In this episode of The Pulling Curls Podcast: Pregnancy & Parenting Untangled, Hilary Erickson, RN, and guest Stephanie Straub from CNY Therapy Solutions dive into the complexities of changes in marital roles, especially after the arrival of a new baby. They explore how these shifts can impact relationships and offer practical advice on how couples can adjust to these changes. Listen as they discuss the mental load, the importance of communication, and strategies like the “Sunday sit down” to help untangle the various roles within a marriage. This episode is packed with insights for navigating life changes and maintaining a healthy partnership.
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Big thanks to our sponsor The Organized Home Family Routines The Online Prenatal Class for Couples
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Timestamps:
00:00 “Bridging Parenthood Preparedness Gaps”
03:19 Inclusive Parenting Dynamics
06:49 Parental Shifts and Responsibilities
11:11 Navigating Partnership Dynamics
15:09 “Sunday Sit-Down: Weekly Planning”
17:45 “Prepping Kids for Vacation”
19:54 “Fair Play: Household Task Strategy”
23:02 “Weekly Meal and Relationship Check-In”
28:34 Navigating Life’s Changing Roles
30:57 Traditional Male Provider Stress
34:46 Empowering Others Through Support
38:54 “Teaching Kids ‘Notice and Do'”
42:13 Postpartum Challenges and Encouragement
43:48 “Sunday Sit Down Reflections”
Keypoints:
Sure thing! Here are ten bullet points from the episode “258 Changes in Marital Roles” of The Pulling Curls Podcast:
- The episode mainly focuses on changes in marital roles, particularly after a new baby is born and through various life changes.
- Hilary Erickson and Stephanie Straub discuss how marital roles are defined differently for each couple, emphasizing their responsibilities and tasks.
- There’s recognition of how support shifts postpartum, with Stephanie highlighting how things like taking a shower become major accomplishments.
- A focus was placed on how partners, especially new dads, also experience significant role changes during postpartum periods.
- Hilary shared insights from her birth class creation, emphasizing the importance of partners understanding and getting on the same page.
- They delve into the concept of the mental load, specifying how it’s often invisible but heavily carried by one partner, usually women.
- The “Sunday sit down” was introduced as a strategy for couples to plan the week and share responsibilities to balance the mental load.
- Hilary pointed out how roles naturally shift over time with children growing up, like when they start driving or start going to school.
- The discussion included how societal expectations shape gender roles and how they affect parenting dynamics.
- They emphasize the importance of communication and being on the same page to handle changes in family dynamics and reduce potential conflicts.
If you have any more questions or need further details about the episode, feel free to ask!
Producer: Drew Erickson
Transcript
[00:00:00] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Hey guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on episode 258, we are talking about changes in marital roles. Let’s untangle it.
[00:00:07] Hi, I’m Hilary, a serial over complicator. I’m also a nurse, mom to three, and the curly head behind Pulling Curls and The Pregnancy Nurse. This podcast aims to help us stop over complicating things, and remember how much easier it is to keep things simple. Let’s smooth out those snarls with Pregnancy and Parenting Untangled, The Pulling Curls Podcast.
[00:00:37] This episode of The Pulling Curls Podcast is sponsored by Family Routines. If you are looking to make life easier, teach your kids the things they need to know, and prioritize what’s really important to you, come join us in Family Routines.
[00:00:50] Super excited for today’s guest. This is her second time on the Pulling Curls Podcast. She is a clinical social worker and a group private practice owner in Syracuse, New York. I found her on Tik TOK with mama therapy. I absolutely love her account. You totally need to follow her. I want to introduce today’s guest, Stephanie Straub.
[00:01:07] Hey, Stephanie, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Hi, Hilary. Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be back. Yes. I’m so excited for our new format. We’re talking a little bit longer and it’s going to be so good. Okay. So today we are talking about marital roles. Stephanie, tell me like, what’s a definition of a marital role?
[00:01:25] Stephanie Straub: All right. Coming in hot with a hard one. I think the thing that makes this such a difficult subject is the definition is different, right? For it depends on the individual couple, but in general, I think it’s the responsibility, the task. The energy that each partner brings to the partnership, to the marriage.
[00:01:46] And specifically, my expertise is in providing support after a baby’s been born and when we’re kind of in the postpartum and parenting stage.
[00:01:55] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: And marital roles just go out the window at that point.
[00:01:58] Stephanie Straub: I think a lot of things go out the window
[00:02:00] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: For the woman, right? Because you feel horrible. You’ve had a major medical, which I think a lot of people don’t really like look at it that way, but they should, especially partners should be looking at it that way.
[00:02:11] You know, my appendix perforated last fall and when I came home, like I was like, I am going to get back to regular life. And I didn’t, Stephanie. I could barely get to the shower. So, you know, when something big happens, things change.
[00:02:27] Stephanie Straub: Because you’re a doer and a go getter and it’s like, okay, I could stay on top of things.
[00:02:32] And then all of a sudden something happened, like a surgery or like a new baby. That all of a sudden, it’s a miracle if you took a shower that day, that was a good day, right? It’s like a departure. Yeah, it’s like dating all over again.
[00:02:49] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: This is actually why when I, when I created my birth class like forever ago, over 10 years ago, I was like, how do I want to make mine different? Because I think the thing I brought to the table was that I’ve now been married 27 years. And I really understood how the dynamic changes and how little your partner understands about how things are going to change when baby comes home or what to expect and all those different kinds of things.
