Balanced, Not Equal: How Two Wives Share the Mental Load | Julia Markish & Krissa Lagos

The ManFlu | Exploring Gender Dynamics, Partnerships & Raising Boys Who Care

Host Lucy McAfee interviews Julia Markish and Krissa Lagos about their approach to managing the mental load within their same-sex marriage.

Key takeaways

• The couple prioritizes 'balance' over strict equality, focusing on equitable distribution of tasks based on individual skills and needs.
• They utilize a system of 'seven touchstones' established during their wedding to guide their marriage and decision-making processes.
• Krissa identified an imbalance in morning routines where she felt stuck with manual kitchen work, leading to a collaborative restructuring of duties.
• A key strategy for preventing resentment is the practice of 'asking for the thanks you are owed' when gratitude isn't offered freely.
• The couple leverages complementary roles, such as Julia's strength in long-term planning and Krissa's ability to manage day-to-day execution.

Main topics

• Mental load and maternal burnout
• Balanced vs. equal partnerships
• Communication strategies in marriage

Notable quotes

We have really different tasks that we take on and routines that we do, but they're done in a really informed and conscious way.

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates that intentional communication and recognizin

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Welcome to the man flu, where the flu is just the metaphor. We're not here to hand out tissues. We're here to challenge the cultural norms that keep relationships off balance. I'm Lucy McAfee. I've spent years studying how gender dynamics play out at home. And as a wife and boy mom, I'm living them too. Each week we dig into the old scripts and unspoken rules that often go unquestioned. but still end up running the show in our marriages and in how we are raising our kids. You'll hear perspectives from researchers, thinkers, and parents and leave with one small shift to try with your family. Hi, everyone. This is Lucy. Welcome back to the Man Flu Podcast. This week, I'm talking with my first couple, Julia and Krissa. The week before we recorded this, I saw a meme going around. It said, imagine what you could do if you had a wife at home. And it reminded me of this conversation we were going to have. This whole episode exists thanks to an intro from a friend who hosted a dinner party where women were sharing their struggles with maternal burnout and the mental load. And Julia was sitting there realizing she just didn't relate because, well, she has a wife. Now, they did burst my bubble a little. Apparently, having a wife doesn't solve all your problems. But we actually circled around this one point and never quite landed it during recording. Afterward, Carissa put it more clearly. Having a wife does let you carry things more equally because she typically isn't taking advantage the way a lot of husbands end up doing, even if unintentionally. I promise this isn't a husband bashing episode, but I think Chris is actually pointing at is less about men specifically and more about default patterns. Who notices the load without being asked versus who has to be told. Julia and Carissa don't get to skip that work just because they're both women. They still have to communicate, still have to divide things up. They've just built a real practice around naming it early and often. including this idea of literally asking for the thanks you're owed instead of waiting around for it. Speaker 2 (2:10) The Speaker 1 (2:10) other thread running through Speaker 2 (2:11) this conversation Speaker 1 (2:12) is their toddler son. They talked about the kind of community they're raising him in and what they hope he carries forward, wanting him to grow up whole, comfortable with his emotions, not performing some version of what a boy is supposed to be. It's very much aligned with what we talk about here on the show. Julia and Krissa, welcome to the Man Flu Podcast. Thank you so much. Speaker 3 (2:36) Good to be here. Speaker 1 (2:37) So excited to have my first couple on the show. So this is going to be a lot of fun to interview you both together. And I want to start off by, we were introduced through a mutual friend. And the way I heard the story is at a dinner party of women. As it sometimes does, the conversation of the maternal burnout and mental load came up. And Julie, I believe you were there. And at the end of the women going around the table and sharing some things that were going on with them, you had a moment of not quite relating to the discussion. And you said, I don't experience these things. And one of the reasons that we suspect is that you have a wife and equal partner at home that's sharing in that load. So first tell me, did I get the story right? And if there's any other color you wanted to add from that discussion. Speaker 2 (3:41) Yes, you got the story right. And to be honest with you, as