Hey chatters. Chatters. Welcome back to another episode. Also, I noticed when I was editing last week's episode, which was a chit chat, that you called it a chatters episode or I called it a chatters episode. Anyway, sorry guys, obviously that was a chit chat. They don't get this episode. Yeah, this is just for you. Kill. Yeah, buddy.
So we were diving into emotional load on the main episode and talking about what sits there for people emotionally in relationships and in the reality check corner. We had some reflection things that we thought we would dive deep in with you guys. And then we've got some other questions we'll leave you with. Yeah. So like homework, questions, reflection. Questions. The best kind of homework. Yeah, not the bad. This is like. Fun homework. This is like, I'm so excited.
Homework. This is like those kids in class that just loved school that you know about and they're so excited about these. Like those kids. But I mean, they like say. Well, we weren't those kids, but this is how you're gonna feel about these questions. Yeah, you are. All right, so the reality check corner was the first one was a reflection prompt. And the question was who in your relationship is carrying the weight of keeping the emotional peace, managing conflicts and
remembering special moments? Is it balanced and what is something that your partner might be carrying emotionally? Straight off the bat, it's not balanced. So after that you carry the majority of this and you always have and we've spoken about that before. We think, you know, a big part of that is upbringing.
You know, you see our mums at home and the role that they played at home growing up. So and then the roles of our dads and obviously naturally, I'm going to be more modelling what I've experienced from my dad than my mom, and you're more naturally going to experience what your mom did rather than your dad. But how we're in this stage now, we're actually, we don't want that to be the case, right? Like we don't want to be that for our we don't want that to be
the case for our kids. So I want my daughter to see, you know, to learn from me. I want my kid, boys to learn from you and that emotional stuff that you not necessarily carry but are aware of. I want them to have that emotional maturity and awareness of other people. But the yeah, absolutely majority of the stuff you you carry, I feel like we've been definitely increasing and
growing that over time. But it's still, like I mentioned in the full episode before, like, you know, the big things in this space that I'm so aware of is my responses to the kids and my frustrations there and how, and I think it's probably a growth area for both you and I to continually work on. Well, how do you not carry that? And how do I be aware?
Like, not that I'm not aware of it because I'm always aware of it, but how can I continually work forward on, you know, breathing exercises and all of little things I know I should be doing but just don't do? Yeah, I was thinking though, there's our relationships. Interesting, because you carry, I think you carry the burden of how the kids are feeling about general life more than I do. So things like birthday parties and I, I'm a lot less like engaged with that or even family
doing family stuff together. I've been thinking about this recently. Like I don't sit there and think, oh, they would just love this family stuff that that's just doesn't enter my brain. I don't know if it's because I'm so focused on just like in my brain, this is what I categorise it as survival emotions. Like I'm just so focused on the survival elements, the basics. And so I don't have capacity to be like, it'd be so nice to have a movie night together.
Like I just never think that way. But you will like you'll, you'll think about what would be nice for them and what they might enjoy more than I would naturally think about that. So you definitely. And the other thing I was thinking about recently was you think you have a whole element of emotional load that I never think about, which is that you finance our family.
So whenever you're stressed about things, especially with work, mostly about work, there's a whole layer to it, which is you're stressed because you provide for our family, mostly financially contribute, but not that much. And so I never think that way. I'm never, I've never had the worry. And even when you've had times where you haven't had work, my approach has been like, we'll get work. I'm not worried about that,
which is good. Like I'm glad that I've had that neutral mentality to it so that I can support you in those times. But I realised recently, I can't remember what we were talking about, something to do with work and. And you were talking about how if I don't have a job, we don't have money. And I was like, well, yeah, that's something that you carry emotional load in that I, it's not even in my frame. Yeah. That's probably more of a mental load thing rather than emotional.
Like I can kind of disconnect from that, but it's like, you know, it's, it's always because we, we went off contracts, right? And, and grants, that's how our organisation runs. And it's sort of this thing where it's like, you know, and This is why I kind of want my mind more over the organisational finances, like I've mentioned to you is because it's like, well, that impacts our family. If we lose grants, if we lose
contracts, it we lose house. You know, that that's where my mind goes to. And that's exaggerating, but it's, it is where my mind goes to. It's like it is an added pressure in that space of like, yeah, I'm, I bring in the money, like, and I need to take that. And that's where I think a lot of guys do struggle. Like they'd have been working, especially in the stage of life where we are, where you've been more staying at home with the kids as you needed to. Yeah.
And that's a lot of stress that guys bring. There's a lot of work stress that comes into the home because it's tied down to all those extra things. But we're in this sort of day and age now where a lot of women are working more now too. So I was like, which is great. But then it's this again, we've seen our dads have that role, we've seen our mums have that role. And now it's just relearning of like, well, now we're both in that role. So what does that look like?
