episode
151
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Personal Growth

The Hidden Reason You Feel Overwhelmed—Understanding the Mental Load with Dr. Morgan Cutlip

Episode Notes

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the invisible yet relentless responsibilities that occupy your mind every single day? You’re not alone. In today’s insightful conversation, Dr. Alison welcomes psychologist and relationship expert Dr. Morgan Cutlip, author of a brand new book, A Better Share, to unpack the complexities of the mental load. Dr. Cutlip brings clarity and practical strategies to a topic that often creates tension and misunderstanding within families.

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Together, they explore:

* The definition and dimensions of the mental load—physical, mental, and emotional.

* Why women typically bear more of this invisible labor.

* How to recognize signs of mental overload and prevent burnout and resentment.

* Practical, real-world solutions for effectively communicating and sharing responsibilities with your partner.

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Resources:

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If you liked this, you’ll love:
  • Episode 122: Navigating Anxiety, Therapy, and Spiritual Formation—Balancing Mental, Emotional, & Spiritual Health with John Mark Comer

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‍Thanks to our sponsors:

Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I'm so glad you're here today for an incredibly relatable conversation about something that deeply impacts so many women. It's often unnamed, and I have to tell you, this naming for this phenomena was incredibly helpful to me, and I have a feeling it's gonna be incredibly helpful to you as well.

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It's called the mental load. Here's a way to think about this. Have you ever found yourself awake at night, overwhelmed by your mental to-do list, or maybe even stewing about tasks you've handed off to others but aren't sure will actually get done? If this sounds familiar to you, today's episode is for you. 

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I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Morgan Cutlip, psychologist, relationship expert, and the author of two books. Her first book was Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself, and her brand new book is called A Better Share. 

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Here's the thing about the mental load–when one person in a relationship is carrying the weight of that mental load, it leads to resentment. It reduces the amount of fun that we feel in our relationships, and that affects intimacy all the way through. This is such an important conversation to have and I'm so thrilled to have it with Morgan.

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Morgan combines years of professional expertise with personal, down-to-earth storytelling that you'll absolutely love. In fact, she starts off today's episode with a story about a birthday party she was planning for one of her kids and how it led to a fight with her husband 

about exactly this thing, mental load, that we're gonna talk about. 

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We're gonna unpack what the mental load is, why it disproportionately affects women, and most importantly, how to navigate conversations about it with our partners without defensiveness or blame.

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Toward the end of the episode, Morgan gives us some really practical strategies, including how to have regular check-ins and clear communication as you figure out how to create a better share with your partner, as it pertains to all that goes into managing a household. 

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Dr. Morgan Cutlip is not only an accomplished psychologist, but also a gifted speaker and author. She's committed to helping families find clarity, balance, and joy in their relationships, and she brings wisdom that's rooted in both rigorous research and compassionate practicality. 

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If you've ever found yourself muttering under your breath or finding yourself growing silently resentful in your relationship, today's conversation will give you a name for what you're feeling and provide you with hope, clarity, and practical guidance for navigating this tricky but essential area of our lives.

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I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with Dr. Morgan Cutlip. 

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Alison Cook: I love the opening story in the book, Morgan. It's so relatable. Would you set the stage for our conversation, sharing a little bit about the story of the birthday balloons, which is not really about the balloons, but what they signify?

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Morgan: Oh, I haven't had to tell this story out loud yet, actually. The story is about my son's birthday. His birthday happens to fall during the holidays, and then all of our family has birthdays within about three weeks of each other, plus the holidays. Also, my in-laws were coming to visit. We were planning for a trip with my in-laws. 

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The party, the birthdays, the trip, all of the things were colliding, and it was a really stressful time. I remember saying to my husband, he's like, what do you want me to do for Roy's party? It's our son's name. He's nine. He's not geriatric with the name Roy. But he's like, what do you want me to do? I said, you know what? Just handle the balloons. Start to finish. 

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I want primary colors, the number eight, and a baseball. That's it. He's like, done. I let that go. It was like I say in the book, it was like a sip of water in the desert. It didn't actually help that much, but it was at least one thing I could hand off to my husband. Then maybe two nights later, we're edging up to the birthday party. 