these women shared their mutual challenges, I... actually started feeling a little bit guilty, which I do from time to time. I'm Jewish, but I started feeling a little bit guilty because I was like, oh my God, am I the man in this story? If my wife was here, would she be like, tell me about it? My hope is that in fact, you said equal partnership and What we really strive for and we talk a lot about is a balanced partnership. And there isn't so much equal. We have really different tasks that we take on and routines that we do, but they're done in a really informed and conscious way. And we talk about it as, I don't know, we could probably talk about it more, but we certainly talk about it at Speaker 1 (4:42) least on a monthly basis. Speaker 1 (4:46) in a lot of fair play in those kinds of systems, they talk about equity and more equitable, that we're not always going to be equal. And maybe that's not the design of our partnership. So, Krista, would you agree with that sentiment? You wouldn't have said no when I'm at a dinner party. I do say I'm struggling with this burnout. Speaker 3 (5:09) Yeah, no, I definitely agree. There are some ways in which. Julia does have the typically masculine role in the sense that she has a higher earning job, a more demanding and less time flexible job. So there are things that kind of just default to being my responsibility because they need to be. But then there are also many ways in which she takes on, especially the mental load stuff that I think a lot of women seem. in straight relationships seems to struggle with having to deal with on top of a lot of the day-to-day stuff. Speaker 1 (5:49) For sure. And... Is this something I know you said that you have probably monthly discussions about what's happening? Was there a point in the relationship where you felt like you had some imbalance and you needed to stop and have a discussion about it? Or was it a more natural flow into these roles? Speaker 3 (6:13) To be clear, also, it's not a regular monthly thing. It's kind of a... Do we need to talk about things? Speaker 1 (6:20) Something came up and maybe we need to have a discussion. Okay. Speaker 3 (6:26) The thing that would most clearly come to mind is like a few months ago, we had kind of gotten into this groove where we have a one and a half year old and we on a daily basis, one of us gets up with it. We trade off getting up with him. So every morning, one of us gets up exactly when he gets up and starts the day with him. And the other person gets an extra 20 to 40 minutes to ease into the day a little bit more. At a certain point, it felt like regardless of who was getting up with him, I was ending up in the kitchen and kind of prepping all of his food for the day before he went out for daycare. And Julia was kind of getting to do the fun part of hanging out with him and playing with him while I was doing kind of the crappy manual work in the kitchen. And so I brought that up. Speaker 3 (7:13) I was like, this doesn't feel fair. I feel like I'm not getting to do the fun part anymore. And she, as soon as I said it, she was like, oh my God, I've been feeling the same way and let's fix it. And then we came up with like a clear divide of whoever's getting up with him. The other person is doing that stuff in the kitchen and getting like his breakfast and his lunch ready for the day. And so now it's like a very clear division and we always switch off like that. And I stopped feeling like it was unfair. Speaker 1 (7:40) Yay. I love that. And I do think back to sort of the masculine, you do see a lot of that when they talk about research around the division of responsibilities and that we are seeing an increase in fathers participating in the childcare. But when you break it into the types of childcare they're doing, the moms will have a similar response to that. Well, yeah. You'd get to do the fun things. And I'm over here doing the, Chris, I think you called it, crappy manual, the stuff that has to get done on the side. So that is interesting. So you have a one and a half year old. And what had to shift? Take me back to your relationship pre-baby and how things were divided up and then the shifts that you saw once your little guy came along. Speaker 2 (8:39) Initially, even before we were married, as our relationship unfolded, it became very clear that Krissa was an amazing cook and really enjoyed it. And I was a mediocre cook and was happy to release it. And so that just that was natural. And then what else? ended up being natural was I would do the cleanup after she did the cooking and again, equitable, not equal. And we also, as we got married and, and fell into a routine, we balance is actually one of our. Seven? Yes. Seven touchstones that we put a lot of thought into for our wedding. We had the whole, our ceremony was largely based on identifying what those touchstones are and really building our marriage around them. And balance is one of them. And what it means is balance