dad was a stay-at-home dad. But there were still times where I saw my mom take on more of those household chores. The chores were still divided along gender lines. You know, women do a lot of the domestic duties.

Boys, men are assigned tasks that are perceived as more physically demanding, traditionally masculine, yard work, taking out the trash. All of these are cues to us. They are a learning experience and we model our behavior on these expectations. We model our behavior. we mimic our caregivers and that is how we become the people we are today. We know in psychology and from some of those early experiments with Bandura that a lot of what we learn is through observation and replication. There are so many other factors here.

The final one I will say is that we also see this pattern a lot of men being allowed to have like a longer period of adolescence compared to women. I'm going to explain that a little bit more. I think that it is very kind of acceptable for men to be irresponsible, for men to make dumb mistakes, for men to not know how to cook, not know how to clean, it's quirky, it's funny. Whereas with women, it's kind of like you hit 21, are you an adult yet? If not you're immature. You're not growing up fast enough. Like you're just acting like a child. men are allowed to stay in this period of infancy and adolescence and lesser responsibility for a lot longer. So women are the ones who are gaining those cognitive and mental skills around organization, around responsibility, a lot earlier than their male counterparts.

And that is then reflected in hetero relationships. I think just the simple premise is that the reason we see the mental load again and again and again. is that men have not been socialized in the same way as women to be attuned to the needs of others and to apply kind of the same level of cognitive processing as women do. It may also come down to genuine differences in personality. And I feel like I need to throw this in here. There has been a lot of research that has shown that women are more empathetic than men.

And we know that empathy really at its core is the ability to recognize and relate to what's going on in someone else's mental. mind. That includes that invisible list of things that need to get done around the house, in the relationship, whatever it is. And it just might seem that men are not as clued into the inner workings of someone else's brain as women are, not just because they haven't been socialized that way, but also because their levels of empathy, maybe a little bit less. Empathy is a skill, it's a muscle, and I think that it can be built up if you're prepared to kind of do the work.

And I think if you care about someone else, if you're around them a lot, eventually you should be able to pick up on the way that they do things, what they prioritize, what they need to get done, what creates stress for them and kind of act without needing to be asked.

I want to talk about one final aspect of the mental load and its causes here. And you know what? Maybe this might piss somebody off. I don't really mind because I think that it is highly, relevant to this discussion, and that has to do with weaponized incompetence. Again, this has been making its rounds on social media, I think, because people are getting

a lot more clued in to the labor that women do that isn't just domestic and physical. And in psychology, weaponized incompetence refers to a deliberate or strategic use of falsified fake incompetence or ineffectiveness as a tactic to avoid doing something, in this case taking on the mental load. Key words in that, it is deliberate, it's strategic, it's false, and also obviously incompetence. Like it's not that this person actually is incompetent. They're pretending to be so they're weaponizing it. You know, weaponized incompetence sounds like, you know, oh, you just do it so much better than me. Oh, I don't know how to do it. I'll just make more of a mess.

You're just so much more organized. You have a system. Like, I'm just going to screw it up. Why don't you just let me know what I can help with? And by intentionally impureing incompetent, trying to elevate your ineffectiveness in certain areas, this lowers expectations for you to actually get stuff done. And it also causes you to gain sympathy whilst avoiding responsibility.

I've seen so many videos of this in recent months where a woman asked her husband to do something while she's away and he just does a terrible job as if she hasn't you know he hasn't seen her do it a million times or you ask him to like do your to do list or take something off your agenda and sometimes you think like this person cannot possibly be that incompetent they have a full-time job like they're probably very respected at work you married him for a reason like this has to be deliberate in some ways and you know what's worse than having to ask someone to do something it's asking they're having them do it and then you having to redo it later. It leaves you feeling really angry and disappointed,

but you also don't want to sound like a nag because at least they put in the effort. And that is weaponized incompetence. Again, we can look for the origins of this behavior. Sometimes it is learned from childhood where boys, men, are allowed to escape responsibilities and they may have learnt that if their parent has asked them to do the dishes or fold the laundry and they did a really terrible job,

or they said that they forgot, they would get away with it. And so now it's a tactic to avoid doing a task altogether. We can make excuses, we can have reasons, we can have explanations, but regardless, I think it's really exhausting, especially in like a day and age where, like, no one really has the time to be doing more mental labour than they have to. And I know we've been talking a lot about this in the context of long-term relationships where there is maybe a home to maintain or children, whatnot.

but this can also occur on the early stages of dating as well if you're just like you've been dating someone for a couple of years whereby once they realize that you'll take on more of the responsibility of maintaining your lives together of course they're going to say yes to that because that's less responsibility on their plate the biggest example i think that i've been that i've seen in like friends relationships not necessarily my own but i see it quite a bit is um planning date nights. You know, you say to your partner, hey, I'd really like to do a date night, but like every time we do it, I plan it.