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I was laying in bed and I was like, oh gosh. I don't think he actually knows what to do about the balloons.I don't think he actually has them handled. I'm laying there stewing around this and wondering, my anxiety is heightening, and then you always get this experience where you're like, oh my gosh, now I'm not getting enough sleep. 

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I'm worrying about something now. I'm not sleeping. Now I'm worried about not sleeping. It became this sort of spiral into anxiety. I woke up in the morning and I came up the stairs and Chad is on his computer. He has a spot where he sits and he works. I was like, hey. A little intense, hey, I’m really worrying about something. 

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I couldn't sleep last night. I'm worried that you don't actually have the balloons handled. He looks at me and he is like, yeah, tell me when and where I should get them from, and what time we need 'em, and what you want. I was like, dang it. I was so spot on with my intuition.

He actually didn't handle it. 

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I was so wound up, like a tight spring at that moment, that I didn't handle myself the best. I said something like, I knew it. I knew you didn't have this. He's like, my gosh, and then he snaps back because I come in hot. He comes back hot and he says something along the lines of， you didn't communicate clearly.

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I pride myself in being a very clear communicator, so he knows that's getting me right where it hurts. We go round and round. In the beginning of the book, that's where I start with, telling that story and then analyzing both of our perspectives. My perspective was, you said you got it. You didn't get it. 

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If you were confused, it was on you to follow up with me and to clarify and to ask for whatever instructions, and that's on you. His perspective was, you have really high expectations for birthday parties, which is true, which is totally valid.

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However, with this particular item in the party, I actually did not care at all. He was assuming that I had these very high expectations. I've never done the balloons. I don't know what to do. I thought I would have a little bit more direction, break apart the story, and offer some perspective.

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Alison Cook: It perfectly sets up this idea that you are really dissecting in the book, and it's such a hopeful naming, especially for women, of the mental load. With that word, I'm like, oh, she sees me. I want you to talk about what that is, because in many ways, the story is not about the balloons–it's the mental load you were carrying and what it felt like to you to have that tiny sip of relief, that piece of it being handled. 

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Before I dive into the deep end, what do we mean by the mental load? What is this term and why is it so important to name it, especially for women?

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Morgan: Whenever I define it, I give the general definition that you can find anywhere. Then I give the “in the weeds” definition and I'll tell why that's important. The 30,000 foot definition is: the mental load is the seemingly never ending to-do list that we carry around in our heads that have two key components. The first and the majority of the mental load is made up of invisible things. 

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This is important to understand because it's hard to explain to people when we're trying to get relief from or hand things off, and also because it's invisible, it's hard to get it acknowledged and appreciated, which becomes a really big part of navigating the mental load as a couple.

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The second part of it is that it takes up cognitive real estate. This means that it crowds out space in our brains to do things like find peace, exercise patience, regulate our emotions, and get in the mood for sex and intimacy in our relationship. It crowds these things out. 

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Everybody has a mental load. That's a pushback that sometimes comes up–I have one too. Of course everybody has one. But when it comes to the home and family life, we see over and over again in research that women are the ones that typically carry the majority of this, even if they're working full-time, part-time, inside or outside the home, doesn't matter.

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The “in the weeds” definition, if you'll allow me for a minute, imagine a Venn diagram with three circles. The tasks in the mental load usually fall into one of three domains. The first is the physical and the stereotypical relationship. This is where guys thrive. They're like, gimme a list. Tell me what to do. 

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I'll mow the lawn, I'll do the dishes. Feel better now? We're like, no, we don't feel better. That creates issues. “I do these things. It's never enough”. So in the physical domain, we actually gotta do the thing. 

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The second circle is the mental. This is thinking about the steps involved. A lot of our work life falls in the mental domain–making a list, thinking about what needs to be done, what you're gonna cook for dinner or grab from the store. It’s the mental domain. 

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The third is the real differentiator, and that is the emotional domain of tasks. This is a little bit of a mouthful, but it will make sense to women. It is the ongoing cause and effect calculations that we make on behalf of members of our family to try to maximize positive outcomes and experiences.