[00:03:11] And if you could just get on the same page, even like loosely on the same page, it really can make a difference. when that baby comes home.
[00:03:18] Stephanie Straub: Yeah. I don’t want to take, you know, if, if we’re speaking about kind of heterosexuals, cisgender roles, right? I don’t want to take the male out of the equation or the non birth.
[00:03:31] If, if, if it’s a same sex or relationship, I don’t want to take the non birth partner out of that because their world has also changed as well. But I think we focus so much on what’s going to happen. Getting, like, getting to the point of labor, delivery, bringing the baby home, taking care of the baby, that we kind of forget there are two other major layers that are going through something here, and there are going to have to be adjustments made on both sides.
[00:03:59] Of course, I’m very protective of the new mother because they just went through a major medical event. But for the dads or the partners, like, it’s happening to them too. That’s something major is happening. It can really throw you for a loop and it can impact the room.
[00:04:15] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: I will say that the longer, the further I got away from having babies of my own, the more I looked at the dads and felt a little bit more sorry for them.
[00:04:24] You know, right after I have a baby, I would just be like attacking those dads with my eye daggers, right? If they were like, in the corner, because I’m at a stage where my sons are closer to having babies than we are, right? Yeah, my youngest is now 16. So yeah, hopefully they have a baby in the next 16 years.
[00:04:44] Stephanie Straub: Yeah. Teach men how to do this. Do a real good job letting women know what their roles should be, right? I think we do. It’s a detriment of a lot of folks who struggle with balancing it all, but I don’t think it’s good of a job talking to young boys, young men, and new parents, new male fathers about what should their role look like in terms of being an emotional support, in terms of recognizing the invisible mental load, in terms of stepping into that space.
[00:05:15] You know, and I don’t want
[00:05:17] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: to turn off the people not having babies, too, because I think this applies to any major life event changes. Mom goes back to work. Dad goes back to work. Any type of thing like that. I think that this conversation relates to all big. Changes in family.
[00:05:31] Stephanie Straub: That’s a very good point. I start out with a lot of times people who are pregnant are really postpartum.
[00:05:36] They stay on with me, which I’m going to take as a compliment. They enjoy the work we’re doing. They feel good about it. It seems to be supportive, but not working with people who have kids who are five years old. I’ve been working with them since they were pregnant or people who just start with me later.
[00:05:51] And this is a huge mistake of… You know, maybe they were the go getter and the do it all and the manager, but then, and once we add, you know, career and babies or a whole, a home and, and now your parents are aging, you’re taking, like the stakes get higher, the responsibilities. And it’s like, Oh, like I can no longer do it all by myself.
[00:06:14] And they’re trying to call their partner in, the partner really hasn’t had to fill that space yet because they’ve been. They’ve been doing it, like they’ve been doing it on their own at that, and so it’s a big adjustment for both partners of like, I don’t like having to ask for help, so now I have to do it, right?
[00:06:32] And the, and the other partner is kind of like, I don’t know how to help. I don’t know how, I don’t know how to help. I don’t know. So tell me how to help. Well, then that feels like now I’m doing your mental work. Nobody told me what to do. You know, it’s this whole snowball effect. And then people come in here and they say, what do I do?
[00:06:49] So
[00:06:50] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yeah. And I think five is a big time where things shift because you’ve got one going to kindergarten. A lot of times then the mom’s like, I’m going to pick up more time at work. Um, you know, there’s, somehow we think their kids are going to go to school and that, like, our responsibility ends from eight to three or whatever, but for me, I then picked it up by helping more in the classroom, and I was, I was an idiot and was a PTA president, right?
[00:07:13] Like, we all Make choices that aren’t always the best, but you know, I think we look at this and we’re like, oh, we got through the postpartum thing, but I think all through parenthood, we’re in a zone right now where my youngest will soon be able to drive, right? And so that’s a big load off of high school.
[00:07:29] In high school, you are literally just a taxi driver. And now that we’re going to eliminate that in these coming months, what does that look like moving forward? How can we rebalance the load if one was the driver more, one wasn’t?
[00:07:41] Stephanie Straub: Right. Right, and I think, I think things have evolved where this generation’s partners, like, they might be doing more than their dads and their grandfathers did, but there’s still this issue with the mental load.
[00:07:57] Somebody still maybe has to tell them that something needs to be done, and that’s a lot. That’s a lot. And they’re willing to do it, but they might not recognize it needs to be done without the being instructed to do that. So I acknowledge that that’s not progress, but I think the demands on the American family have evolved a lot faster than these, these roles, marital roles in marriage and parenting.
[00:08:24] So as the demands on the family are increasing. Right? The, the shifts are not kind of shifting, uh, at the same rate.
[00:08:33] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yeah.
[00:08:34] Stephanie Straub: Yeah.
[00:08:34] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: And this whole mental load thing is something that is just like, women have always talked about it, right? Like we’re in charge of getting all the presents. We’re in charge of making sure kids get their yearly checkups, even if the part, even if our partner will take them to the checkups or come with us and support us in the checkups or help us pick a pediatrician.
[00:08:50] A lot of us still have all the kind of the mental work of that little task list that we’re like. Okay, they’re turning one. We also need to get an appointment. Okay, we also need to get a dental appointment. Okay. I don’t think we talked about that the first 15 years of my parenting. Maybe 12 years. I think it’s just in the last five years, maybe, that this has really started to come up, that people are verbalizing, because I would just be like, why do I have to make the to do list, right?
