Learning to Ask for Help from my Partner

I held a lot of resentment against my husband, and partly blamed him for my burnout. I found it really hard to ask for help, and didn’t know what to tell him to do. I wanted him to work it out without being told. When I left my full time job and started working part time from home, I ended up just as exhausted doing all the childcare and household tasks. I wish I had known earlier how to share the load. Eve Rodsky’s book and game ‘Fairplay’ is an excellent way to engage your partner in a more fair distribution of burden in the home. The cards help you work out who is responsible for all steps in household tasks (the planning, as well as the execution). This is so important for the mental load. You need to hand over the full task to your partner. You need to let go of how it is executed. The biggest barrier men report, is their wives being critical of how they did the task. You need to not delegate half cocked plans for your partner to fail at. It is so important in this book that you get to the part about how to present the new management system to your partner before screaming that you are doing 100% of the work!. Even though my husband helps a lot with the execution of tasks, my resentment spiked again when I listened to this book. It reminded me how unfair it was… I had to breathe and present it to him in a non aggressive way. But even then. I failed….

So your behavior change goal from FairPlay is to use the cards. They are a great tool. They represent all the tasks in a household with kids. 50-50 is not the goal. Apparently, the tipping point is 21. Step 1. Can you get your husband to read the book too? Probably not… So you set the stage, I would like to talk, I have printed out these cards, let’s get rid of the ones we agree are not important to us…My husband’s first question was: who made up these rules? Who even says these rules are good? I tried to explain. Why should we both unload the dishwasher. If it is your job, I don’t have to worry about it. I don’t care how you load the dishwasher! (He does). He did not even agree with the premise. FairPlay is about dividing tasks; ‘But I would much prefer to do things with you than on my own’ he said. Wow. Sweet. Wow. Shit. He doesn’t even agree with the premise. This is going to be hard.

Ok, let’s step back. This was mid summer of Covid. I was desperate for a break. I had been full time with the kids at home since March and working part time. But only part time. Those poor full time moms ;( But since before my burnout I had been saying to my husband, I need more help. He had always responded; ‘I am here for you’. But when I made a specific request he struggled. He had his own work stress. I took a work trip to New Zealand and came home early because he had so much work stress…

So we sat down, went through the cards, Discarded lots, no more diapers, yeah! It turned out he had 17 cards, close to the 21 tipping point. I ended up taking on full responsibility for the care of the dogs, I was doing the exercise and food and vet visits. He was doing the poos and forgetting their monthly pills. So after our meeting I ended up with the dog shit on my plate. I was so frustrated. The meeting purpose was to share the load and I had more on my plate than before. What the hell! The advice about not criticizing their tasks did not apply to me. The tasks my husband did were maintenance, cleaning and financial. I had no interest or input.

But as I seethed over the next few days, with more shit on my plate, I looked closer at his list. Yes, he had 17, but none of them were parenting tasks. None of them involved the daily emotional turmoil that I felt. I was so depressed. This was going to be my life, parenting alone. I withdrew. I was angry. Eventually we had to talk, we had not communicated or slept in the same bed for several days. My husband did not want to take on more parenting tasks because I criticized his parenting style. Shoot, yes I did. I was trying to help him understand my son’s autism and my daughter’s emotions, but to him it was criticism. So what could I do? I set a boundary, although I just thought I was being a bitch. I said if I don’t get a break then you will have the kids 1 week and I will take them 1 week and that will be our life. I won’t interfere with your week, I will not be here. The message started to sink in. I said I am taking Wednesday afternoons off. He came home an hour late. So I said Fridays, he could not be late, he would be here at the start of the day. It started to work. He even took the kids away for a week and the odd weekend, saying, I’ll give you a break. It took TIME!! But eventually he realized this was what I needed, and he could do this on his own terms. It was not adding to his daily stress.

I continued to ask him to do a few things during the week, pick up Subway, attend a teacher conference, order take out. He forgot them all. I realized he could not help me during the week. His brain was too fried from work, from trying to run his own business. A business that he saw as crucial for his role as a provider. So I accepted that I could only ask for breaks at the weekend. It took 3 years to learn. I acknowledge that I am emotionally inept. At the same time, I have a PhD and struggled with this ;( So maybe others struggle too.