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It's future projections that we're worrying about. It's thinking about, oh I'm heading out of the house. How do I make sure my 3-year-old doesn't have a tantrum? What's all the stuff I gotta do to safeguard? How do I make sure I make good educational choices for our kids so that they have good relationships, but also a good, educational start? 

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It's all of these areas that feel like the stakes are really high, and it even goes into dinner and thinking about food preferences. Who's going to eat what, and how do I make sure they eat enough? If they don't eat enough, they get hangry. It's all of these calculations we're constantly making, and this one is very tricky because you can't really hire it out. 

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It requires a deep knowing of your family. It's hard to explain to your partner if they don't think in the same way, and it follows you everywhere. It will whip you out of the present and pull you, like when I was trying to sleep, back into mental calculations and the mess we've got going on in our minds. It steals our ability to be present, to relax, and all these things. 

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Here's the last point. The majority of the tasks in home and family life occur at the intersection of these three circles, which is what I call the triple threat. Most tasks, like I said, making dinner, will involve the physical, the mental, and the emotional domains. What happens a lot of times is women will go to talk to their partners and they'll be like, I'm really overwhelmed. I need more support. 

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Their partner will say, what's going on? They're like, I gotta fill out permission slips. I have to make dinner. I gotta get the kids to here on time and I gotta call the dentist. At the surface, it seems like those are very simple tasks.

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Alison Cook: None of these are hard.

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Morgan: None of these are hard. Yes. We judge ourselves, which we don't need more of. And then our partners don't get it. They'll say things like okay, make a list. Or, you make it harder than you need to. What's the matter with you? It ends up creating a lot of self-judgment, a lot of shame. It doesn't move us forward in our relationships when it comes to sharing some of this stuff. 

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When we look around our home at all of the things that have shown up, in our pantry, in our fridge, in our kids' clothing drawers, we can unpack each of these things to reveal all of our head and our heart work in these three domains that was done in order for this to manifest physically in our lives.

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It makes sense why we're so overwhelmed. It makes sense why it feels much heavier than these one-off tasks that we can list.

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Alison Cook: It is so helpful, the naming, even listening to you and reading your book, that idea that there's a difference between tasks and then that second sphere, which is the process to achieve the tasks. Sometimes my husband and I'll go when we get into this, I'll say, it's actually not a task, it's a project.

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Morgan: Yes. 

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Alison Cook: Naming that helps it. It sounds simple, but it's actually not. What you're doing with that naming, and you do it throughout the book, is validating. There's a different mental process that goes into what seemed simply like, oh, I gotta make dinner, or I gotta do laundry. But that could be a million different things you have to mentally work through to get to that. 

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It's such a helpful naming. Morgan, you said everyone has a mental load. Is there a way in which women carry it differently than men? I don't wanna make a generalization here–there's always exceptions–but it does seem like women are carrying this mental load more when it comes to household management, even if they work outside of the home.

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Why is that? Tell me a little bit about why do women tend to carry this more? I wanna caveat that by saying one of the things you do a really great job of in the book is saying, your partner is not the enemy.

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Morgan: Yeah, it's really important.

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Alison Cook: The mental load is the enemy, but it might affect you differently than it affects your spouse.

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Morgan: Yes. We can dive into that a little bit more even when we start talking about ways we talk about it. There are a number of reasons why women end up carrying it more. I say in the book, the game is rigged. We do need to understand why, because when we understand why we can jump into our relationships differently.

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Again, this naming and defining is really important because it's empowering. It empowers us to make changes to how we relate to things, react to things, in all of these different areas. It becomes very empowering. There are different reasons. One is socialization.

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I remember talking to my husband once, because he travels every single week for work, and in the beginning of my motherhood journey, I was riddled with guilt all of the time for the silly things. I go out for an hour to go to the grocery store and I'm like, I gotta rush back. It's silly stuff that I had to look at and examine and change my relationship with, but I was baffled. 

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I'm like, how do you leave every week and not feel guilty? He says, I felt guilty maybe the first time, but I am providing for my family. That's my role. It's interesting because I work too.

It's not as if he’s the only breadwinner, because I work too. It's an interesting thing and I believe that this is almost a very common experience among men. 