[00:09:14] Stephanie Straub: Yeah. Yeah. So interestingly enough, I was working with a client a while back who was struggling with this in their partnership and she saw me for therapy. Her partner was also in therapy and God bless her partner, went to therapy and said, my wife is asking this from me. I’m really struggling. I don’t know how to do it.
[00:09:34] And that therapist told her partner. It’s a list of the things you could do that would help reduce her mental load. Now I have to write a list of what you could do to reduce my mental load. Whereas, I think the frustration is we can see the garbage is over. Both can see the garbage is overflowing. Or we both know that kids need to get their teeth cleaned every six months.
[00:10:01] We both know, right? And what’s huge is Default parent that that’s what it’s on. And again, that can work for a certain amount of time until it doesn’t. It can really create a wedge in our, in our approach. So.
[00:10:18] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: And honestly, the default parent, it changes, right? So just recently our, our school likes to change the communication method about every six months, I swear.
[00:10:28] And so I was getting the emails and my husband wasn’t getting the emails because I had gone through and clicked all the 600 boxes that I needed to get the emails and he was just like, whatever. But, you know, my appendix ruptures. And I’m still like, Hey, did you know that Paige has testing today? Hey, did you know, you know, and I’m like, why is why we are both parents?
[00:10:47] We both have email. Why is this always falling on me to check the email and know what’s going on with her at school where it’s had worked prior to that? Because I again was fully functioning and had was right, right.
[00:11:00] Stephanie Straub: Um, but
[00:11:00] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: you never know, like there was no, we didn’t plan my appendix to rupture. You just never know.
[00:11:05] Or I go to a conference and all of a sudden I’m at the conference and I’m having to send him a text and be like, did you see the email? And he goes, what email? And then I’m like, right.
[00:11:14] Stephanie Straub: Yeah. And so I think there’s a couple of things that we can do around this to address it. And again, it works until it doesn’t work.
[00:11:21] So if you’re in that role, there’s typically one person in the partnership, it’s a little bit more of the manager and the plan B, one who is and one who isn’t, and then they marry each other. And so there is necessarily an issue or a dysfunction in one person being a little bit more on top of these things, or just maybe it’s a little bit more aware, but it’s when we couple.
[00:11:43] This person into partnership, do they hop on board? But I think one thing that people who are the doers and that they have to struggle with is watching something potentially fall apart or crumble, right? A ball get dropped and watching somebody struggle and the tragic and the desire to swoop in and prevent that and fix that.
[00:12:06] Right? For the other person. And I think sometimes it has to be, because it’s a big deal thing. And I think sometimes it does have to be. You don’t have to… The mistake can be made, the ball can be dropped, made out of rubber, it’ll bounce back. Sometimes they’re made out of glass and they won’t, right? And so you do have to step in.
[00:12:26] Just let the mess up happen. Because there is no greater teacher and it works way better if you’re saying you need to do this and you need to do that. So I think sometimes the person who is the doer and the planner and the manager needs to step back even if we know Something’s like something’s maybe not being done the way we would do it.
[00:12:47] Maybe something’s gonna be missed. We can let it happen. We can let it happen. And if there’s a consequence or repercussion Right? That will be the learning tool.
[00:12:57] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yeah. Or it’s just a different way to do something, right? Because I worked, I worked dinner time when my kids were little. I worked 3 to 11 and my husband wouldn’t plan meals every day like I would.
[00:13:08] So a lot of times it was mac and cheese or like fried rice, just kind of like whatever. He was feeding the children, they were getting fed, but I was bothered that it wasn’t the way that I was doing it. And finally a friend was just like, you just have to let him do it the way he’s going to do it. And then if you want to, you load up extra vegetables on your day.
[00:13:25] Stephanie Straub: Yes. Yeah. That’s a, that’s a great point of just because it’s different, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s wrong, you know, and, and, and that’s okay. And we can sit back and we might always feel some level of distress about it, right? But we can sit in that, that distress.
[00:13:44] In pursuit of what’s best for the relationship because if you are harping on, Hey, I need you to help out with dinner and then they help out with dinner and they’re like, no, not that way. Well, what’s that in the relationship? That’s not going to feel good for your partner and creates a marital rut.
[00:13:58] Where we’re kind of parentifying one partner over the other, that’s going to wear everyone down. So it’s important where we can to sit back.
[00:14:08] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: I totally agree. I think that it is hard, especially when you feel like, these are my kids, we’re ruining them. You know, especially with young kids, like teenagers I’ve given up ruining them.
[00:14:19] And especially, my daughter should know that stuff is going on at school. She’s a sophomore in high school. If they’re having testing, it really should be her job to be like, Hey, we have testing tomorrow. I’ll need a ride home early or whatever the case may be. Right. But I, of course, wanted to swoop in and make sure that she was just taken care of in every little need.
[00:14:36] Stephanie Straub: Sure. And again, I’ll go back to that, that trusty old soapbox. That’s kind of what we’re told to do. Like, right. That we’re kind of the emotional caregivers for everybody and everybody, everybody and everything. Right? And that’s kind of what our role is. And if something happened, like we feel unnecessarily a lot of the times guilty about it.
[00:14:57] Yeah. One thing that I encourage for couples that I, that I work with, and I say couples, I don’t actually do couples work any longer, but I do couples work by proxy, if that makes any sense. Right? So I’m working with the individual they’re coming in. I recommend this to pretty much everyone and it’s called the Sunday sit down.