I'm always the one who wants to find something fun, something that's open at 8pm on a Monday. Like, can you do it? And as the date gets closer and closer, there's nothing planned. They keep saying they'll think of something until you're at the stage where you have to decide whether A, you just plan it or B, you wait for them to do it and you're disappointed. because it's another night of sitting at home watching TV, ordering takeout. That is not what you deserve. And I think although no relationship is perfect, when you're with someone that you love and who respects you,

you both still need to show up for each other, even if you're not feeling 100%. You know, I think it's once again linked to that empathy thing. If your partner is like, well, I'm just so exhausted from work, I'm so tired like I never think of things. you're probably also in that same boat. Make sure you communicate that. Like they should want to step up for you to make it equal on both your parts. We also see the mental load in friendships. This, I don't think, is talked about enough.

But I think that a lot of us relate to this kind of experience whereby our friends just begin to expect that we're the ones who will always make plans. We will make sure that the reservation is booked, the tickets are. purchased. Everyone has transportation, everyone knows what's going on. The endless list continues yet again. Friendships take effort, much like romantic relationships, and sometimes that effort can become unbalanced. You're always the one reaching out. You're always the one needing to think of fun things to do. And I think that that is an example of where someone has begun to expect you to take on the cognitive labor of sustaining the relationship. There comes to, a point where you have to evaluate if I love the saying but like if the juice is worth the

squeeze like whether this person has just come to expect you to take on all the mental energy of sustaining your connection and what is that making you feel like how is that making you feel the answer is probably not amazing probably not great because you never want to feel like a relationship is unbalanced in such an extreme way you know, you don't want to feel like someone is not mirroring your efforts, because what does that say about the respect they have for you, the respect they have for your connection, the respect they have for your relationship? I think it takes so much mental energy to initiate a conversation about these things, and maybe you don't have it in you. You devote even more of your finite cognitive

space and time to this one side of relationship. But I think it's worth it, and there is a way to approach this and this conversation in a manner that gets kind of the best outcome and the solution for everyone. I really don't think it's a matter of like, oh, this person, you know, my partner is not taking on the mental load, failing to communicate that that's what you need done and then just leaving them without giving them a chance to maybe adapt their behavior. And I think the same thing goes with friendship. The older we get, the further into our 20s, I think the more we realize that you can't just cut people off willy-nilly. You can't just have issues and not communicate them because you will end up just hurting yourself more as those

relationships break down. So what we're going to talk about next is how to manage a conversation about the mental load in your relationship, how to kind of get to a place where there is a solution either in your friendships, your relationships and other forms of connections that you might have. So all of that and more after this short break. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs. when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness,

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Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you feel that you're taking on more of the mental load in relationship, that is going to have a number of bleed on effects, a lot of impacts, not just on the relationship, but your health as well. The primary one, I think, is burnout, of course. A lot of research on this has been done with mothers, who don't only have partners, but children to look after it as well. Nearly nine and ten mothers in this one study. felt that they were solely responsible for managing and organizing the family's schedule, and it left them feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, unable to make space for themselves.

Similar study found that 72% of working moms, so not just stay-at-home moms, working moms feel that it's their job to stay on top of kids' schedules. 52% of them are also facing burnout. So when we think about this from a more psychological perspective, right? We really do only have a finite amount of mental space, cognitive space, mental resources. There are always things that are going to be competing for our time. That includes things like work, personal things that you're going through, personal dilemmas, friendships, making time to exercise, making time to prioritize yourself. When we feel like we are responsible,