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When you look at research and you look at shifts after kids, men tend to stress out about changes in sex life and, but then also about providing for their family. They feel that extra pressure. Again, there are always individual differences, but the way we're socialized sets us up to handle these things differently. 

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For men, they're socialized to provide and protect. These are top priority. They're checking these boxes. It's almost like everything else is extra and a little gravy. I'm not saying it's correct, and we can absolutely shift this in our lives and many people have. I have. But that's a little bit the default. 

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Women are very much socialized to self-sacrifice for the preservation of our relationships. We are judged based on what our kids are wearing, how they're behaved, and what our home looks like. Our priorities are a bit more on some of these areas, so right out of the gate, we're set up to prioritize different things. It makes us more likely to take on some of the stuff on the home and family front.

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Alison Cook: It makes sense. Whether it's nature, whether it's nurture, it is really the reality in general, for most people. I love this quote you talk about, and it's a really interesting perspective. You say, a woman I interviewed on the mental load recounted a story where her husband gave the kids a bath and did the dishes, and then turned to her and said, is there anything else I can help you with today? 

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She was really angry and couldn't figure out why. He thought he was being so helpful and maybe someone would be super grateful. But for her it was like, imagine telling your husband, hey babe. I took the kids to school. I picked up dog poop. I cleaned those. I thought about dinner. I bought groceries. I filled out permission slips. I enrolled the kids in blah, blah, blah, blah. A million things. Is there anything else I can do for you? 

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Again, this is where resentment can build. If we don't name it, we can feel that resentment of, I'm carrying so much over here. Do you not see this? I wanna talk about that. What are the signs, the warning flags, that this is becoming an issue? We're starting to feel that resentment based on the mental load.

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Morgan: It shows up in a number of ways. One sign can be if you're feeling an incredible amount of overwhelm and anxiety. There are correlations between this experience of being overloaded and more levels of anxiety and overwhelm and burnout.

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All these things are individual costs and individual things to check into, and I am just feeling so burdened. Do I feel like I have a weight on my chest that I can't release? It shows up in these almost universally shared ways, where we might be walking around the house, muttering under our breath.

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One of the things that I noticed in myself is, I would have this running dialogue as I moved through my home. I'd be picking things up, like, I guess I'll take care of this, and guess I'll do that, and must be nice not worrying about that. Having this negative self-talk and dialogue can be a really good sign that it's time to address this differently. 

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When your attitude shifts towards your partner and you start seeing them in a pretty negative light, you develop a storyline about them where they're like the villain in the story. Oh, it must be nice having a maid. It feels like you're another child. These types of things are big red flags that it is time to talk about this in your relationship. 

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That's a problematic dynamic that occurs a lot in these relationships around the mental load. Typically the woman will approach her husband to try to make some changes, and if he does not react in a receptive way, but is defensive, does this tit for tat thing, hardship Olympics, dismisses it, puts it back on her, she has one of two choices, but one of the choices is she gets louder or she starts to chase him.

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When this happens, it creates a dynamic where she is the nagging mother. A parental sort of dynamic starts to develop, and this is problematic for the relationship because she will feel a whole lot of resentment and she will not feel a lot of attraction toward her partner, and this will impact her intimate life.

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She resents that she's been put in this position to occupy this role. It becomes this really tricky experience.

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Alison Cook: It’s a bind because if you don't say anything, then you're silently resentful.

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Morgan: Yes, the dynamic gets layered, where you start to lose track of what you're really upset about anymore. But a lot of times we can trace the roots back to this feeling of inequity, feeling of unfairness, feeling of invisibility in the relationship, like you don't have a partner who's there for you, and all of these things that really set the stage for deeper resentment.

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Alison Cook: It makes a lot of sense. Let's shift into, how do we bring it up? How do we talk about it in a way that doesn't alienate, that doesn't stir up defensiveness, that is a naming? Versus it feels like this is that hot button issue, you called it the Hardship Olympics, exactly. How do we work through this?

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Morgan: I have a lot of strategies in the book, because the hardest part of writing this book is, there's so much nuance in relationships and couples’ experiences, and I really wanted to equip people no matter where they were. A generalized framework is one, you wanna bring this up when things are relatively good.

