A Guide to Sharing the Mental Load with Your Partner

Have you ever had to stop what you were doing to help your partner find something that was in plain sight? 

Are you ever distracted at work because you’re thinking about all the things that need to be done at home? 

Do you often find it hard to relax because you’re making a mental to do list or feeling guilty about not doing something “productive”? 

Have you ever taken responsibility for managing the entire holiday season (choosing gifts, buying gifts, wrapping gifts, travel plans, coordinating family events and holiday activities) without being asked to do so? 

Do you feel responsible for your family’s emotional well-being (managing conflicts, remembering birthdays, helping your kids manage emotions, checking in on relatives)?

"Mental load" is the often-invisible work of everything it takes to maintain your day-to-day. It includes planning, organizing, delegating, and remembering—all the behind-the-scenes thinking that keeps your life running smoothly. Not to mention managing the emotions of everyone around you.

The problem? Mental load is often unevenly distributed, with one partner (almost always the woman) taking on the majority of this invisible work. This imbalance can lead to stress, burnout, and tension in relationships.

But here's the thing ... it's not you or your partner or your relationship that's the issue. The issue is systemic.

For thousands of years, society has positioned men as the default decisionmakers and women as the default caretakers. It has placed men in positions of power and women in positions of supporting men in their power. It’s why the mental, physical, and emotional labor of running a household still falls disproportionately on women, even in relationships that aspire to be equal. 

This guide is designed help you first start the conversation (which can be awkward), then walk through the step-by-step process of building systems that give you both more free time and peace of mind.

You can't share the mental load without having clear and open communication. And that's where the guide starts. This guide (and the other free resources on my site!) help you to have conversations that lead to progress, not just another argument.

It walks you and your partner through the steps below, together, in a way that's simple and practical:

1. Communicating about your current mental load

2. Identifying all that contributes to it

 3. Organizing the information into clear and manageable categories

4. Building systems to share the load effectively and equitably

5. Establishing regular check-ins to revisit and adjust as life changes. 

After the intro and communications section, here is a roadmap for the rest of the guide. 

You'll walk through the step-by-step process of communicating, identifying, organizing, and creating systems that work for you, and you'll use a mental load worksheet with 100+ examples that I've compiled to get you started. Things you are likely already doing, which are contributing to your mental load. You'll build on those examples, then work through reallocating them in a way that makes sense and designing systems to reduce your collective mental load as a couple (which is always the end goal).

If you're tired and overwhelmed, but don't know where to start. This guide is your first step.