Overwhelmed By Motherhood and Marriage? It’s Not Because You’re Doing It Wrong
Is your wife a miserable harpy? Does she speak only in frets and laugh maniacally when you ask her to get intimate? Is she simply never satisfied with you? Does she seem totally unable to have fun or to relax, but you swear you remember her once upon a time being a fun-loving, sexy, joyful human? Then you might be suffering from Patriarchy Pox, a pervasive and pernicious illness that effects millions of couples every year, throughout history, and always.
It has been well-documented that COVID has only increased the weight women in families carry. On author and activist Glennon Doyle’s popular podcast, “We Can Do Hard Things,” she and her cohost and sister, Amanda Doyle, recently discussed women’s Overwhelm. They describe having a ticker of things to do, to worry about, to fix, to anticipate and oversee, always running through their heads, and how carrying the burden of their family members and colleagues’ comfort, safety, health, and success on their backs is flattening them. It’s all so heavy, but no one seems to see it. In fact, their families get annoyed that they are hunching over under the weight of it all. Helpful husbands ask what they can do to reduce some of the load, to take items off the to-do lists, but they are acting as assistants, not partners. They’re not making the lists, seeing what needs to be put on the lists, doing the uncomfortable, monotonous work of caring for and anticipating the family’s needs. They’re just there to help, if you’re lucky. In other words, women are left tending to the invisible and exhausting emotional labor, as author Gemma Hartley refers to it in her viral Harper’s article, “Women Aren’t Nags, We’re Just Fed Up” and then book, “Fed Up.”
This was my experience as a woman in a heterosexual marriage with kids, prior to us blowing it all up a few years ago when I kept working full-time and my husband focused on the parenting and home responsibilities while starting a small business. He had always been one of the helpful miracle husbands who recognized that laundry and grocery shopping were things that needed doing, and yet until that point, the bulk of the care and caring had unceremoniously fallen on me. All that emotional labor had overwhelmed me, hunched me over, as they describe in the podcast, made me bitter, distant, and naggy. I felt lonely and lost in myself and our marriage. Of course, it didn’t help that society’s message is that we moms are supposed to be stoically cherishing it all and are considered selfish and cold if we draw attention to the disparity or our pain.
Recently, I was inputting vaccine records into a registration form for my kids’ camp. Looking at my meticulous handwriting on the little vaccine cards that I’ve kept these past ten years, knowing that each dated entry represented me making decisions, making phone calls, nursing a crying baby after each injection — I recognized again the amount of time, worry, and brain space I’ve committed as a parent, and how unbalanced it was for so long. I chose the pediatrician and scheduled the appointments, prepared the kids, and kept the records. Sometimes my husband would take the kids to the appointments if I had to work, but the labor that went into the task of maintaining my kids’ health, before and after the appointments, was mine. Our kids have always been able-bodied, healthy, neurotypical, so the burden on me could have been even heavier than it was. Healthcare is only one small example of the ways I was our de facto decision-maker and manager. I could feel myself getting upset, looking at those cards; feeling the weight of the baby and toddler time of life, when I was working in and out of the house full-time when my resentment and loneliness formed callouses between my husband and me. Also, please note that in couples without kids, this phenomenon of one partner bearing the burden of managing their shared life is still present. It seems that women worry over and provide most of the social planning, home, and pet care, and almost all of the contraception/reproductive management for couples without kids, too. It’s equally infuriating there, as well.
“I hated being a parent and felt tremendous shame about it. In my mind, though, this was just how mom’s mom. This is what women do…which is to say…everything.”
As it was, it almost caused our divorce. I was so unhappy. Life felt impossible and unfair, and I felt like my husband was a million miles away, not seeing me, not knowing what was burying me. I hated him for it. I hated myself. I hated being a parent and felt tremendous shame about it. In my mind, though, this was just how mom’s mom. This is what women do…which is to say…everything. I thought my misery within that structure was my fault, my problem. Or that I’d married a dud. I think I just married a dude, and we were both following the societal, patriarchal script.
Quitting his job and becoming the primary caregiver, he started to see what I saw, understood what I did, and started to do it himself. I didn’t have to ask, beg, or nag. He knew what was on the to-do list, because he’d put it there. When he planned and executed one of our kids’ birthday parties without my involvement it was like a miracle! I was floored. A miracle that I had been seamlessly pulling off since the inception of our children, with no one noticing. Least of all me. As I understood it, doing all the things for all the people was my duty and my privilege. I had to do it, with a smile and sparkles, preferably.
Expectations on women are absurdly high. We need to be grateful and available, at both work and home, grateful and organized, grateful and on top of everything for everyone, without taking any credit or visibly setting anything down or complaining of back pain.
Expectations for men are still abysmally low. If they don’t leave or physically/mentally harm their wives and children, if they are able to show up sober and be awake and present and if they care half as much about what’s inside their wives’ minds as they do about what’s between her thighs, they’re enlightened miracles.
So, how do we get moms out from under the overwhelm and get men to step it up? How do we cure the Patriarchy Pox? It’s something we were all born with and it’s going to take a lot of work to eradicate.
For men, if they’re anything like my husband, they will find that when they engage more fully in their families and relationships, they enjoy life more. They’re more invested, needed, and satisfied. It takes practice and work on the ol’ ego, but it’s worth it. Paying attention to things they haven’t before, showing up in ways their peers don’t, their dads didn’t, men on TV don’t. It will be revolutionary, yes. It will be more traditionally maternal, yes. It will appear less masculine, probably. They might get harassment for it, but if they want happy homes and thriving marriages, not to mention to be part of a radical cultural shift, this is the way.
For women, they must feel allowed to put down the weight they’re carrying. They must give themselves permission to share it out loud, without apology or shame. It takes a partner willing to pick it up, yes, but it also takes some internal work. Women are taught that sacrifice and service are their currency, their way of loving. That fretting and worrying and giving up everything they are to care for others is supposed to be proof that they’re women-ing well. SO their choosing their own happiness and peace will be revolutionary, as well. Theme setting things down and demanding that their partners pick it up, or leaving it there on the ground until they pick it up, will feel weird. Not feminine. They might get harassment for it, but if they want contentment inside of their own skulls and, in turn, a happy family? This is the way.
In the end, after major life changes and identifying the invisible work I was doing, and redistributing it between us, my husband and I are in a really good place. He feels more connected and less inhibited, and I feel more free, fun-loving, sexy, and joyful at forty than I ever was in my twenties or thirties. This life feels more sustainable, equal, and less heavy. I’m not overwhelmed anymore, we’re both just happily whelmed.
Sarah Zimmerman is a freelance writer in Northern California and is working on her first novel. In past lives,, she has been a Physician Assistant in Women's Health and the owner of a vegan ice cream business. Sarah writes about marriage, sex, parenting, infertility, pregnancy loss, social justice, and women's mental and physical health, always with honesty and humor. She has written for Ravishly, Cafe Mom, Pregnant Chicken, and more and can be found at sarahzwriter.com and on Medium, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok at @sarahzwriter.