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Don't bring this up when you are frustrated, muttering under your breath and you're like, can't you do more around here? That is not gonna be received well. I know it's hard to ruin a good moment by having one of these conversations, but bring it up in a good moment. It's helpful to give your partner a heads up and ask for when is a good time.

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There's something I really need to talk with you about. It's very important to me. I want you to be in a good head space to be able to receive it. When is a good time? And then set the time up. 

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Another thing that can be helpful, and people love this or hate this, but one of the most common responses I see in my community and when I collected survey data of women is that their partner responds with defensiveness. Love it or hate it, one option is to put that on the table before you enter the conversation. 

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You try to hedge the defensiveness by saying something like, there's a conversation I really need to have with you. I have really worked up a lot of energy and courage to enter into this conversation with you. I'm feeling nervous and what I'm most nervous about is that you're going to get defensive when we talk about it. 

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Before we get into talking about this, can you handle it without getting defensive? It does two things. One, if they start to feel defensive, because they're gonna say they can handle it almost always, if they're about to get defensive, it causes a pause where they're like, oof, if I'm gonna get defensive, I'm gonna go back on what I said. 

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Or if they do get defensive, you can say, “You said that you could handle this, and now it seems like you're getting defensive. Should we take a break? Is this not the time? What are you hearing me say?”. You can check in on some of that stuff, so that can help set it up. 

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The next piece is, when you talk about the mental load, it's very important and what I see as being the most beneficial way forward–if the ultimate goal is to navigate it differently in your relationship, to frame the mental load as the enemy and you two on the same team.

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Alison Cook: That's good.

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Morgan: Because modern family life is relentless. We are parenting very intensely. We are distracted by our devices. It's a hustle culture. We feel pressure to be productive all of the time. We have all of these sources of comparison. We are up against a lot in modern family life. If you talk about the mental load in that way, it can go a lot smoother.

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It might be something along the lines of, there's something that I wanna name that I've been experiencing. You've probably noticed that I am tense, a little stressed out. I'm not as laid back as you probably remember me being, and it's because I'm overwhelmed by something that is called the mental load.

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I'd love to talk to you about it. It's something that I'm experiencing right now in a very heavy way. I know you have your own. But in the home and family life, I feel like I'm carrying a lot of this and I want to find a new way forward together because we have so much on our plates.

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We are navigating so much, and I want to find a way forward that works for our family because me being in a good mood and me being in a good space is beneficial for everyone in our family, and it will really help our relationship. Can we brainstorm some ways of moving forward?

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Alison Cook: That's good. You're casting the positive goal that you both want. You're getting the buy-in. This is for both of us. It’s also validating, because again, we never know the mental load that our partner is holding. It might be different, and it honors and gives space for that. It invites conversation. 

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I get this picture in my mind as I'm listening to you. Instead of going at the person with the issue, it's like you're putting something out on the table. You could almost get your book and put it out on the table. Could we talk about this thing that exists outside of us? We're both at the table, side by side, trying to look at it together and come up with creative solutions. 

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I don't have an agenda. I'm not here to try to get you to do more. I'm here to have an open-minded conversation about this, because I am feeling it. Maybe you are too. I really like that we're a team in this.

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Morgan: Yeah. I interviewed men and women for the book, and what men tend to talk about is, I know she's struggling. I feel it. I can tell something's wrong and I want her to be happy.

Men like it when there's peace in the home. It's important for them to own that, but then also recognize, what can I do to help facilitate more of that? 

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That's another piece worth highlighting in that conversation. You probably feel how I have shifted, and I'm sure it's not enjoyable to you. How do we get to that better place together? A lot of the men talked about that. I know she's struggling. I don't actually know exactly what I need to do to get her to a better place. 

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There are jerks out there. There are on both sides, men and women, but a lot of men really want their partners to be happy and they want to be a participant in that.

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Alison Cook: It's hard because you can get into those tropes on both sides. She's never happy! But for the women's side, “He's never gonna get it!”. We have to be willing to bring in that idea of really seeing each other and committing to try to honor each other's experience, even when we don't fully understand it. 