for organizing someone else's life and the life that we share together, that is just more that is being taken out of this finite pool of what is available to us mentally. And it's going to lead to exhaustion if other parts of our lives don't make space for that growth in that area. I think it's important to see it this way and see it almost as like how we want to visualize it, whether it's like a cup or a pie or anything. Like you really only have that much. Everything that you choose to put on your plate, you choose to devote your time to, your energy to, your love to takes away from that finite amount of thing that you have. And so what it requires you to do is sacrifice other things that are important to you. And those are the kinds of sacrifices

that women often have to make more than men. Those things that they sacrifice, first are normally going to be the things that they can live without but they can't sustain themselves without things that actually contribute to self-care to a good sense of emotional well-being. If you have a really busy life, if you've got a lot going on and you know that you need to prioritize work, you need to prioritize your partner, you need to prioritize your family and you don't have time for anything else. The things that are going to get chopped that are going to get discarded is going to be things like exercise. It's going to be things like seeing your friends, things that are important for your self-care, that is going to further the cycle of burnout.

That is the main impact. I also think that you just start feeling that exhaustion long before you feel burnt out and that exhaustion also contributes to a sense of resentment in your relationship. You don't feel respected because this person is not contributing what you feel like you are contributing. They did a study on this back in 2001, right when the mental load was really starting to take off. And they found that when women in particular feel they're doing more of the cognitive labor, the amount of satisfaction they report in their relationship declines. More mental load, less happy in relationship. It's a very, I think, simple, correlation. When you're at that point where you're feeling really disappointed in your partner,

but as we said before, you're not quite sure why, because the mental load and cognitive labor isn't as recognized as domestic labor. What you're going to do is unconsciously, subconsciously find ways to get their attention, find ways to bring them into a discussion in which you're allowed to kind of air your anger and air your resentment. What I'm talking about here is emotional bids. Now we've spoken about this on the show before. I can't remember one episode, but essentially emotional bids are like these efforts that we make to bring our partner's attention to some problem and have them re-assure us. The best example I think of is picking a fight. Or, you know, being like to your partner, oh, hey, look at this and then they don't look at it

and your emotional bid has been neglected. Essentially what you're asking from your partner, in those moments is for attention and is for their compassion, is for like them to contribute to the partnership. When you start to pick fights and you don't even know what the problem is, I find that you're probably not going to find a solution to it either. And it's just going to end up wearing down on both of you, creating a lot of stress, further exacerbating that resentment and leading to relationship breakdown.

And I've seen this happen in a friend of mine's relationship, where after just so many times of trying to get her partner to do more for her, to just plan things, to just like not have to ask her constantly, hey, where's dinner tonight? What time? What am I meant to be wearing? Did you get my mum a birthday present? Like, she had asked so many times for him to understand where she was coming from

that the relationship ended up not working out because she realized that he couldn't be a good partner. And I felt bad for him because I think that he had such an opportunity. there to correct his behavior, all he required was a bit more empathy. So I want to talk about how we can fix this dynamic in which you might be taking on more of the mental load. I think the first step in any relationship dispute, whatever you want to call it, dissatisfaction, problem, whatnot, is to make sure you were both on the same page about what the problem is. So maybe a good first step is to actually send them this episode, not just trying to get more listens or anything like that. But seriously, like, I think it's really important that if they have never even heard of what the

mental load is, if they have no clue what you're talking about, that conversation is not going to be productive. And I also think that, I think sadly, the conversation will fail because they will immediately be defensive. Not to say that they should be, but I think that going into it with a mutual understanding of what you want to discuss and what you're actually referring to is super important. Maybe they listen to this episode. They go, oh my God, absolutely. I totally get where you're coming from. We don't need to talk about it anymore. I'm going to step up. After you have that genuine like mutual understanding, mutual knowledge, you have to decide whether you're going to tolerate a continuance of this behavior or not. That is not a conclusion that I can reach for you.