And that's, that's the learning. Yeah, together. And we actually switched roles for a time, which was I think it was a really good. Example And I think that was really good for us too, for me to get that insight into what you were experiencing from being a stay at home, right, and vice versa. Yeah, being a stay at home dad was hard. Yeah, a, as we spoke about in the full episode, my biggest thing with the emotional weight is that a lot of the emotional weight I carry is unnecessary
because of my anxiety. That's what I, I struggle with that because yes, I do carry most of the emotional weight because I make in my brain, I'm genuinely like, I make most of the emotional weight to for myself. So I don't know how to balance that well for us. Yeah, yeah, that's my comment and. I think it's, again, the, the more that we put these things into practise, the more, more times we have these conversations and the unpacking of these invisible baggages.
I guess, you know, I think that's going to be helping you more and more. Again, I've said the first thing is being aware of them. And it's not that you're not aware of them. It's the continual awareness, the continual chipping away at this stuff that's going to be helping. Yeah. Like you're doing a lot of different things rather than just this, right? You're doing exercises, like in mental exercises, You're journaling.
You're doing all those extra curricular activities, if you want to call it to help you through that. And we haven't got a answer and anything there is a answer. It's the intentionality, the awareness of the continual growth in that area. And that's what it is. It's like again and that's the pathway that you have. You have a pathway, which is you're doing your like, you're journaling exercises, you're actually exercising, you're focusing on your health, you're doing all these different
things. That's going to slowly work on that. That's the strategy. Yeah. If we didn't have anything, that's where the issue would be. But it's like, no, you do, you do have stuff and you are working on stuff. It just takes time. On the iPad died Great, that's right. I can remember. Also, the next one is send a message of encouragement to your partner. My batch is about to go for it. It'd mess up my phone anyway. Yeah.
So, yeah, sending a message of encouragement to your partner out of the blue, I think that's something that we've spoken about. Gratitude. Which I think is a little bit harder for us because we we're always, we're at home all the time. Like, you know, I'm literally saying it to you while you're in the other room. But I think that's but in in saying that like we can, we can say it, yeah.
But we can send it too like. I don't think there's anything wrong with setting because it also breaks the norm. It's, it's a special thing that's outside of that, but we could say it as well. And there have been times where I, I've been reminded for whatever reason that I need to also vocalise what I'm grateful for, for you and for me. Like I need to be training my muscle as well to be like, Oh yeah, I'm grateful for these things.
I know I'm grateful for you, but I don't necessarily spend much time being like, what are you grateful for or what do you like about him or like what's special about your husband? And I know that that there are, I think at the beginning when you're dating, you have more time to, to just be like people are asking you about your relationship and who they are and they don't know you're learning them. Everyone else is learning them. There's a lot of time to reflect. With your values, yeah.
There's a lot of time to reflect on those things. You're like the specifics of who they are is the biggest thing to you in that process. They're planning to get married and all the new parts of who they are coming out because of the stress and all these different life stages. But as you go into longer term relationships, I think that practise fades. And so it is a really important one to be staying appreciative and to be it even just letting
them know that you see them. So if they're carrying all this mental or emotional load, you see them and you appreciate them even if you don't fully understand it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then the future pace was to project, we wake up tomorrow magically and our partner is the perfect emotional support person for us. What would that look like? And also, what would it look like if you flip the script and you were that perfect emotional
support person for your partner? Well, I think I think it's The thing is with that question, though, is you kind of already are, but where the where the blockage is is my ability to express those emotions. So it's not necessarily the things that you need to change. It's more about the things that I need to change and I need to grow on because I think like you already do it like you createspace for me to share. It's safe. There's no judgement. There's, you know, all those things.
And I think that's where it's been, you know, we've really worked on that. So that's why I don't think I could really comment on what I would want more in you, but I think it's more about what I would want more in myself. It's like, well, when I'm stressed, I don't want my stress to be taken out on you. When I'm low, I don't want my low to be taken out on you. You know, like that's a lot of me stuff that I wanna work on. Yeah, but there would be. Things. Anything else different, I'm
gonna be offended. No. Well. I've got a list and there will be a lot of things that that I do that aren't helpful necessarily. Even if it's over emotionalizing it, like even if it's too far on the emotion because I know things like me asking you what's wrong, what's wrong. So that's. Different though, like that you're asking me what's wrong when there's nothing wrong and then you asking me over and over make something wrong, right, That's that's the different thing.
But like when I'm actually struggling, feel like you, you again, like I go when I struggle, I go internal, right, because I'm a usually an external processor. When I'm struggling, I go internal and you give me space for that and then I eventually share. I don't give you space. Well, you do. You're. Practising giving you space for that. Hey, I'm practising to give you
space for that. But I think you have like in my in my hey, like I'm, I'm like, there'll be moments where, OK, sure, if I had to pick something, give me more space sometimes, right? Like that's me trying to find something. Just give me some space, Amy. But like overall, I think it's, yeah, I don't know. I can't pinpoint something because I feel like it's we've been working on it for so long and it's more about my mind. More goes to how I want to be processing rather than what you.