[00:15:15] I would love to give credit to whoever I, wherever I picked this up from, but, and it doesn’t have to be Sunday, but I like the observation, down on a Sunday evening with your partner. And we will look together at the calendar and somebody might be more of the leader in in the partnership and the pairing where they’re the one who’s going to come in with a suggestion to do it.
[00:15:37] And they’re the one who might sit down and say, okay, remember, we have let’s do it at seven. And you look at every coming up in the next 7 days. This is where this kid needs to be at this time in this day in this. Instead of saying, instead of positioning oneself to say, you do it, you do it, you do it, you do it, I’ll do it, right?
[00:15:57] We just say, all right, all right, I’m gonna do that. Or, you know, there’s a dentist appointment on Thursday that needs to be, Joey needs to be taken to. Who’s gonna do that? Instead of positioning oneself as the delegator of the test, Really allow yourself to be in partnership with your partner and together decide who’s going to take on ones.
[00:16:21] And I think that that really helps because there’s no assumption it’s discussed and there’s not one person who is in charge of giving out the task and decided to put together. So while there may be one person who might more aware of the tasks, that’s the starting points. Right? Because once the person takes them to the dentist appointment, well, what happens at the end of that dentist appointment?
[00:16:48] We make the next appointment, right? And now, now they’ve scheduled the next appointment and they’re the keeper of that mount. They’re the one who’s bringing it. Does that make sense?
[00:16:58] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yes. Yeah. It is crazy how much, I don’t know if it’s just women, but we just, all the things that are in our brain that don’t ever come out.
[00:17:08] Um, I think a Sunday sit down, especially like birthday parties, that was always just like… my kid would get a birthday party invitation at school and I would just crumble because I’d be like, Oh my gosh, we have to go to the store and find a present. I’m going to have to get him to the birthday party. I’m going to have to pick him back up or I had to stay at the birthday party.
[00:17:24] You know, the whole time, whereas my husband would be like, great, you’re going to Cooper’s birthday, right? But he didn’t realize that, you know, there was the getting the gift there was, and he’s a much better about this now. And I just think it took some time to be like, can you take her to get the gift? To verbalize all those things that come in our head with the invitation.
[00:17:44] Right?
[00:17:45] Stephanie Straub: Yes. And I had another place that I was working with that was just planning a vacation. You know, and it was like a spring, spring or February break. So, you know, they have to pack the kids, but it’s not as simple as like getting the stuff from, from last season and throwing it in a suitcase. You know, the funny thing about kids, they grow up.
[00:18:03] Yes. It’s all last summer. Fight not. When we go to Florida, and if they don’t, then I have to go and get new stuff or go shopping for new stuff, and we have to try that on, right? And the partner was unaware of this. And there’s one BAM superwoman in the partnership that like kind of does it all, and, and that’s like a badge that they wear.
[00:18:28] And, but they burn out, right? So they’re not talking about the fact that they’re doing this stuff. And so again, until they’re maxed out and now they’re like, and burn out. So, so yeah, so it wasn’t until they shared with their partner, Oh my gosh, I was so stressed out at work today because I was thinking about this.
[00:18:45] And their partner was like, wait, what? I had no awareness that this is what was going on behind this. Yeah.
[00:18:52] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Trip planning is a big one with a mental load, right? Because my husband’s just like, I’ll put the bags in the car, right? Like he’s just thinking, we’ll just get things. It’s kind of like that the actual tasks of the trip, right?
[00:19:07] Yeah. The, instead of like the finding the hotel, booking the rental car, for me, that was always a really tough time. And then we would get on the vacation and things would start to go wrong. And I would blame myself that things were going wrong, even though I had done everything that I could. Right. Have you?
[00:19:22] Is Stephanie, am I the only one here?
[00:19:25] Stephanie Straub: No, no, no. I hear that. Yeah. How talk about the things that need to be done in the home send a message. Like, I need you to empty the dishwasher. Can you help me get the kids back? That kind of conveys, it sends a message that this is my task, that you’re Give helping me out with this is a favor you’re doing for me as if a dishwasher or the bathing of the kids It’s only my responsibility so I think to Talk about these things like like Joey has a dentist appointment this week instead of saying I need you to take Joey to the dentist Right, or can you help me in taking Joey to the dentist?
[00:20:06] I think it kind of shifts the vibe and the tone around and a great tool for this the book Fair Play Is, and there’s a podcast and there’s also a documentary called Fair Play. It gives some strategy, real strategies. And the book actually comes with, or you can order with the book, the sets of cards. And these cards, all the different jurisdictions in the home and the family.
[00:20:33] And the couple’s down and they divvy up. Okay. Who’s going to do what? And when it comes to something like birthday party, right? It’s if you take on the kid’s friend’s birthday parties, it is from conception to execution. So if, if Joey, this imaginary child, Joey, Joey gets an invitation, then the parent who’s involved in that, whose jurisdiction that is, they get that invitation and the other parent doesn’t do anything about it.
[00:21:02] That’s your job. And we don’t go in there and micromanage to make sure it’s getting done a certain way. It’s that parent’s job. And from, okay, and I’m going to put it on the calendar and I’m going to make sure that, that the gift gets purchased and I’m going to make sure that they get there, you know, or I coordinate for a carpool or whatever, right?
[00:21:20] That is that parent’s job, and the other parent has to sit back and let it happen without their in micromancy yet.
[00:21:27] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: So what do you do though if their appendix bursts, right? And then Joey as a party, so then is that they saying, Hey, we have a party on Saturday, can you help me? Is that the point when you say, can you help me?