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One of the things, Morgan, I love about the book, is that you interviewed so many people and included so many stories from real couples. What were some of the things that surprised you? What didn't surprise you? What stood out to you from that research?

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Morgan: It's almost like what stood out was that I wasn't surprised. I've been talking about this for so many years and talking with women in my community and couples that I worked with over the years, and I would see the same themes. What I found is that the same sort of things show up. 

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Here are some examples. The things that women want most from their partner on the mental load and what I would've guessed: number one, more initiative taking. That makes a lot of sense to me. They want a partner, not somebody that they're coaching.

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The second one is, more appreciation and acknowledgement, and I've felt that in my own life. I hear from women where they say things like, if they saw it and valued it, that fills me up. That's such an interesting part of the conversation too, because when we have partners who push back, it's such a shame.

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It's like you're missing these really simple ways to support your partner and lift her up so that she can really feel good and strong in the relationship and in how she shows up in family life. Oh my word. I remember going round and round for probably six or eight years, I don't know. I don't even wanna rehash how, with my husband, this idea of me needing more appreciation and he could not get it. 

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I don't think I share this in the book, but he would do this thing where he'd say, you're a good mom. I was like, no, that doesn't do it for me. You said that about our old neighbor in DC. That's not anything special for me. Then we would fall down this hole where he would say, ah, it's never enough for you. I try and it's not right. You need too much and blah, blah, blah. 

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One day I just had to lay it out and I was like, you say you don't need these things, but every day when you go to work, you collect a paycheck, and a paycheck is a representation of your value contributed. You get a bonus, which is reflective of how hard you worked. It's a thank you, it's an appreciation.

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You get monthly reviews where you have feedback from your boss, where you get propped up and then you go to these banquets that I've sat through for six hours where you're honoring all these employees. You need to understand that in family life, I have no source of feedback except you. It's all unseen. 

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We had toddlers at the time. I was like, do you know the feedback from the kids? It's a tantrum. I make this wonderful meal and they don't like it. That's my feedback. You are actually occupying a very important position in my life that has a lot of power to lift me up because you are my source of feedback. 

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It’s such an important shift for him to understand. Women, sometimes we need this. We have a hard time articulating it. 

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Alison Cook: We're colleagues, and that's language he could understand. Oh, I need to be a good colleague to you. This is your job; these are our different household responsibilities.

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Morgan: You do it at work. I do it at home too. Yeah. Also, to frame things as needy to women is really tricky, because a lot of us have received messages around what it means to be too sensitive or have needs. When we ask for stuff from our partners and they push back, we're likely to shut down because we're like, oh, maybe I am too needy. 

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I'm asking for too much. It's important too, for women to hear, you don't get a lot of these things in home and family life. You don't get a lot of this appreciation that maybe you need, and it's okay to ask for it because there isn't a good source to tap into that a lot of times.

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Alison Cook: This is a really important thing. It's not necessarily about a 50-50 split, it's about a feeling. I kinda like that word colleague. It's about co-laboring, co-sharing. There was a book that came out a long time ago, I can't remember the name of it, but it was talking about the economics of a household. 

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The idea was, figure out what each person is legitimately good at and divvy up the tasks that way, versus based on gender, versus based on who has the career. Hey, this is actually easy for me. I'm a good cook. I was talking to a friend, and she says my husband does all the cooking. He loves it. 

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Have these conversations like, this is easy for me, and we might be surprised at what a spouse says. I don't actually mind doing this. When you have those open-handed conversations, at least in those moments, to your point about feeling invisible, we've talked about it, we've acknowledged this, it's not being taken for granted. 

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We’re not making assumptions about who does what. Tell me a little bit about that piece of it, to the point of your book which is called “a better share”. How do we get to a better share? What’s one thing you would wanna leave people with?

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Morgan: The one thing that really will make a big difference is having regularly scheduled meetings. I have a “share” agenda in there. “Scheduled Home And Relationship Effort” is what the acronym is, but these regularly scheduled times are where we come together and talk about things, and it's important. 

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I know the book you're talking about and it's such a genius solution. Fair Play. Yeah. In my opinion, that's the gold standard for the actual logistics of how you hand things off, but when we're talking about modern family life, like in my situation, for example, my husband travels every week so we can divvy up cards, but every single week it changes.