So flipping the script, if you were suddenly the perfect emotional support person for me, what would you think that looks like in your brain like? And again, what we're unpacking now is stop fixing it, you know, understanding more of the questions to ask understanding, you know, again, like, so that's a big one for a lot of people is how do I actively listen without fixing and me actually feel like I'm doing a good job in that
space And that's what you need. Because at the end of it, if I just listen, I'm like, was was that good for you? I don't know, like it feels like so unfinished for me, you know, like. Welcome to Women's. Yeah, it's just that I'm just like, I'm left there like it's just what you need to help you at all. I got no gauge if this is because you guys just need that or you specifically need that space to just share. I'm like, no, it feels unfinished.
So I think just having that deeper understanding and be able to respond to your needs better. Yeah, how funny. I feel like your brain, at least, I don't know if it's all guys, it's just so like it's this or it's this. They talk a lot about guys compartmentalising, right? So box, box thinking. So everything is in this box. And so OK, now I'm focusing on this box and now I'm focusing on
this box. Sometimes boxes spill over and that's where we get stressed and anxious and stuff like that, but it's very boxed. Because in my mind I'm like, I need, I love that practise of working and not fixing it. But then I because you said it's unfinished. I think it is unfinished if it's just listen. Yeah, it is unfinished at the end. But that's where I think like I need to start by listening. I, I say this because I just cut you off. I'm very aware of this right now.
Listening but then. But that's the first step and then then learning the next step and stop being so complicated. Sorry, but it's it is actually wild to me how complicated I'm going to say women, but that's such a generalised majority, majority of women in every way and I'm talking every way. Why is this so complicated? I understand it because I mean but. We don't know how to verbalise.
It but I don't know how to verbalise it I. I haven't found someone that can actually verbalise it in a way that a guy understands. I think if there's an appreciation for the complexity of it, that is the best thing. You don't have to understand the puzzle. Honestly, there's an overwhelming response to the complexity because we feel so I'll equipped to to be the the saviour that we want to be. You know what I mean? Like we want to be that rock and stuff.
But yeah, but if you think about like a really complex, like AI for example, it's a really complex software technology. We don't understand how it works. We appreciate how to use it and what it gives us. And so there's like an appreciation between. It's not you understanding exactly how AI works. It's an appreciation that I'm going to let AI do its job in the way and I'm going to appreciate that this is where it plays into place, this is how it works.
But I'm not going to try and be it or have the answers to it. And so I think if you can find in your relationship, because I'm the amazing software AI, if you can find a way to be like, I don't understand this very complex brain. I think a lot of the time women are made to feel silly for how complex their brains are, how over dramatic it might be. Like it. Those two tags have been thrown over this stuff so much and it gets undermined.
And that's where it's sad instead of it being just a part of the puzzle that you're working together. Like the fact that you're compartmentalising things is amazing. And that's why that works for where it works. If I was just like, you're so simple, You're so simple. Like you're so black and white or you're so like. Categorised as well. Exactly. It's dumb.
Simple minded, yeah. Yeah, it works together when you can appreciate it. But once you start putting tags on it because it's not how you work and it becomes a blockage to under like understanding each other in a way that you don't understand each other, Yeah. Then that's when it becomes
damaging. Yeah. Cool. So to finish up really quickly, which we need to do quickly because we got school pick up, but so we've got some these homework questions, I'm going to read to them now and then we'll put them up as notes as well for you guys. But just really quickly, what daily tasks or responsibilities is my partner handle that I might overlook? And again, take your time to go through these. There's no rush, all right. And, and it's, I think it's a really healthy thing.
Again, observing, asking questions, even if you need to take your time before you for yourself, don't go straight to your partner because that could put a mental load on them that you don't want to do. How often do I check in with my partner about how they're feeling emotionally? Are there any patterns in our interactions where they she they seem particularly burdened or stressed? What are some ways I can offer more support to share responsibilities to lighten their load?
How do we all currently communicate about emotional mental loads and how can we improve this dialogue? These are just starting points. Again, like, even if you had a word, that's that's fine. Just having something where you can do would be awesome. Yeah. Well done. Well done. Cool. We'll send those out to you guys on Patreon. You can see them there and work through them. Use them as a reflection. You might think you're all over this. That's great, but it's worth reflecting anyway.
And. Again, let us know. We wanna know if these things are helpful. We wouldn't be bringing content. It is helpful. No, it's not just noise. Yeah, great. Good chat, guys. See you next week. See you. Bye bye.