[00:21:39] Get Joey to the party, right, because we’re still gonna, stuff’s gonna happen, people get sick.
[00:21:43] Stephanie Straub: I’ve worked with a couple that, that uses these cards, and they sit down every so often, and they, like, re divvy out the cards, because, again, like, things change, you know. I have a 14 year old and 11 year old, and dad would do haircuts.
[00:21:58] Well, it only took one really bad haircut for my oldest daughter, about a year and a half ago. And it was like, we can no longer just take them to the little hole in the wall salon around the corner. She wants like a real big girl haircut. So like, I took that responsibility back because, kind of a girl thing, and I had a good person.
[00:22:21] And so, I took that back. But then we shift things around, right? So, so, things change that, that. Uh, here’s the shuffling of the cards. For sure. Yeah, that’s a really good point.
[00:22:35] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: It’s And I’m It’s because
[00:22:38] Stephanie Straub: For a season, it might, it might be a permanent change or it might just be for a season.
[00:22:42] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Well, and ultimately that will get to be a very light load, right?
[00:22:46] Because she can then, at some point, she gonna take that card, right? She’ll make her appointment. She knows the hair girl. She’ll text her. She’ll make the appointment. She might even drive herself there. Right? So ultimately we’re trying to give all the cards back to the kids except for like make our own beds.
[00:23:02] Stephanie Straub: Right? Right. For sure. For sure, but yeah, but, but I think having regular communication about, so if those Sunday sit downs, we talk about the meals and who, and like what we’re going to plan and this and that, and who’s cooking and all that kind of stuff, and we’re doing that together, then I think part of that Sunday sit down can be an emotional or relational check in.
[00:23:25] So, what works this past week, what didn’t work this past week, and if it didn’t work, you can’t just be like, this didn’t work, right? You gotta come in with some sort of solution connected to that, right? This didn’t really work for me, and again, it’s relational or emotional, right? But it’s great to have a space that you’re regularly gonna sit down and check in with each other on that level as well.
[00:23:47] When it is calm, because the worst is when Joey, you know, it’s Friday night, the party’s tomorrow, he hasn’t gotten the gift, you don’t know how he’s getting there, all those different kinds of things, right?
[00:23:58] Yes, when it’s calm, and it’s sometimes removed from the incident, because I know for, for in my relationship, there are things and I’m like, ah, it bothers me.
[00:24:08] And so I might just kind of make a note of it. And, um, and I’m not kidding. I literally, that’s the notes section in my cell phone, right? I’ve just like, I just might be something that I want to talk about. And by the time you’re like, so that thing anymore, but in the moment, it was a thing, right? Leslie, that helps too, if we can prove ourself from it a little, and it might not even be worth talking about, or if you’re 60s later and you’re still like, no, yeah, I’m gonna talk about it.
[00:24:38] Right? Yeah.
[00:24:40] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: That’s a great idea though, to just be able to like chart it on a, however you’re going to write it down and then you can reflect on it and be like, was that me micromanaging? Because that’s definitely a problem in my relationship. I want things done a specific way and I’ve ultimately had to decide that if I really want it done that way, then I’m going to need to be the one that does it.
[00:24:58] Right. Yeah. We all learned that. We all learned that. I think with time.
[00:25:04] Stephanie Straub: And it’s harder about it. So I don’t. So when it comes to the holidays in my marriage, I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it because it was important that it be done a certain way. And I had a problem with the fact that, that my ex husband didn’t really contribute at the same level.
[00:25:22] It took years to go. But I could come back and be like, well, if you, right, right. So I couldn’t come back and say that. So that was my jurisdiction was happy to take that on as my jurisdiction. And there were other things that, that my partner did, but that’s okay too. Like you can hear things that are like, this is, I want this.
[00:25:42] But then we can’t complain that you’re the only one doing it.
[00:25:45] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yeah. That happened early in our marriage with laundry. My husband wants laundry folded a specific way and I was like, God bless, enjoy the laundry. Because that was also a test that I was fine that he put off for a while. He could do it on the weekends.
[00:25:57] He was a teacher. So I didn’t care if laundry piled up. I wanted it clean so we could grab something out of the basket. But if he wanted to let it pile up and then, and then do a bunch of the loads on a specific day, that was fine. So I ran the laundry and he folded it and, and that worked out just fine because he was picky.
[00:26:12] We all have our picky things. I think a lot of times people think, Oh, it’s only the woman who has the picky things, but that is not the case at all. I don’t think
[00:26:19] Stephanie Straub: no, no, that, Oh no. I think we all have our, our stuff for sure. I think we all have our stuff for sure, but I, I like having. That time, like, that we prioritize to sit down and to talk about those things.
[00:26:33] Because if you’re somebody who maybe gets a little anxious, like, this bothers me and I need to share, I’m having a thought or an emotion, which means I obviously need to share it immediately in the moment, right? It doesn’t always work, right? Because we might be, like you said, might be emotional or reactive.
[00:26:49] So it’s that time later that we know we can address it should we feel like we need to. And that may bring some of that anxiety down in the moment, knowing, I do, I will have a space to address this later if I need to. For people, if they’re not maybe naturally inclined to bring stuff up on their own, provides them a platform to do that, where they don’t necessarily have to be the initiator of a potentially uncomfortable…
[00:27:16] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yeah. So they sit down for the win. And especially, I think we have to then verbalize all those things that were in our brain, right? It’s not just the dental appointment, it’s scheduling the dentist appointment, having a trigger in our mind so the dental appointment needs to happen, and talking about those things if we’re not going to get the fair play cards.
