My Husband and I Watched a Documentary on Hulu. It Changed My Marriage

Yahoo

6 hours ago

The mental load is real, but for modern couples—i.e. those with spouses that do make the effort to pitch in—it's also complex. In my own case, after surfacing (and lamenting) the mental load on more than one occasion to my husband, it became a sticking point…and one that required attention. (Our main point of contention was about the division of labor—my spouse was confused: Doesn't he also carry a portion of the mental load?) As we attempted to hash this out, I realized that my husband—who is hugely participatory in family life as we raise two boys—and I could benefit from watching the documentary, Fair Play Life, which is based on the bestselling book by Eve Rodsky, called Fair Play. Could we watch it together and come out with a deeper understanding of each other on the other side? We queued up Hulu to find out.
Released in 2022 in partnership with Reese Witherspoon's production company, Hello Sunshine, Fair Play Life is based on Rodsky's book of the same name, Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much To Do (and More Life to Live). Told via the perspectives of actual couples, it offers a deep dive into the household division of unpaid labor for heterosexual couples, specifically when it comes to the ongoing (and mostly invisible) tasks of managing a home and family, aka the mental load.
Immediately, it was easy to see bits and pieces of my own marriage in the faces of other couples. For one thing, my own propensity to just keep shouldering the load. (As one woman vents, just continuing to do the work is easier than training her partner, but it doesn't solve the problem—and 'round and 'round we go.) But I also clocked some key differences: My husband and I divvy up household- and family-related tasks regularly and often; we both work full-time, so share the childcare load if someone is home sick or has a day off from school. He cooks, I clean. I book the camps and make the pediatrician appointments, he grocery shops. But if the tasks are a 50/50 split, why was I continuing to feel so uniquely overwhelmed? (This was his question more than mine.)
About 30 minutes into the film, my husband had a simple request: 'Let's both jot down our definition of the mental load before we continue.' We hit pause on the film.My definition of the mental load, as informed by my work, but also my viewing (thus far) of the Fair Play Life film: 'The mental load is the invisible labor, the anticipation of tasks and the mental and emotional prep work that goes into managing a family and household. Less task execution and more task anticipation, organization and delegation.' (I read this to my spouse aloud.)
For my husband, he viewed the mental load with a major distinction: 'It's the effort that goes into executing the tasks on our plate.'
This was the moment I realized our divide.
One of the most salient points that Fair Play Life drives home is the lack of recognition that men have for the mental load their wives carry. As she explains in the film, Rodsky better understood this in her own marriage after writing down a list she titled, 'The Shit I Do.' She narrowed those tasks to include anything that takes more than two minutes of time—for example, prepping school lunches, doctor's appointments, picking the kids up from school if they're sick. But she also accounted for the less talked about tasks: Sunscreen application takes two minutes, but she allows 30 minutes for the chase to pin her kids down and apply. Her agenda was to make the invisible visible. 'Can't wait to discuss,' she emailed her spouse. (Rodsky's own husband was shocked.)
But that's what caught me off guard in my own marriage, as laid out by our varying definitions of the mental load. My husband viewed the mental load as the labor that goes into task execution (i.e. he makes a meal plan, he shops for groceries). I view it as the emotional baggage that leads up to the job. (Even though he cooks, I'm usually the one prodding him to set aside the time to meal plan; the one pinging him a reminder that we are missing a few ingredients if we still want to follow through on what we mapped out to cook, the one researching how exactly to introduce allergens to our baby.) Don't get me wrong: My husband is an expert at knocking things off the task list, but the burnout hits when you're the person plunking out the step-by-step process behind the to-dos.
It sounds silly, but this tiny difference in our understanding of the mental load—not to mention the background the film provides about why women tend to be the ones to systemically carry it—felt like a breakthrough. It also gave us a road map for the future that also stems from Fair Play Life: My husband now feels a bit clearer on the mental load of any given task and wants to make a better effort with the invisible parts of our household to-dos. (Rodsky calls this the CPE: The Conception, Planning and Execution behind a task, with the cognitive aspects making up the bulk of the mental load.)
Once again, our varying definitions come into play. So does executive functioning. (My husband is also working on systems that better prompt him to initiate when it comes to his weekly jobs.)
All in all, we're forging ahead—but with a bit less friction when it comes to the to-dos on our plate.
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