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What that means to me is that couples have to have a skillset of being able to regularly talk about the mental load, because it changes literally every single day, depending on the demands and intensity of what's going on in your life. If every time we go to talk about it, we end up in a big fight or we're arguing, then it's going to make this part of our relationship really difficult to navigate.

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Ultimately you're gonna get to a place of resentment. I believe that one of the most flexible and important approaches is to regularly schedule time to talk about it. I give an agenda in my book. It's a short amount of time, and you check in, How are we doing in terms of fairness? What's on your plate this week? What's on my plate? 

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Is there anything I could've dealt with better? Is there any information you need from me to accomplish these tasks this week? Do you have any questions for me? Just hash it out. It has a couple of very important side effects that are really good for relationships. 

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One, we tend to be really bad at talking about our relationships because we assume that if we're talking about 'em, it means something is wrong. We have to normalize talking about our relationships. We have meetings in all parts of our life, but then when it comes to a relationship, we're like, it'll run itself. 

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That's wildly irresponsible. The more you do it, the better you'll get at it. The other thing is that women tend to carry, especially as the relationship goes on, the responsibility for managing the relationship. We carry that emotional labor and we're like, how come you used to plan dates and now I'm the one? 

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It seems like I'm the only one that cares about us, and that is really lonely and isolating and frustrating in a relationship. When you schedule this, you are sharing some of the management of the relationship and that one piece is going to help make a major difference.

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Alison Cook: Do you suggest weekly or monthly? Do you have a suggested rhythm for that?

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Morgan: I think weekly is best. Everybody operates differently so I get pushback sometimes, and even from my husband when we started doing these. I get so awkward and I was like, so what? Be awkward in your relationship a little bit. Anytime you're learning a new skill, if you're an athlete, you wanna learn how to be a really excellent hitter, how many times are you gonna step in that batting box? 

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How many times are you gonna go through your mechanics until it feels automatic? The same thing with relationship skills. Be awkward, let it feel mechanical. Eventually it will get more automatic. If you can do it every week, that's amazing because it's changing all the time, and I think as you progress through this and practice it, maybe you don't need to schedule them anymore. Maybe it becomes a normal rhythm of your relationship that you've got natural at.

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Alison Cook: I love that. Let it feel awkward for a little while at first, because again, to use your metaphor of in the workplace, this is normative. You have team meetings to make sure we're on the same page. We are a team. We need to have team meetings and we each get to bring things.

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I love that. Even if, let's say in your case, your husband travels a lot, or you're holding all the cards, you are holding more of it, at least there's a place where that's witnessed and seen, where there can be some gratitude and affirmation. Yeah. I see that you are holding most of the cards. You are holding most of the load. That can be honored.

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Morgan: Yes. That's part of my agenda, which is that you do this expression of appreciation because people need to hear that. You can't overdose on gratitude in your relationship. The more, the better.

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Alison Cook: It's such great work, Morgan. It's a fantastic book. You're so practical there. Like you said, there are so many scripts and tips and an agenda for the family meeting. It's such a great resource. I love that you wrote this book. It's gonna help a lot of people. Tell my listeners where they can find the book and where they can find your work.

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Morgan: Thank you for saying that. That means so much to me. You can find my book basically anywhere that you buy books. You can also grab it on my website and there are some gifts if you're pre-ordering. That's drmorgancutlip.com. You can find it on my Instagram as well. My handle's @DrMorganCutlip, all one word.

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The book's available on Audible as well. I'm the one who reads it. You get all of the downloads and resources even when you do the audiobook. Whatever your preferred mode of taking in this information, you can find it there.

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Alison Cook: I highly recommend if you feel any of the weight of what we've been talking about, this is gonna help. It's such an insidious thing that can be so divisive in marriages so unnecessarily.

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Morgan: Yes. Isn't that so frustrating?

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Alison Cook: People are working so hard and the thing that is pulling them apart is that they're not meeting on how hard we're both working. I love that you've brought this book to life to help people navigate that.

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Morgan: Thank you. I appreciate you!

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