I don't know the pros and cons of your relationship. I don't know your dynamic. But you know, you know your emotional state. You know what you can tolerate. You know what you're willing to tolerate, not just what you can, what you're willing to, what you feel like you deserve. And if you're at this stage where you are so mentally fed up,

you're having the same fights over and over again, that is a good indicator that the ceiling of your relationship needs to shift upwards, particularly that someone is not doing their bit, especially as it refers to the mental load. I think when it comes to having this conversation around a sense of dissatisfaction that someone's not pulling their weight, sadly the burden will probably fall on you to bring this up and discuss it with your partner. But hopefully it's a one-time chat. I would say going into this, make sure obviously, firstly, they know what you're talking about, but also be mindful of the responsibility bias. So this is this idea in psychology that basically we are only really aware,

fully aware of what we're doing. We only know what we're responsible for. We only know our actions. We only know the times that we cleaned out the bin, not the times that you did, you know. And if you haven't verbalized the efforts that you're going to to keep the house up to scratch or to contribute to the relationship, it might be hard for them to know. And they're immediately going to come in with their perspective and their perspective is, in my mind, here are all the things I'm doing. I have absolutely no clue how much you're doing. That is where communication is your best friend. Give them literal examples, but try not to guilt-trip them in the process. Remember, you want this to work, like you want this relationship to work. That's why you're

putting in this effort. Talk them through what it takes for you to do all this extra mental labor. what does your to-do list look like? What is the extra steps, extra ingredients that you're putting into this relationship that they could take on? Is it planning dates? Is it understanding when flights need to be booked for a weekend away? Is it making plans? Is it just listening and being aware of your schedule the way that you're aware of theirs? These are all small, important things that they might not realize you've been doing until you communicate them.

Something that a friend of mine was telling me the other day, which when I was asking her about this episode, I was like, okay, so what would you do in this situation? And she used this really, she gave me this really amazing advice, which is put a list of everything that you do each week on the fridge, everything that needs to be done, and each person gets a different coloured pen, and you tick them off. It sounds so rudimentary, but it's really important to actually be like, is my resentment coming from a fair place, or is my partner actually doing an equal amount of labor? It's just that I have this responsibility. bias going on, I can't actually see what they're doing. Also, you can use some of that

reverse reinforcement, you know, if they don't buy the birthday present for their mom, the mom doesn't get a birthday present. That is some negative punishment right there. They're going to feel really bad. They're going to feel the shame. It wasn't your responsibility. They're going to learn through that. If they don't plan the date, you go and do something else because they didn't make plans, even if you're in a relationship. I know it sounds harsh, but it is this thing of like, you need to continuously be dating me in a sense.

And if you're not, like, I am not just like your backup option. You're not just my backup option. We are like actively trying to be partners and be in each other's lives and make each other's lives better and easier and more vibrant. And if that's not what we're doing right now,

I am going to find other ways to do that. I need you to step up. It might sound harsh. I think it works. especially when it's combined with really good communication and a really good open dialogue of like how are you both actually feeling right now and how are you feeling that you're taking on more of the mental load? What are some of the things that they might not know that it is creating for your mental state, for your limited cognitive resources, for your well-being, over-communicate

and then let them make a decision. You cannot control what they choose to do without information. if you find yourself continuing to just having to ask them and nag them and bring it up again and again and again, I think that is a different conversation. That is no longer a conversation about mental load. I think that is a conversation about disrespect and a lack of empathy. And maybe it's important to start thinking about when it is time to walk away and find someone who you don't need to tell this to. They already know how to do it.

they already have done the work, they've already learned what it means to be an equal partner. It's not just domestic labor. It's not just physical labor. It is cognitive labor as well, being equally responsible for the life that you share. I really hope that this episode, this fun Valentine's Day episode has been helpful. I'm realizing that it got a little bit less fun at the end. But I think it is an important reminder that just because you love this person, just because they're like your soulmate, doesn't mean that you have to be dissatisfied with areas of your relationship.

Doesn't mean you need to tolerate something that can be fixed through a conversation and through like reverse reinforcement and learning and reconditioning. So I really enjoyed this episode. I found it like super fascinating to look further into the science and the psychology. As I said, my very good friend Aaron actually suggested this topic and she knew so much more than I ever did. So thank you, Aaron. Love you heaps. I'm glad that our relationship does not suffer from mental load problems.

If there's someone you think would enjoy this episode, please feel free to share it with them, send them a link. Make sure you are leaving us a five-star review if you enjoyed this episode. If you have an episode suggestion, they have been flowing in recently, but I always do like to read them, even if I cannot reply to every single one, please follow us at that psychology podcast to send your thoughts, your theories, your qualms, your questions to us there. And have a lovely rest of your week. We will be back on Friday with another episode. Two percent. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some

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From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84's big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians,

and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hardway with your favorite therapist and host, Kear Games.

This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to. Listen to learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct?

I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.