[00:27:32] I don’t know how deep the fair play cards go, like, do they say schedule the dental appointment, take the dental appointment, or is it just like dental appointment?
[00:27:40] Stephanie Straub: I’m not entirely sure, like, I think it’s like dental appointments and then together you guys decide, like, what all of that entails.
[00:27:50] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: You know, but I think we have to be better about talking about all the mental things that come with whatever our task is.
[00:27:56] So I am the financial good person in our house. Like I do the taxes and I get everything in and sometimes my husband will just like, send me an email with attachment, whatever the file is, right? His W nine or whatever they’re called and I’m like, can you just put it in the drive? You know, and it would have taken him just as long to put it in the drive as it would to email me.
[00:28:17] But if he emails them to me, then I have to download, then upload, put it in the drive. Right. And so when we use our words to just say, Hey, this is the drive. When you get things, can you put it in there? That would be great. Right. Instead of just sucking it up and being angry about it.
[00:28:34] Stephanie Straub: Yep, exactly. Like how our roles change, whether it’s like a baby being born or, or a child going off to college is like another big like, this is where it’s now like, okay, I have time that I didn’t have before or a child driving or, or an illness or an ailing parent or something like that.
[00:28:54] The thing that goes unrecognized is, there’s a little bit of loss that goes, a lot of loss that is connected to these shifts and changes. And with any sort of loss. There can be the potential for feelings of so obviously lives change and shift and individuals change and shift and I think it’s okay to say, and look back both as an individual or with her of like, remember when we were kids, right, we were just dating and and we could just.
[00:29:31] Sleep in or eat cereal for dinner, or it was a lot easier to kind of be fun loving or impulsive. And some of those things have to change and there’s. Sometimes your sadness is connected to that. And sometimes your sadness is connected to watching our, our roles change and our partner’s roles change.
[00:29:55] That’s okay.
[00:29:55] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: And I think that Sunday sit down is a great time to be like, doesn’t it kind of make you sad that we’re not chauffeuring her around anymore? Because I’m sure I might feel that I’m not going to feel it right now, right in the middle of it. But I’m sure. When I’m no longer in the car with her constantly hearing about all the boy problems at school, I’ll probably be a little bit sad that I don’t have that time anymore.
[00:30:15] I’ll also probably be a little bit happy and that’s okay too.
[00:30:18] Stephanie Straub: Right, right. I probably have some of the best conversations with my 14 year old in the car on the way to gymnastics. Yeah. Um, because yeah, there’s something about it that that’s just where we open up. And, um, right. And so we can have two feelings at the same time, same thing.
[00:30:35] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yeah, and this is especially true with a new baby. I think I was like, I don’t even know who I am. There was a person that I was just a few weeks ago, and that person is completely lost. And I don’t, I don’t, I’m never gonna find her again. I don’t know where she is. Right, because I just want to cry all the time and every thought in my whole life is about this baby and I have no idea what I’m doing and I used to be really competent at what I was doing.
[00:30:57] Stephanie Straub: Yeah. And again, I’m going to speak a little bit to kind of a cisgendered heterosexual partnership, but I do want to hold space for males who are conditioned that their job is to be the provider. And how that feels a lot heavier, and there’s a baby involved, and that’s scary, I think, for a lot of partners that have just started expanding their family, to feel like, okay.
[00:31:26] Now, it just all got real and now I have to provide as well. And right, wrong, or indifferent, that’s a stressful position to be in. So I want to hold space for that, that role changing of, you know.
[00:31:41] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yeah. And I see dads who have been really, you know, in the trenches with the mom the whole time. And when people are in labor, you see that dad just feels so helpless.
[00:31:50] Especially if things are going wrong. They don’t know if there’s anything they can do. They wish they could do something. They wish they had some, they, they, they have no control, right? There’s nothing. They just have to sort of sit there and watch and support, which they may or may not be good at anyway.
[00:32:04] Stephanie Straub: And so this sucks. So I think this is a three hour podcast, right? This happens in partnerships, any kind of relationships, but awful feeling. And I think childbirth, it’s probably. Maybe one of the worst spaces, but that that partners feel it of absolute helplessness. A lot of times people want to be problem solvers for the people that they love, right?
[00:32:29] Problem I want to solve it and they may come in with like suggestions or how can I fix it or whatever and that feels Invalidating to the person sharing the problem, right? But sometimes there is no there is no Solution to the problem like right other than delivering the baby, right that further can’t do anything, right?
[00:32:48] Well, you know, they can’t really do anything until that baby’s born like that’s that’s on mom You know, that’s on the birthing person. And so I think that that can be a real struggle when it comes to like, now, once that baby’s here, breastfeeding, what can the partner do where the skill will kind of empathy and validation is so, so there’s just getting in the hole with somebody, right?
[00:33:12] So a lot happens is, you know, some body that we care about is struggling. We, we kind of envision that they’re at the bottom of like this dark hole. And it’s like cold and damp and muddy and stinky and it’s just like right and it’s just blegh. Nobody wants to be in a hole. What we ought to do is we stand at the top of that hole down.
[00:33:34] We say valuable than that, right? Tell you in that, but it’s called power. Well, as you go in the hole with the person and you just sit with them and bear witness to how icky that hole really is. And. I’m really sorry, this is awful. This sucks, and I’m so sorry you’re going through it. So incredibly helpful. And it’s so, so simple yet, yet a lot of times our distress around watching the people that we love struggle prevents us from being able to just get in it with them and sit in it with them and just say, yeah, this is awful and you’re so sorry it’s happened to you.
[00:34:17] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: At what point do you decide you show them there’s a ladder in the hole or you think there’s a ladder, but the ladder may break, right? Or you can, you can easily jump out of the hole, right? Cause you have all this upper body strength because you work out or, you know. Right. They always struggle with the whole, let’s sit in the hole together.
[00:34:35] Like that’s usually what I start with is let’s sit in the hole together. But then if they seem so frustrated, I’m like, but there’s a ladder right here. Or you know, if you just learned to jump harder, you could get out of this hole or whatever.
[00:34:45] Stephanie Straub: Right. Well, I think, and this is as a kind of part of my role too, because like, right, I’ve got ladders, right.
[00:34:52] To help them, like, here are my degrees, right? Let me show you how to do it. Right. It has to be with their consent. So sometimes depending on the situation we’re sitting there and we, and just sitting there and hold them space and bearing witness empowers them enough to like, figure out how to climb their way out on their own, right?
[00:35:11] Suggestions wrong with offering that, but I think. It has to be with their thoughts about this. Are you interested? Right? Right. I mean, that would say, right? So I’m so sorry. It’s terrible. I wish I could help you. Right. Cause sometimes there’s nothing we can do to help. Right. Uh, I wish I could help you and you know, or I wish I had the perfect words for this or whatever.
[00:35:34] Like, so we could share that and sit in it with them and it was something that to feel like a potential solution to we, we feel like we’ve got a potential ladder to help now. Then we can all accept that. But again, they don’t have, they don’t have to consent to it. And that’s not personal. It feels personal.
[00:35:53] Like, why don’t you want my ladder? Why aren’t you interested in that? Right? It’s not personal. They’re insured. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so it, you can offer the ladder, but I would start with the validation and the getting in the hole. Then you can say, hey, if you’re interested in that, and then if they’re interested, then you can offer it.
[00:36:12] So
[00:36:12] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: that’s a great analogy of like getting in the hole with people and I think we have to do that with our partner because I think we’re real, real quick to be like, we’ve got a ladder to get out, you know, this situation that you are in with our kids, right? Well, I’m going to start with this,
[00:36:28] Stephanie Straub: like what I do, right?
[00:36:30] So these don’t just stay at the office, right? So I think, of course, I’ve got a ladder for everyone, my kids, my partner, my sister, my friend, the male, you know, I’ve got a ladder. Right. And so I really have, I really, really have to, and I’m sure you experiences maybe it with lots of things, but like, especially in the medical space of like, Oh, I know what to do about that.
[00:36:52] Right. Because that’s your, your expertise. And so, sometimes I really have to check my shuffle a bit around, like, to answer any of that.
[00:37:00] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yeah, and I have to, as a nurse especially, I have to realize that my ladder just may not align with what they’re wanting, right? My ladder might be, why don’t you just get induced, when they are so adamant that they don’t want to be induced, right?
[00:37:10] So, my ladder is of no use to them, even though I figure that’s the ladder that could get them out of this hole.
[00:37:15] Stephanie Straub: Right, right.
[00:37:17] Yeah.
[00:37:18] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Well, I love the idea of the Sunday sit down. I think that’s something that I’m going to implement for this. And I think no matter what your family looks like, that is something you could implement because especially as my kids get older, they’re taking some of the fair play cards of their own.
[00:37:33] I may need a comms place where I can be like, Hey, I noticed that you missed a couple of assignments this week. You know, is there, is there ways that I can support you better in that or, you know, with the husband where we miss a birthday party and some kids just totally, you know, taken back by that, you know, we can talk about how things got missed and it wasn’t going to take over.
[00:37:53] Right. Instead of in the moment being like, I told you,
[00:37:56] Stephanie Straub: yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think it’s a useful tool, and for whatever reason, I suggested it, and I think people are a little resistant to it. But then the folks that do follow through on it come back, and I’ve never had somebody say, It wasn’t helpful. It wasn’t helpful.
[00:38:11] But it does, it does require intention. It does require intention, so.
[00:38:15] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: I gotta say, we did therapy after 2020, and I was shocked by how much of therapy is really just having a discussion. Together, because my husband doesn’t want to take less of the load than I do. That’s not the person that I married. He’s not looking to take the easy way out.
[00:38:29] He’s not looking to ignore my mental load. He simply just doesn’t see it like that’s not part of his, like who he is, right? And so the more I discuss it, the more he realizes, okay, this is something I can do. I realized that it’s just not something he saw, right? And there’s things I don’t see like home improvement.
[00:38:48] I’m like, that wall can stay chipped forever. I do not care. But to him, he’s like, well, we’re going to paint that, right?
[00:38:54] Stephanie Straub: Yes. Yeah. And I think, and I just saw something recently where a mother was talking about how she is teaching her children. The skill of notice and do notice and do, and I thought that was so great.
[00:39:10] Like, so rather than like a chore chart where there’s value in that for sure. But it was more of a, if you notice X, then do Y around that. So if you know that you took the last paper towel off the roll, the household expectation would be that you go, you get a. So I think that that’s a really great skill so that like the next generations were teaching that.
[00:39:40] Male and female and everything between that we’re teaching that. That’s what contributes to the the household as opposed to one person is the delegator of all the tasks and the seer of all the things. Yeah.
[00:39:54] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Well, and that’s awesome with kids, right? Because they might not realize that they have to get a birthday present.
[00:39:59] Right? So when the kid gets the invitation, then you sit down and you’re like, okay, we have a party on Friday. Can you go. Right? We have to look at the family calendar. Then we have, you know, going through the mental load steps instead of mom always being the one that’s like, I’m just going to grab the present while I’m at Target.
[00:40:14] We’re not even going to deal with it. But teaching kids those steps so that they realize how they can take on those things on their own. And then hopefully someday with these boys that I have, they are taking more of the mental load. And, you know, my husband is 6, 000 times better than his dad at all of these parenting tasks.
[00:40:31] My hope, and I think his hope also is that our boys are 6, 000 times better than he is so that we’re ultimately. Just making life a lot easier for everybody.
[00:40:39] Stephanie Straub: Absolutely. And again, I go back to, this is kind of how for generations, males and females have been kind of social, and moms and dads and all, right?
[00:40:49] And wives, husbands and wives, that’s how kind of we socialize. And so, it’s taking, it’s gonna take time to continue to undo that, and to kind of learn new ways, in the midst of a million other things changing in the world, right? And so, yes, while each generation gets better. Right? We can continue to build up for sure and influence the next generation.
[00:41:15] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: And we’re all going to have missteps along the way, both of us, and we have to be, we have to allow that because we’re all just here learning. We’re all just people.
[00:41:23] Stephanie Straub: Yes, this is true. So I hope this is a takeaway, I hope there are little tidbits that folks use and you find valuable.
[00:41:32] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yeah, I think there will be.
[00:41:33] And I got to tell people that I think this is something that absolutely every couple struggles with. Because we’re different people and shockingly, we can’t read each other’s minds, which is really annoying in a couple.
[00:41:44] Stephanie Straub: I mean, that’s probably a double edged sword. Sometimes I don’t want to know what’s going on, but, but I will say, and, and I may have shared this with you previously, but when I’m working with a newly postpartum mom who’s dealing with distress or depression, anxiety, or whatever the case may be, I know that they’re, that is starting to resolve when they start to come in and complain about it, right?
[00:42:07] That is normal, right? That is, I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know. There’s a couple, I don’t like, yes, that is what pretty much I would say every couple of months. After having a baby and bringing it to the home. So I always feel encouraged. I know they’re in a new brand of distress, but I’ve always encouraged, oh, that the original brand of distress that brought you in here, the depression and the anxiety is getting to be a little bit more resolved.
[00:42:34] It’s no longer our acute, acute, most pressing issue. If we’re coming in and just being like, gosh, I feel like I need to protect this. And he does. If it’s like, okay, yeah, okay. Get on with stuff. So yes,
[00:42:46] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: It’s very, very normal. If you’re out there thinking Hilary of 27 years has got this solved, I absolutely do not.
[00:42:53] And we, we still travel this bumpy road frequently in my house.
[00:42:57] Stephanie Straub: Yeah, for sure.
[00:42:57] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Stephanie, I think people need to follow you on TikTok. It’s mamatherapy, right?
[00:43:02] Stephanie Straub: Mamatherapy on TikTok. Yep.
[00:43:03] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Yes. She gives such good little nuggets because I’m not in therapy currently, but I loved… I just saw one about grief and how grief, your life gets bigger and that makes grief a little bit smaller, but it’s still going to hit your pain button.
[00:43:15] And I was like, that is so perfect. So I think it’s so nice to get little nuggets of therapy. Well, I’m on TikTok from you, so I hope the people will follow you. Are you on Instagram, too? I mean, we all are, because who knows, by the time this airs, maybe TikTok will be a thing of the past.
[00:43:30] Stephanie Straub: Who knows? Who knows?
[00:43:31] I am on Instagram, and it’s just my name, Stephanie Straub, L C S W.
[00:43:35] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: And we’ll link that in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for all the work that you do with moms and couples out there. I think it is a great work, and I’m so glad there are people out there like you.
[00:43:45] Stephanie Straub: Thank you, Hilary.
[00:43:46] This was a real delight. I appreciate it.
[00:43:48] Hilary Erickson | The Pregnancy Nurse®: Okay. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I just thought it was, I love that Sunday sit down because doing things when things are calm, which Sunday nights tend to be a little bit more calm at my house. Really makes such a different and when you’re like carving out time and it just happens every week, then it gives you that chance to say, Hey, this didn’t work out for me when things are calm.
[00:44:07] I think that’s such a good idea. I want to know what you guys took from the episode. Come find me over on Instagram where we can keep the discussion going. Tell me how you adjust to changes in marital roles. And if you have as many issues with it as I do, even though I’ve been married for what seems like a very long time, also a short time though, too.
[00:44:23] Thanks for being here with us.
[00:44:25] Thanks for joining us on the Pulling Curls Podcast today. If you liked today’s episode, please consider reviewing, sharing, subscribing. It really helps our podcast grow. Thank you.
Keywords:
Marital roles, changes in relationship, mental load, postpartum, parenting, collaboration, Sunday sit down, task delegation, communication, partnership, life event changes, relationship dynamics, support system, emotional support, role adjustment, family routines, gender roles, household responsibilities, emotional check-in, mental health, parenting challenges, time management, calendar coordination, division of labor, problem-solving, relationship strategies, therapy, life balance, relationship growth, division of tasks.
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